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Rector challenges Tory MP in foodbank row

29 May 2015

iSTOCK

Challenges: Morecambe town centre. ONS statistics suggest that the area is one of the most deprived in the country

Challenges: Morecambe town centre. ONS statistics suggest that the area is one of the most deprived in the country

A LANCASHIRE Rector has challenged his MP, who has said that a local foodbank was "run by Labour".

The Rector of Holy Trinity, Poulton-le-Sands, the Revd Mike Peatman, wrote to David Morris, the Conservative MP for Morecambe and Lunesdale, after a local newspaper, The Visitor, had reported his saying that the Morecambe Bay Foodbank was "set up and run by the Labour Party".

"They want me to walk through that door, take a picture of me and shout at me," Mr Morris was reported as saying.

Mr Peatman wrote an open letter to Mr Morris, saying that the foodbank was a partnership between Brookhouse Methodist Church and the Trussell Trust: "It may well be that some who are most closely involved with running the foodbank have that political allegiance, but your implication that it was a party project from the start is wrong."

It would be a "contravention of charity law" for the foodbank to be aligned to a political party, he said.

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