BRITAIN has seen a “shameful increase” in destitution, with around one million children affected last year, a damning new report has revealed.

According to research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, across Britain, an estimated 3.8 million people were suffering destitution last year.

Almost two-and-a-half times more people are suffering now than in 2017, with nearly three times as many youngsters affected, the report says.

Rates of destitution, where people are not able to afford to meet their basic needs to stay warm, dry, clean and fed, were highest in the east London borough of Newham.

Glasgow City Council was ranked 26th of the 30 local authorities with the worst rates of destitution, but had dropped 16 places from the previous report in 2019.

The report found that at a regional level, London had the highest destitution levels in 2022, followed by the north-east and north-west of England and then the West Midlands.

Overall, “there has been a shameful increase in the level of destitution in the UK,” the report says.

It highlights the “growing number of people struggling to afford to meet their most basic physical needs” and warned of an “urgent need for action.”

The research found, as in previous studies, that food was the most common essential that people struggling with destitution lacked in 2022.

However, with energy bills having risen sharply, heating was the second-most common thing lacking, followed by clothes and toiletries.

The report calls on the Tory government to introduce an “essentials guarantee” for universal credit payments, ensuring that the basic amount that people receive can cover all their basic needs “such as food, energy, toiletries and cleaning products.”

Doing this “would have a significant impact on destitution,” the authors say.

National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said that the findings “must surely sound an alarm for government to finally take the action needed. 

“Rising hardship is a problem that predates the cost-of-living crisis,” he pointed out.

“The government must respond to the worsening situation by committing to change this trajectory and provide an ambitious plan to end destitution and poverty in the UK.”

Mr Kebede called for the introduction of free school meals for all children and the immediate lifting of the “cruel” two-child benefit limit.

The government was approached for comment.