Lady Jenkin later apologises for suggesting people use food banks partly because they are not skilled enough in cooking

The fragile political consensus on how to tackle the growing problem of hunger in Britain has come under strain as a Conservative member of a cross-party report on the issue declared that one of the principal causes of food poverty was that “poor people do not know how to cook”.

Lady Jenkin’s comments – for which she later apologised – came at the Westminster launch of Feeding Britain, a Church of England-funded report examining the causes of the rapid rise in the numbers of people becoming reliant on food banks.

The report says structural issues such as benefit delays and cuts, coupled with low wages and rising living costs are predominantly to blame for tens of thousands of families experiencing hunger.

Roughly a third of the report’s 77 recommendations involve improvements to the social security system changes to make the administration of benefits more efficient, speedy and humane.

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Labour MP and inquiry co-chair Frank Field insisted that the MPs and peers on the inquiry committee had agreed unanimously on the report’s findings and its conclusions.

But Jenkin suggested at the press conference held to launch the report that low-income people who used food banks did so in part because they were not skilled enough in cooking and food management.

She said: “We have lost a lot of our cookery skills. Poor people do not know how to cook.”

She added: “I had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p. A large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.”

Jenkin later acknowledged that her words had been badly chosen and said she was trying to get across the message that home-cooked meals are often cheaper and more nutritious than packaged food.

She told BBC Radio 4’s World At One: “What I meant was as a society we have lost our ability to cook. That seems no longer to be handed down in the way that it was by previous generations.

“I am well aware that I made a mistake in saying it and apologise to anybody who’s been offended by it.

“The point is valid. If people today had the cooking skills that previous generations had, none of us would be eating so much pre-prepared food.”

Emma Lewell-Buck, Labour MP for South Shields and a fellow member of the hunger inquiry, responded with a withering attack on the government’s welfare cuts.

She said the people who used food banks in her north-east England constituency did so because of “poverty pay, welfare and benefit changes – namely unfair sanctions and benefit delays”.

She added: “Since the coalition brought in their welfare reforms we have seen a harsh and punitive regime, and a culture that no longer talks to people about their circumstances or tries to understand their hardship but sanctions them without hesitation and cuts them off from any means of financial support without a care.

Britain was going through “an age of hunger”, she said: “It is a national disgrace that food banks have become a part of the fabric of our society, but thank God they are there. Because the reality is if it were not for the food banks and faith groups plugging the gaps left by the state we would have had people starving.”

In its formal response, the government studiously avoided any references to benefit delays and low pay. The Cabinet Office minister Rob Wilson called the report “a serious contribution to an important and complex debate”.

The prime minister, David Cameron, speaking later at the Harris City Academy in Crystal Palace, south London, said There were elements of the report into hunger that the government would want to take forward.

Labour’s employment spokesman, Stephen Timms, criticised the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for failing to send a minister to respond to the report, telling the meeting it was clear that government welfare policies had been “a contributory factor” in the growing reliance on food banks.

It is thought unlikely that the DWP will shift its stance on the administration of benefits and sanctions. But a report co-author, the Tory MP John Glen, said he hoped the department would respond constructively to the report.

The 50-page document gives just a few lines to the issue of cookery skills. It notes that while some low-income households “may find it difficult to prepare or cook decent meals from scratch” it notes that many other families “manage to buy and cook food on a shoestring budget for extended periods of time”.

It also notes that some food bank clients are so poor they cannot afford to switch on their cooker. Others live in private rented accommodation whereby landlords equip the kitchen with only a microwave oven or single-ring cooker.

The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, whose foundation had funded the inquiry, called its report incredibly important. He said it was shocking to witness people in Britain – rather than poorer parts of the world he had visited – queueing for food handouts.

He said: “How shocking it is to find this happening here … I’ve seen much worse very recently, but happening here it is in the wrong place. We don’t do that in this country and we need to stop it.”

The inquiry’s co-chairman, the Anglican Bishop of Truro, Tim Thornton, said: “We believe it is time to look again at the state of our country and to review the fundamental values that led to the creation of our welfare state.”

Niall Cooper, director of the Church Action on Poverty charity, said: “This issue of ensuring all our citizens are fed transcends party politics. It is not an issue of left or right, but of basic humanity.

“It is now time for both government and opposition to go beyond scoring political points, and to take seriously the question of how we as a nation ensure that no one need go to bed hungry.”