Rowan Williams calls for law to ban benefit cuts Lord Williams called for benefits to be renamed to stop criticism of them He attacked the 'scandalous and lethal inequalities of our society' Proposal: Rowan Williams says that state benefits should be fixed by law State benefits should be fixed by law so no Government can cut them, former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Williams said yesterday. He said welfare handouts should be "ring-fenced" so claimants would not have to worry about losing them or seeing them reduced. And he called for benefits to be renamed to try to stop people criticising them. Lord Williams, who stepped down from Lambeth Palace earlier this year, said that "welfare has become a loaded word" and proposed that state benefits should in future be known as "social share." The idea of permanently guaranteed benefits, with a new name to make them more popular, came in an article in which Lord Williams condemned levels of poverty in Britain. He attacked "the scandalous and lethal inequalities of our society." Lord Williams also described Britain as "a society with corrupt governance and low accountability." Lord Williams intervened in the continuing political row over benefits in a book of essays, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, dedicated to the idea that poverty can be eradicated. The former archbishop said fixing state benefits was part of the answer, adding that the amount spent on welfare was "a neuralgic point in a climate of austerity, but an essential one." Welfare, Lord Williams said, is now a word which invites criticism of the scale of state benefits. He added: "Perhaps we need a new vocabulary - not welfare payments but a "social share."" The former archbishop said poverty was not about lack of wealth but a matter of people's vulnerability - those who do not have dependable accommodation, for example. Criticism: According to the former Archbishop, poverty is not about a lack of wealth but a matter of people's vulnerability