The Archbishop of Canterbury has spoken out again about the country's financial woes.

Following his warning on Monday that Britain is in an economic depression and could take a generation to recover, the Most Rev Justin Welby said today Britain has had "quite a long time" below the economic levels of 2007.

"Historically depressions have been recognised as lengthy periods in which the economy did not get back to its previous level of activity before a recession set in. So 1929 to 1932 is the great example. There was a big one towards the end of the 19th century," he said.

"We are still significantly below where we were in 2007 in terms of economic activity, of GDP, and that's quite a long time of being below. Now, I'm not pointing any fingers at anyone in particular and saying it's so and so's fault or so and so's fault, it's simply a measurable fact coming from the national statistics."

Asked on BBC Radio 4's The Week in Westminster whether he minded ruffling a few feathers, he said: "I don't know if it annoyed people in Number 10. They haven't said anything here. I mean they probably would have preferred it not said."

Asked if he saw it as part of his mission to try to inject more morality into British financial life, he said: "My key mission is to lead the church in worshipping Jesus Christ and encouraging people to believe in him and follow him. That's my mission.

"The Christian gospel has always had strong social implications and one of them is around the common good and it's one of the key areas in which the Church of England focuses, and so issues of how the City of London, which is so important and so full of very gifted people, how that behaves in relation to the common good is very key, not to the whole thing that I'm about or the church is about, but to how we express the implications of that in day to day life."

The Arcghbishop, a former oil industry executive, added: "I think the principle is that we need more regional banking. The appeal of regional banking is first that you have slightly smaller banks."