A significant rise in religious hate crime has led Prime Minister David Cameron to pledge more protection for synagogues, mosques and churches.

Incidents have risen by 43 per cent over the past year, according to Home Office statistics.

Mr Cameron said the increase was unacceptable, and that "we must do more to fight it".

He added that the government will make more funding available to ensure the security of "faith establishments" in Britain.

The worst month in the data, collected in the year up until the end of March, was July 2014, with 3,558 religious or racially aggravated offences.

The Home Office denied that the Gaza conflict was a factor in this spike, noting in its report that there was "a rise in racially or religiously aggravated offences in July 2014 followed by a fall in August, suggesting little effect of the conflict in Israel and Gaza".

In March, the government announced it would make £10 million available to fund security efforts at Jewish buildings.

The Community Security Trust welcomed this week's statement.

A spokesperson said: "The past year saw several trigger events that could cause increases in religiously aggravated hate crime, such as the war in Israel and Gaza last summer, the Paris terrorist attacks and the rise of Islamic State.

"Hopefully there has also been an improvement in the reporting of hate crimes by victims."