The archbishop of Canterbury has defended his right to intervene on issues that might be deemed political as he backed the findings in the UN envoy’s report on poverty in Britain.

Philip Alston’s report, published last month, prompted a political row, after the government rejected its conclusions that “punitive, mean-spirited, and often callous” austerity policies had inflicted “great misery” on people.

Discussing the findings, Justin Welby, the leader of the Church of England, said the arguments presented by Alston needed to be addressed point by point but he had seen real hardship in his own diocese of Canterbury and elsewhere.

He told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show: “I think it’s really important for the government to respond carefully to that [report], not to dismiss it. It’s by a very distinguished UN rapporteur. Certainly there are parts of the country where there’s huge deprivation.

“We see communities caught in a poverty trap. Now, the economy has improved very much in many places but there’s a significant group of people who just seem trapped and the system doesn’t help them and I think that’s what the UN rapporteur was getting at.”

The Archbishop of Canterbury: “There are parts of the country where there is huge deprivation’”



Justin Welby tells #marr about his decision to speak out on inequality#marr https://t.co/YJggw0ZzCC pic.twitter.com/62vECMahx5 — BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) December 2, 2018

Welby’s intervention is the latest in a series tackling issues relating to inequality. In September, addressing the Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Manchester, he criticised firms such as Amazon for paying “almost nothing” in taxes, and said the gig economy and zero-hours contracts were “the reincarnation of an ancient evil”.

He also called for the rollout of universal credit to be stopped. Welby was also on the IPPR commission on economic justice, which found the UK was being held back by a business culture dominated by decades of short-term profit-taking, weak levels of investment and low wages.

Such pronouncements have ruffled feathers in the Conservative party. After Welby’s TUC appearance, the Tory MP Ben Bradley accused the archbishop of “parroting Labour policy” and said he “only seems interested in presenting [shadow chancellor] John McDonnell’s point of view”. His criticism was echoed by fellow Tory MP Charles Walker.

But questioned about the appropriateness of his interventions, Welby insisted to Marr that he was just doing his job. He also said that he was the seventh archbishop of Canterbury to address the TUC, countering the suggestion that his appearance there was inappropriate.

“I haven’t gone too far,” said Welby. “I am not party political, I am not a member of any political party. I don’t support the Labour party or the Conservative party or anyone else, I simply try to speak from the Christian scriptures about the values that Jesus put forward himself.”

Welby, who voted remain in the EU referendum, did draw the line at giving his view on whether there should be a second referendum, saying it was a matter for parliament. However, he called for more tolerance in the Brexit debate.

“I hope and request that political leaders will be moderate in their language in the next few months, that we will calm down the hatreds that have arisen in the last few years,” he said.