Gordon Brown calls for overhaul of benefits system as study reveals ‘crisis’

Exclusive: Jeremy Hunt urged to act over report showing poorest families spend 63p in each 1 on food and energy bills

Gordon Brown has urged Jeremy Hunt to act on startling new research into Britain's threadbare benefits system that showed the poorest families must spend an average of 63p in each pound to meet basic food and energy needs.

The former prime minister said the paper was a wake-up call" to the chancellor that reveals the arithmetic of poverty", and forces the UK to face up to the fact that it is in the throes of a crisis".