The Bishop of Birmingham has condemned the scandal of increasing numbers of people forced to depend on foodbanks to survive.
He is to visit foodbanks and shelters across Birmingham during the festival of Lent, from March 5 until Easter, to hear from people experiencing hunger - before presenting their stories to Parliament, where he is a member of the House of Lords.
The Bishop, the Rt Revd David Urquhart, was one of 27 Anglican leaders to sign a letter condemning the Government’s welfare reforms for contributing to hunger. Others included the Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill, Bishop of Lichfield.
It followed earlier warnings from Vincent Nichols, the Archbishop of Westminster and leader of the Catholic church in England and Wales - and former Archbishop of Birmingham - who said it was a “disgrace” that people could be left hungry and destitute in a country as rich as the United Kingdom.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, defended Government welfare reforms, insisting: “You can’t just be given benefits with no strings attached and with no questions asked.”
The Bishop of Birmingham said: “I am sure there will be some people who are asking why the Church is interfering in politics and what does our religious season of fasting have to do with people going hungry.
“However campaigning against injustice and speaking up for those who find it hard to speak up for themselves is normal life for Christians seeking to follow Jesus who challenged the law-makers and told the poor they were blessed.
“Politics is not a job for a few but a matter for everyone – people of all faiths and none who are living in one of the richest countries in the world are scandalised that families and individuals need to rely on food-banks, that they need to choose between heating or eating or that they have become caught in a web of payday loans and spiralling debt.
“So this year we have decided to make our fasting more visible and align ourselves with those who do not have enough to eat. In the afternoon of the 5th March I will be opening the ‘Hunger Hut’ outside Birmingham Cathedral in Colmore Row.
“We’ll be visiting foodbanks and shelters gathering stories of hunger and taking them to London to present to parliament and we will be praying and giving to end hunger here in Birmingham.”
Anyone could join the campaign through a website at www.endhungerfast.co.uk or by visiting the campaign site outside Birmingham Cathedral, he said.
The Bishops’ letter said: “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.”
And it warned: “One in five mothers report regularly skipping meals to better feed their children , and ever 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 who’s wages have stayed flat while food prices have gone up 30% in just five years."
Speaking on his weekly radio phone-in on LBC, Mr Clegg insisted that at a time of major cut backs to public spending, the welfare budget could not escape unscathed.
But he insisted the Government’s reforms were designed to encourage people back to work.
He said: “I think most people in this country accept, that of course you need to have a safety net, of course you need to give help to people that are vulnerable, but for those who have been given support to go out to look for work, there has to be some kind of conditionality.
“You can’t just be given benefits with no strings attached and with no questions asked, when you being given support to find your way back into work.
“That doesn’t mean that we should act in a punitive way . . . there are some people who are too vulnerable who need help.”
