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Britain’s leading bishops denounce David Cameron’s welfare reforms for creating a “national crisis”.

In an unprecedented attack on the Tory-led Coalition, 27 Anglican bishops and 16 other clergy accuse the Tory-led coalition of creating hardship and hunger.

For so many leading members of the clergy to launch such a direct attack on the Government of the day is unprecedented.

This is the most significant political move by the Church of England since its Faith in the City report in the 1980s attacking Margaret Thatcher’s cuts.

It underlines the deep concern felt by the churches over the Coalition’s brutal welfare cuts which have left so many facing hunger and hardship.

In a letter to the Daily Mirror, 27 Anglican bishops and 16 other faith leaders say the PM has a “moral duty” to act on the growing number going hungry.

The intervention comes after Britain’s leading Catholic Archbishop Vincent Nichols said the Government’s benefit cuts were a “disgrace.”

A rattled Mr Cameron hit back by claiming the reforms were a “moral mission” and gave people “hope”.

But he is now also at war with the Church of England and other faith groups including the Quakers and Methodists.

In their letter the bishops say “Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry.”

It continues: “We must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to and failures in the benefit system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.”

Signed by 27 of the 59 Church of England bishops, it notes that half a million people have visited foodbanks since last Easter, while 5,500 people were admitted to hospital in the UK for malnutrition last year.

The church leaders also challenge Mr Cameron’s claim that his reforms are part of a “moral mission.”

“We often hear talk of hard choices. Surely few can be harder than that faced by the tens of thousands of older people who must ‘heat or eat’ each winter, harder than those faced by families whose wages have stayed flat while food prices have gone up 30% in just five years.

“Yet beyond even this we must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to and failures in the benefit system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions,’ the letter says.

It concludes by telling the Prime Minister he has an “acute moral imperative to act.”

“Hundreds of thousands of people are doing so already, as they set up and support foodbanks across the UK. But this is a national crisis, and one we must rise

“We call on government to do its part: acting to investigate food markets that are failing, to make sure that work pays, and to ensure that the welfare system provides a robust last line of defence against hunger,” the bishops write.

Signatories include the Bishops of Durham, Oxford, Manchester, Salisbury, Newcastle, Gloucester and Leicester.

The Bishop of Chelsmford, the Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, said: “Food banks provide a fantastic service but it is scandalous that in our society we should need a single food bank let alone hundreds of them.

“It feels to me we are a more divided society than even a year ago and that troubles me deeply.”

Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves MP said: “This letter should be a wake up call to David Cameron.

“The government have presided over a cost of living crisis and policies like the bedroom tax and cuts to tax credits are hitting the most vulnerable in society. Foodbanks are fast becoming the symbol of this out-of-touch government.”

The Bishops’ letter is part of the End Hunger Fast campaign – which is calling on people to fast during lent in solidarity with the UK’s hungry families.

The campaign will culminate with a vigil in Parliament Square in the run up to Easter.

It comes as figures showed 818,000 benefit claimants have had their payments docked because of tough new sanctions since October 2012.

Campaigners say the sanctions are one of the major factors causing people to seek aid from foodbanks.

The Rev Keith Hebden, founder of the End Hunger Fast campaign, said the Government was “failing in its duty of care” to provide a basic safety net..

“All kinds of circumstances push people to the edges of society where they now face a triple whammy of welfare cuts, wage stagnation, and food price rises. The Government is failing in its duty of care to provide basic safety net for its own citizens.

“We must reconsider urgently the society we are becoming; the hunger we permit. For David Cameron to defend what is happening in the welfare system as a part of his ‘moral mission’, when the reality is that hundreds of thousands of Britains have been left hungry is truly shocking,” he told the Mirror.

Chris Mould of the Trussell Trust, Britain’s largest provider of foodbanks. said it was “unacceptable” that hundreds of thousands of people could not afford to eat.

“We need to wake up to the hunger on our doorsteps, and ask urgent, in depth questions about why this is happening and then be brave enough to take action to stop it. We’d urge people to add their voice to the call to end hunger fast,” he said.

The Daily Mirror has been campaigning on food poverty and the exponential rise in foodbanks for over a year. Over half a million people took three days emergency food from Trussell Trust foodbanks alone during April to December 2013.

