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More than 93,000 of Britain's poorest children went hungry last year due to cruel benefit cuts, a damning new report shows.

David Cameron has hugely increased the use of cash-saving punishments such as stopping payments for a month or more for welfare claimants who fail to meet strict Job Centre demands.

But the Coalition’s welfare cuts and brutal penalties hit society’s most vulnerable hardest and in effect punish kids for their parents’ failings, the report claims.

Niall Cooper of Church Action on Poverty, which helped produce the report, said: “If you commit a crime, no court is allowed to make you go hungry as a punishment.

“But if you’re late for an appointment at the Job Centre they can remove all your income and leave you unable to feed you or your family for weeks.”

(Image: Mirrorpix)

More than 100 people with severe mental health problems are sanctioned every day, according to figures compiled by a coalition of UK churches. And of 49 deaths reviewed by officials following sanctions, 40 were down to apparent suicide.

More than a million sanctions were imposed last year and 880,000 remained after appeals, the report said.

The authors added: “We are disturbed that a benefit system intended to provide for the needy and vulnerable is used as a means of coercion and compliance. The penalties often do not appear reasonable or proportionate to the ‘failure’ that has occurred.

“If a similar system operated in a workplace, where pay was removed for a month for being late for a meeting or not achieving a target, we might reasonably expect action to be taken against the employer.”

The sanctions regime is one of the most severe in the world, the report said, but it found no evidence it helped people into work.

In a probe for Channel 4’s Dispatches, two Job Centre whistleblowers tell how they were forced to “hammer” claimants with sanctions to meet Government targets. Alan Davies, who quit Leicester Job Centre, said: “They weren’t willing to look at them as human beings.”

(Image: Getty)

Cardinal Vincent Nichols, leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said the scale of poverty in modern-day Britain is horrifying.

He added: “It’s shocking in a country as wealthy as ours that there are still people dependent on absolute charity.”

The Department for Work and Pensions said it did not recognise the report’s figures. A spokesman said: “Every day Job Centre Plus advisers work hard to help claimants into work.

“Sanctions are only used as a last resort for the tiny minority who fail to take up the support which is on offer.”