In a speech that will be seen as a sharp criticism of New Labour, Dr Williams will say that "those who run things" reject the idea that society needs core values as "unfashionable and unwelcome". But without such shared values, he will warn, society's definition of what is good for people will be largely determined by powerful interest groups.

Dr Williams will say that religious leaders must be guaranteed a central role in a reformed House of Lords to ensure moral issues are taken seriously. Otherwise, he will argue, political debate will lack "voices unconstrained by electoral anxiety and narrow considerations of practical profitability". ...