Britain is becoming increasingly reliant on Churches and religious groups to meet “crucial” needs once met by 
the state, a minister in the UK government has acknowledged.
Baroness Warsi (pictured) told a meeting in Westminister that Christians, Muslims, Jews and others have a right to publicly practise their faith insisting that “people who do God do good”.
Her comments came in a speech marking the first anniversary of a landmark visit to the Vatican by a delegation of ministers in which she claimed that British society is under threat from the rising tide of “militant secularisation,” the Daily Telegraph reports.
Her comments were made as she launched a new report laying bare the scale of Britain’s growing dependence on religious groups to meet social needs in the midst of recession.
The report is the annual ‘Church and Community Involvement’ survey.
It finds that Churches alone are providing almost 100 million hours of unpaid volunteer work on social projects a year, up by more than a third in two years, while donations for such work are up by a fifth, it found.
Lady Warsi, a practising Muslim, said at the launch that faith groups can “reach areas of need that Government cannot”.
Her comments echo a call last month by the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, for Churches to step in and do things which the State has “run out of the capacity to do”.
He said the financial crisis could signal the “greatest moment of opportunity since the Second World War” for churches to grow.
Lady Warsi, who combines a ministerial role in the Foreign Office with being Britain’s first minister for faith, said that she went to meet Pope Benedict last year “to tell the world that Britain does do God”.
She said: “There is one big reason why I made the case for faith that day … and why, I have made freedom of religion and belief a priority, and that’s that people who do God do good.
“In other words, very often faith is the basis for good deeds. It influences, it inspires, it impels at every turn.”