Archbishop of Canterbury attacks City's 'culture of entitlement'

The Archbishop of Canterbury has launched a stinging attack on the City, describing it as infected by “a culture of entitlement” that has left it disconnected from the rest of the country.

The Telegraph, Patrick Sawer, 27 Apr 2013

The Archbishop, a former oil industry executive and now a member of the
 cross-party Banking Standards Commission, said “serious consideration”
 should be given to forming a professional banking body, along the lines of
the General Medical Council, the enforce standards.  Photo: AFP/GETTY

The Most Rev Justin Welby said it was time for bankers to be required to pass exams in order to raise their professional standards and help restore public trust in their work.

The Archbishop said it would take something “very major” to restore economic confidence and suggested the Government may need to recapitalise at least one major bank, and urged the creation of regional banks.

His comments are bound to cause controversy and will be firmly rejected by many in the City who believe they have done much to reform the behaviour of banks.

Speaking to the Financial Times, Archbishop Welby acknowledged that standards in the Square Mile are higher than in the past, but he said:

“In banking, in particular, and in the City of London, a culture of entitlement has affected a number of areas – not universally by any means – in which it seemed to disconnect from what people saw as reasonable in the rest of the world.”

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Arguing that the taxpayer may have to intervene to clean up the banking system, he added: “Part of an ethical approach is transparency and reality about recognising where you are. The lesson from Japan is if you’re going to bit the bullet, it’s better to bit it sooner rather than later.”

The Archbishop, a former oil industry executive and now a member of the cross-party Banking Standards Commission, said “serious consideration” should be given to forming a professional banking body, along the lines of the General Medical Council, the enforce standards.

His views are thought to enjoy support on the commission, which is engaged in a wide-ranging debate on the best way of cleaning up behaviour in the City.

He said: “Banks are incredibly complicated things. The idea that people can hold hugely responsible positions in them without any kind of formal training seems to a number of us quite surprising.”

George Osborne, the Chancellor, has promised to incorporate proposals from the commission into draft legislation.

But Archbishop Welby risked creating tensions between Lambeth Palace and Downing Street when he repeated his comments from earlier last week that Britain is in an economic depression and from which it could take a generation to recover.

Asked by George Parker, the FT's political editor, on Radio 4’s The Week in Westminster, whether he minded ruffling a few feathers, he said: “I don’t know if it annoyed people in Number 10.

"They haven’t said anything here. I mean they probably would have preferred it not said.

“Historically depressions have been recognised as lengthy periods in which the economy did not get back to its previous level of activity before a recession set in. So 1929 to 1932 is the great example. There was a big one towards the end of the 19th century.

“We are still significantly below where we were in 2007 in terms of economic activity, of GDP, and that’s quite a long time of being below.

“Now, I’m not pointing any fingers at anyone in particular and saying it’s so and so’s fault or so and so’s fault, it’s simply a measurable fact coming from the national statistics.

“It’s very much less noticeable in London, I have to say, than in the north east where I was living previously. Do I mind ruffling feathers? I think I do mind ruffling feathers, I don’t like ruffling feathers – but sometimes feathers get ruffled. I mean that’s life.”

In his interview the Archbishop was asked whether he saw it as part of his mission to try to inject more morality into British financial life.

He said: “My key mission is to lead the church in worshipping Jesus Christ and encouraging people to believe in him and follow him. That’s my mission.

“The Christian gospel has always had strong social implications and one of them is around the common good and it’s one of the key areas in which the Church of England focuses, and so issues of how the City of London, which is so important and so full of very gifted people, how that behaves in relation to the common good is very key, not to the whole thing that I'm about or the church is about, but to how we express the implications of that in day to day life.”

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