Anxious parents feeling the cost of living squeeze are skipping meals “several times a week” so they can feed their own children, a charity has warned.
One Salvation Army community manager, Carol McKean, based in Sheringham, Norfolk said parents who tell her they “never had to claim benefits before” look “broken asking for help”.
She told Sky News: “I know that, for these people, we are the last resort. They really are short of food for their kids, and some are saying they haven’t eaten for a couple of days so their kids can eat.”
The Christian charity is expected to provide thousands of meals and food parcels for children over the summer as families battle to stay afloat.
It comes after inflation in the UK yesterday accelerated to a new 40-year high of 9.4 per cent, driven by rising food and fuel prices.
The new figure from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) is the highest since 1982, when inflation peaked at 11 per cent.
The ONS said last month that more than nine in 10 people had seen their living costs rise in the previous few weeks, with the number of people cutting back on food rising sharply to 41 per cent from 8 per cent in September.
The Salvation Army called on the government to provide immediate help for those worst affected by the soaring cost of living.
Its demands include a temporary replacement of universal credit loans with grants until the crisis has been resolved, the waiting time for first payments to be slashed from six weeks to two, and for existing universal credit debt to be covered by the government’s 60-day Breathing Space scheme.
The charity is also appealing for an expansion of free childcare so parents can afford to work, and a new cross-government taskforce to tackle the underlying causes of poverty.
One mother from Swindon, whose children will not have access to free school meals during the summer break, told the broadcaster: “All day long they are telling me they’re hungry.”
The woman, who had fled an abusive relationship, said she will go without a main dinner “several times a week” after just having beans on toast for breakfast in order to feed her children.
“I don’t care about myself as long as my children eat,” she said.
Dean Pallant, the organisation’s Lieutenant Colonel, said: “When I hear Salvation Army officers report that ‘people are on the bones of their knees’ and they have seen children who are ‘anorexically thin’ it sounds like something from 1865, when the Salvation Army was founded, not 2022.”
Mr Pallant said he hoped government payments will bring “some desperately needed relief” to poorer households, but added: “Short-term measures only provide a temporary sticking plaster on a long-term crisis.”
“To protect people from sinking further into poverty over time we are calling for all benefits intended to help people on low incomes to keep up with inflation.
“We have already seen a surge in demand at our food banks since the start of the cost of living crisis. We are now braced to feed more children than ever over the next few weeks.”
