Lord Sacks, who will soon be marking a year in the Upper Chamber, admitted to the Jewish Telegraph this week: "I have not yet fully found my feet in the House of Lords because of all the difficult pressures of my office.

"But I want to see how I can best contribute to the House. I am hoping to enlist a group of people in the House to back David Cameron's idea of the Big Society, a concept about which I have spoken for many years."

Already Lord Sacks has taken action on the matter. Together with Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and Catholic Archbishop of Westminster Vincent Nichols, he met recently at Lambeth Palace with government ministers to share views on the Big Society.

The Chief Rabbi said: "We took the initiative to see how we could help the government and how the government could help our communities. It has to work two ways.

"The government is looking at ways of delegating welfare spending to voluntary agencies. We want to make sure it is done effectively and that people are not trapped in poverty."

The Chief Rabbi, who was on his way to open the pre-yomim noraim conference of rabbis, paid tribute to rabbis across Britain who, at the onset of the credit crash, took the initiative in local schemes to help those in danger of losing their homes, jobs and businesses.

He said: "Our community was very fast off the mark in local initiatives for retraining and starting new businesses."

But Lord Sacks emphasised that he would hate to see the demise of the welfare state.

He said: "It is essential for human dignity that everyone has an equal chance of support from the state.

"We have to find a way of providing both state and voluntary support to those in need."