---

Comprehensive Spending Review

My Lords, it seems to me that hope for the future depends on ensuring that those who are most vulnerable, those who are most excluded and those who most depend on the state for any kind of security are made secure by these changes. Hope for the future depends on recognising the widespread damages to society and to social justice from ever-widening inequalities, which have been widely researched and established by many authorities. We do not create a fair society—let alone a big society—by placing some of our fellow citizens beyond the reach of social solidarity. I hope that such is not the intention of the Chancellor but I fear that it may be the effect of some aspects of the review. I hope that the indignation of many people in my diocese turns out to be uncalled for, but I fear that this may be just the beginning, for the cuts have not yet begun to bite deeply. I trust that the Chancellor will prove quick to turn again if the harm caused by his policies becomes a price not worth paying for merely economic rather than fully social recovery. The Church of England remains committed to work with Government and with others to respond to the vision of the big society, but I fear that the comprehensive spending review has made that vision much harder to realise and even more necessary.