A shocked MP has reported that a schoolboy in her constituency was so hungry, he tried to eat a pot of his school's glue. Preet Gill, Labour MP for Edgbaston, was speaking about the devastating impact of the cost-of-living crisis on her poorest constituents, with food inflation running at nearly 15 per cent in September.
As reported on Birmingham Live, the MP told a committee parents were skipping meals and children were coming to school unfed. And she recounted how one headteacher told her how children were turning up 'a nervous wreck' to school and one boy was so hungry staff "caught him trying to eat a pot of PVA glue".
More than 100,000 children are living in poverty in Birmingham, the equivalent of 37 per cent of all children in the city, after housing costs. It is the second-highest rate of child poverty across the UK's core cities.
