Nichols in welfare row with PM as he receives red hat

The Archbishop of Westminster became embroiled in a row with the Prime Minister over welfare this week, just hours before he was due to fly to Rome to be made a cardinal by Pope Francis.

In a move which suggested that the charge that the consequences of ­welfare reforms were “a disgrace” made by Cardinal-designate Nichols had hit home, David Cameron ­personally intervened by saying that the claims were “simply untrue”.
The row began when Cardinal-designate Nichols told The Daily Telegraph that the Government’s welfare reforms had left Britain’s poorest without money for weeks and relying on food banks.

His views were immediately rejected by government spokesmen, but on Tuesday he upped the ante with an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme and spoke at a press conference to mark his elevation to the College of Cardinals, saying that he had been inundated with messages of support from people who agreed with what he said. “Something is going seriously wrong when, in a country as affluent as ours, people are left in that desperate situation and depend solely on the handouts of the charity of food banks,” he told journalists.

It is understood that it was Tuesday’s interventions that made Mr Cameron decide he had to get involved rather than leave it to his Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, to rebut the cardinal-designate’s ­comments. The overhaul of the benefits ­system, Mr Cameron said, writing in The Daily Telegraph, was about “doing what is right” and not “making the numbers add up”.

Mr Cameron also said that he accepted the Church should intervene in politics because it involved moral questions. But while he respected the Archbishop of Westminster’s critique, he said, “I also disagree with it deeply”, adding that his welfare reforms were needed to build a country “where people aren’t trapped in a cycle of dependency”.

Cardinal-designate Nichols said that he was not taking issue with the Government’s long-term aims of reform but rather with unintended consequences that had left people for weeks with no benefits. Parish priests had spoken to him about the problems, he said, and it was “my privilege to put them into the public arena”. 

“The role of food banks has become so crucial for so many people in Britain today. And for a country of our affluence that, quite frankly, is a disgrace,” he told The Daily Telegraph in his provocative interview.

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) spokesman for Iain Duncan Smith, who is a Catholic, said welfare reforms will transform the lives of some of the poorest families and Universal Credit, the new all-encompassing benefit, would make three million households better off.

But a joint statement from the Methodist Church, the Baptist Union of Great Britain and United Reformed Church supported Archbishop Nichols and said the DWP failed to mention 2.8 million who are likely to be worse off under the new system according to the Government’s own figures.

Frank Field, the Labour former welfare minister who oversaw a poverty review for Cameron in 2010, said: “The ­department leaves people hanging for weeks before it pays new claims … Instead of throwing dirt in everyone’s eyes, the department ought to address seriously the criticisms the archbishop has made, [listening] as he does to countless priests from the poorest districts of Britain.”

Conor Burns, the Catholic Conservative MP for Bournemouth West, criticised the ­cardinal-designate’s intervention.

“The ­cardinal-designate should be on terms to communicate directly with a senior Catholic Cabinet minister rather than attacking them through the press”, he told The Tablet. “This sort of intervention is counterproductive.”

Cardinal-designate Nichols was due to be made a cardinal by Pope Francis in a ceremony at the Vatican today, together with 18 others.  Pope Francis announced on Wednesday that the cardinal-designate is to be a member of the Congregation for Oriental Churches. Last year, the Pope appointed him as a member of the Congregation for Bishops.