The Bishop of Manchester has urged the Government not to “cut compassion” as it seeks to reduce Britain’s budget deficit with a range of spending cuts.

The Rt Rev Nigel McCulloch told the Manchester Diocesan Synod that compassion needed to become a feature of the political debate.

“I have to say that in all the talk about fairness, I have not heard the words cuts and compassion in the same sentence at all,” he said.

He said that the Church of England had a duty to speak up for the voiceless and to protect the vulnerable.

“For every individual who through no fault of their own is weaker, poorer, increasingly unaided, requires our compassion and support,” he said.

“The Big Society may be a good idea, but it must not become a camouflage.”

He added that the church’s calling was to ensure that “compassion is not cut” from our society.

“For without compassion this land will be a mean, selfish and impoverished place. May God save us from that.”

His warning follows that of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, who recently said that the long-term unemployed may be pushed into a “downward spiral of uncertainty, even despair” if the Coalition goes ahead with its plans to force them into manual labour.

David Cameron’s Big Society is one of the issues to be debated by the Church of England’s General Synod when it meets in London today and tomorrow.

The Archbishop of Canterbury has previously expressed his cautious optimism at the initiative and what it could mean for the engagement of the church in society.