Cost Of Living Crisis - Cold, Hungry & Lonely Life Of Schoolchildren

Report lifts lid on ordeals families suffer

- DANNY DE VAAL

• Parents and kids go without food and heat

PARENTS battling the cost of living crisis are struggling so much that some children have no school lunch and do their homework in the cold, a heartbreaking report has found.

Others have described how they use their mobile phone instead of the lights and how they go to bed before it gets dark to save electricity.

The devastating details are contained in the Cost of Living Crisis - Impact on Children Report 2023, published by Barnardos today.

One parent revealed her son "has no lunch going to school, he can't afford to go places with his friends, he is sitting in a cold room trying to do his homework".

Another said: "I will only heat one part of the house, my child's bedroom, and only then until my son falls asleep and then turn it off again.

"At around seven we go to bed to keep the lights off. I use my mobile phone to light the house when my son is asleep."