A QUARTER of parents are struggling to provide enough food for their children, research revealed today, leading to repeated demands for an end to the two-child cap.
Research by charity Barnardo’s found that 25 per cent of Britain’s parents with children aged 18 and under struggled to provide sufficient food for their children over the last year due to the cost of living — up 5 per cent from October 2022.
It said this would represent around 3.4 million children, suggesting that the cost-of-living crisis’s impact continues to hit struggling families.
Nearly one in 10 used a local foodbank, up a third since the last survey, Barnardo’s found.
Barnardo’s chief executive Lynn Perry urged the government to take bold steps in the autumn Budget, including ending the two-child limit on benefits.
Sonia Gowland, a mum of two from Carlisle, told the charity: “At one point, we didn't have the internet turned on for three weeks because I just couldn’t afford to pay the bill.
“Things like the internet are becoming a luxury for us. But when you have two kids in secondary school, you need the internet on for them to do their homework and access education.
“I’ve had to rely on foodbanks, especially towards the end of the month when money is running low, the foodbank is all I have.
“The kids go to their dad’s house on the weekends towards the end of the month because I’m just not able to afford to feed them.”
She urged the government to “really recognise poverty for what it is” and warned that the support in place is not “fitting with the degree of poverty people are experiencing.”
National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said that their members regularly witness poverty in schools, with the majority of teachers regularly feeding pupils out their own pockets.
He said the union is pushing for free school meals for all but added: “To address the causes of this poverty, change is needed outside of school.
“We urge the government to scrap the two-child limit.
“Every day that the government refuses this ask, it is choosing to trap hundreds of thousands of children in poverty.
“Scrapping the two-child limit would immediately lift 300,000 children out of poverty and mean 700,000 children are in less deep poverty.”
