Millions are facing a winter of misery - we need to fight child poverty

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Dilemma: Mum and child in front of fire
Neil Atkinson / Daily Mirror
The extreme winter weather has brought misery and chaos to thousands of people.

But away from the dramatic pictures of devastated communities, millions of Britain’s poorest families have already been facing severe hardship this winter.

They face the tough choice between heating or eating. A new “heat or eat” generation is a shame on any government.

Today, a survey that we carried out with the Daily Mirror shockingly reveals that five million families are likely to turn their heating down because they can’t afford it. And three million are likely to cut back on food so they can pay their energy bills.

More than half of these families are worried that their children will become ill because their home is too cold. But for many, they have no other option.

Turning the heating on can also drive families into debt. About half a million families told us they are likely to have to take a loan out this winter to help with heating their home. Every day we see families whose homes are so cold that their clothes have nowhere to dry properly.

Parents only turning the heating on for up to a couple of hours a day when their children come home from school. Tragically, some families struggle even to do this.

But solutions are possible. One simple measure that The Children’s Society is calling for is to have all poor families with children get the Warm Home Discount automatically. This is critical to making sure that those most in need can keep their homes warm.

Currently, children living in poverty are not entitled to this key support automatically and, therefore, those most in need do not always get it.

So I urge you to join our fight against child poverty today. Please text WARM to 70099 . No child should have to grow up in a cold home.



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     Disgraceful state of affairs in this day and age, at least when Labour come to power they will take on these scummy rich fat cats and force them to lower their prices.

when I was young,my mother taught me,when you get your money the first thing to do is pay your rent. then buy your food.it seems the first thing some people do now is when they get their money the first thing they do is buy fags and beer,a few quid on the lottery,have a look in at the bookies,and of course book their foreign holiday ect.

Maybe some...but we've always had that. There's always that element.

But overall, I think people are still just like your mum.