Children going without heating or washing in 'Dickensian levels of poverty'

Children in England are facing “Dickensian levels” of poverty, going without basic needs like heating, a place to wash or somewhere to eat breakfast, the Children’s Commissioner has warned.

In a grim report released on Tuesday, Dame Rachel de Souza said some kids are living in awful housingconditions, with rats, mould and no water. Many are also living in dangerous areas and don’t have a safe transportroute to get to school.

Dame Rachel said some kids felt a sense of shame over their hardship but she warned it is those in power who should be “ashamed”. Her report found many children are experiencingpoor-quality, overcrowded and unsafe housing, as well as frequent moves and long waits fortemporary accommodation.

Parents are also relying on food banks, school parcels or poor-quality free school meals, with rising costs limiting access to nutritious food, the study said. Children are also suffering from long waits for healthcare and unequal access to mental health services, with “a two-tier system” seeing those who can afford private care receive treatment faster, Dame Rachel said.

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The report featured harrowing stories from kids, including one seven-year-old girl who said: “Our kitchen has holes that rats come through at night, they bite through our walls.” A ten-year-old also said they go to school unclean as they don’t have enough water to wash.

And one eight-year-old boy said: “In our area sometimes there's stuff like robbing and sometimes there’s drunk people and stabbing."

Among a number of demands, Dame Rachel called for free bus travel for all school-age children, priority for housing for children in low-income households, auto-enrolment for free school meals for all eligible children and data-sharing between schools, GPs and local authorities. She also called for a so-called "triple-lock" for uprating all child-related benefits.

The former headteacher is also demanding an end to the two-child benefit limit - something Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson this weekend said would be harder to do after concessions made on the Government’s welfare plans.

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Asked about ditching the Tory-era policy on Sunday, Ms Phillipson said: "The decisions that have been taken in the last week do make decisions, future decisions harder. But all of that said, we will look at this collectively in terms of all of the ways that we can lift children out of poverty."

Ministers are due to publish a child poverty strategy in autumn, with the PM under increasing pressure for it to include a commitment on scrapping the two-child benefit limit. Ahead of the strategy, the Government has announced a series of measures to improve children’s lives, including the rollout of free breakfast clubs to primary school kids and a major expansion of free school meals to all children whose families get Universal Credit.

Speaking about her report, Dame Rachel said: “Children shared harrowing accounts of hardship, with some in almost-Dickensian levels of poverty. They don’t talk about ‘poverty’ as an abstract concept but about not having the things that most people would consider basic: a safe home that isn’t mouldy or full or rats, with a bed big enough to stretch out in, ‘luxury’ food like bacon, a place to do homework, heating, privacy in the bathroom and being able to wash, having their friends over, and not having to travel hours to school.

“Children spoke to me about the sense of shame that comes from knowing you have less – but, as one of the richest societies in the world, it is decision makers who should be ashamed that children are growing up knowing their futures are being determined by their financial circumstances.”

Paul Whiteman, general secretary at school leaders’ union NAHT, said: “Children struggle to focus on their learning if they are hungry or do not have a settled home, while difficulties accessing and affording transport can affect their school attendance. School leaders and their staff have increasingly been running foodbanks and warm hubs, providing food vouchers, and even offering use of laundry facilities, but this shouldn’t be necessary, and schools cannot tackle all the underlying causes of child poverty."

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