Over Christmas, the paper launched a petition with the campaigner Jack Monroe, the Trussell Trust and Unite the Union that was signed by over 140,000 people in less than a week. The petition demanded a debate in Parliament on the rising use of Foodbanks – and to find solutions to the growing crisis of UK hunger.

In December, Mirror readers also raised over £100,000 for British families in need of food aid during the paper’s Christmas Appeal.

The Daily Mirror is also calling on the Department for Food and Rural Affairs to publish a suppressed food poverty report commissioned from academics at Warwick University and delivered almost a year ago to the department.

Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Rachel Reeves MP said: “David Cameron’s so-called ‘moral crusade’ on welfare has been a disaster.

“There’s nothing moral about working people paying more and disabled people being hit hardest.

“This Tory-led Government’s welfare reforms have penalised, rather than helped, those doing the right thing. The idea that disabled people hit by the Bedroom Tax, young people desperate for a job but stuck on benefits, and working families struggling to survive on low pay have been given ‘hope’ by David Cameron is preposterous,” she said.

A Number 10 spokesman said: “Of course many families are facing tough times as a result of the worst recession in a century.

“That’s why, as the Prime Minister stressed today our welfare reforms are about building a country where people are not trapped in a cycle of dependency but are able to get on, stand on their own two feet and build a better life for themselves and their family.

“Our welfare reforms are about giving new purpose, new opportunity, new hope and new responsibility to people who had previously been written off with no chance.

“Seeing these reforms through is at the heart of our long-term economic plan and it is at the heart of our social and moral mission in politics today.”

Here is the letter submitted to The Daily Mirror:

Sir,

Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry.

Half a million people have visited foodbanks in the UK since last Easter and 5,500 people were admitted to hospital in the UK for malnutrition last year.

One in five mothers report regularly skipping meals to better feed their children, and even more families are just one unexpected bill away from waking up with empty cupboards.

We often hear talk of hard choices. Surely few can be harder than that faced by the tens of thousands of older people who must “heat or eat” each winter, harder than those faced by families whose wages have stayed flat while food prices have gone up 30% in just five years.

Yet beyond even this we must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using foodbanks have been put in that situation by cut backs to and failures in the benefit system, whether it be payment delays or punitive sanctions.

On March 5th Lent will begin. The Christian tradition has long been at this time to fast, and by doing so draw closer to our neighbour and closer to God.

On March 5th we will begin a time of fasting while half a million regularly go hungry in Britain. We urge those of all faith and none, people of good conscience, to join with us.

There is an acute moral imperative to act. Hundreds of thousands of people are doing so already, as they set up and support foodbanks across the UK. But this is a national crisis, and one we must rise to.

We call on government to do its part: acting to investigate food markets that are failing, to make sure that work pays, and to ensure that the welfare system provides a robust last line of defence against hunger.

Join us at www.endhungerfast.co.uk.

Yours

Anglican Bishops

Stephen Platten, Wakefield

David Walker, Manchester

Tim Stevens, Leicester

Andy John, Bangor

Tony Porter, Sherwood

Paul Butler, Durham

Alan Wilson, Buckingham

Alan Smith, St Albans

Nick Holtam, Salisbury

Tim Thornton, Truro

John Pritchard, Oxford

Steven Croft, Sheffield

Jonathan Gledhill, Lichfield

Michael Perham, Gloucester

Alastair Redfern, Derby

Lee Rayfield, Swindon

James Langstaff, Rochester

Martin Warner, Chichester

Mike Hill, Bristol

Martin Wharton, Newcastle

Peter Maurice, Taunton

Gregory Cameron, St Asaph

Peter Burrows, Doncaster

Stephen Cottrell, Chelmsford

Martyn Snow, Tewkesbury

John Holbrook, Brixworth

David Urquhart, Birmingham

Methodist Chairs of District

Loraine Mellor, Nottingham and Derby

John Hellyer, South East

Jenny Impey , London

Michaela Young, London

Stuart Jordan, London

Bruce Thompson, Lincolnshire

Lionel Osborn, Newcastle Upon Tyne

Revd Richard Teal, Cumbria

Revd Jim Booth, Liverpool

Revd Vernon Marsh. Sheffield

United Reform Church

Paul Whittle, Eastern Synod

Simon Walkling, Synod of Wales

Richard Church, Northwest Synod

Quakers