He was taking part in a debate in the House of Lords this morning introduced by Lord Sacks, the Chief Rabbi, titled: "Lord Sacks to ask Her Majesty's Government how they have recognised and supported the role and contribution of faith communities in Britain and the Commonwealth during Her Majesty the Queen's reign."
The archbishop commented: "A generation of administrators and local officials has grown up with little or no sense of how our political and legal history in this country has become what it is as a direct result of a long conversation with the Jewish and Christian intellectual world, with the ethics and the theology of the human responsibility characteristic of that world.
He went on: "But if we are to sustain our legacy of dignity before the law, participative government, and hospitality towards minorities, we had better be aware of just how and why our ancestors developed such a political ethic and what depth of thought and imagination is needed to keep it alive."
"This failure of understanding is, of course, one of the things that lies behind the reluctance in recent years to develop effective partnership between statutory bodies and faith groups in the work of social regeneration."