Many British people are in a "worrying" amount of debt, a religious body has warned.

A spokesman for the Church of England (CoE) made his comments following moves by his organisation to help tackle debt and offer advice to troubled borrowers.

The church’s Life and Debt Matters campaign was launched at the beginning of the year and has offered borrowers assistance through a post-Christmas debt check.

He warned that many recently-published statistics showed the country has issues with debt and that some people are struggling.

There have been "masses of worrying reports in newspapers about how much people are paying off on their credit cards, mortgages, unsecured debt … a huge percentage of people have no idea how much debt they are in", the CoE spokesman continued.

Earlier this month, financial advice charity Credit Action revealed that at the end of November, total British personal debt stood at £1,400 billion.