There's a blight creeping across Britain that should shame any allegedly civilised nation – hunger. The coalition government's attacks on the welfare state and the benefits system are creating deprivation of such proportions that increasing numbers of people cannot afford to feed themselves. Across the country food banks and soup kitchens are being established to feed the hungry.

Once again it is the north that is bearing the brunt of a Tory-led assault, with disproportionate suffering for its people, its towns and its cities. In the 80s and 90s the destruction of Britain's coal and steel industries didn't blight the south-east or the shire counties. But it left swaths of wrecked communities in the north – Yorkshire, the north-east, north-west, Scotland.

Today, the assault on welfare is the latest pillage of the north. Citizens Advice Scotland reports increasing numbers of people seeking help simply because they are hungry.

The plight of the hungry is already desperate. But all this is taking place before most of the coalition's welfare cuts are implemented.

On 6 April a further £18bn is to be slashed from the welfare budget. Scotland loses £2.1bn. Citizens Advice Scotland has warned that the effects of the new cuts will be "devastating".

A joint report was published this month by the Scottish Local Government Forum Against Poverty, and Rights Advice Scotland. The report says those hardest hit by the reforms are families with young children, people with disabilities, social housing tenants, people previously deemed unfit for work, and low income families. In other words, the most vulnerable and defenceless in our society.

Many victims are concentrated in Britain's biggest northern cities – Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Bradford, Sheffield.

The regional secretaries of the Trades Union Congress covering Yorkshire and the Humber, the north-west and the north-east all this week issued warnings of worsening problems to come. Kevin Rowan of Northern TUC said that the region's most vulnerable people are being driven into deeper poverty. He said: "The only growth sector here is food banks and soup kitchens."

Yorkshire and the Humber TUC secretary, Bill Adams, said: "All across Yorkshire and Humberside people are worried sick about next month's welfare changes and how they will cope. Our region is taking a battering from this coalition's damaging austerity measures while the richest earners in society, including the bankers who caused this crisis, are queueing up for their tax cuts from George Osborne. If the government's aim was to make the poorest people and the poorest regions even poorer, then they are succeeding."

In the north-west, which suffers some of Britain's worst levels of unemployment, TUC regional secretary Lynn Collins said: "This region has suffered more than most, but the stark reality is that the worst is yet to come. We have had only 20% so far of the cuts planned by the coalition government.

"The cuts to welfare on 1 April will make the poor pay for the mess the banks have created."

On the same day that £18bn is cut from welfare, Britain's richest people will receive a tax cut. The Tories are creating this version of "civilisation". They could not be doing so without the support of their Lib Dem allies.

One effect of the coalition's action is growing support for calls for a northern regional parliament. The Hannah Mitchell Foundation, named after a Manchester socialist, feminist and suffragette, wants to see "a distinctive democratic socialism in the north".

And campaigners for an independent Scotland gain strength with every Westminster assault on the country.

Scotland and the north are populated by 20 million people. How wonderful if they were finally goaded into mobilisation by David Cameron and his Lib Dem cronies.