Below is the full text of the bishops' letter to the Government, first published in the Daily Mirror. It was signed by 27 Anglican bishops, as well as 16 senior clergy from other denominations.
Sir,
Britain is the world’s seventh largest economy and yet people are going hungry. Half a million people have visited food banks 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 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.
Yet beyond even this we must, as a society, face up to the fact that over half of people using food banks 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 food banks 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.
You can find out more and join in at:
http://endhungerfast.co.uk/
Related Articles:
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/feb/20/bishops-blame-cameron-food-bank-crisis
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/27-bishops-slam-david-camerons-3164033
