THE Government is relaxed about consumers running up large credit card bills, if an answer given to the Bishop of Worcester is anything to go by.

The Rt Rev Peter Selby is worried about the nation's "escalating reliance" on debt, which he described in the House of Lords as a "massive turnaround from the wisdom of earlier generations".

He added: "Notwithstanding the prosperity that seems to support it, does not the Minister sometimes feel that we are getting to a point of corporate and social imprudence that we shall live to regret?"

The Government's spokesman, Lord McIntosh of Haringey, appeared unworried though.

He said Rt Rev Selby was taking a "very long view."

"Of course, if we go back to a prohibition on usury, we could say that there has been a significant increase in indebtedness," Lord McIntosh said.

But he added: "In point of fact, in recent years there has not been an increase in indebtedness. Interest payments as a proportion of disposable income are now at 7.1 per cent, compared with an average in 1979 to 1997 of 9.4 per cent, with a peak of 15 per cent.

"In the shorter term, which I am obliged to address, it is not as bad as the right reverend Prelate thinks."

Carry on spending, then.