NORTH East families need urgent support to protect people from poverty and a future energy crisis, the Government has been warned.

It comes as analysis suggests a “worrying increase” in the number of children living in the deepest poverty.

Some 31 per cent of children were living in poverty in 2019-20, rising to nearly half of children in single-parent families.

Around 1.8 million children were growing up in very deep poverty – in households with 40 per cent or less than the average income - an increase of half a million children since 2011-12.

Read more: Success of levelling up for the North questioned

Director of the North East Child Poverty Commission, Amanda Bailey, said:”The North East was already facing a child poverty crisis before Covid-19, a situation made worse for far too many families across our region as a result of the pandemic.

“Many thousands are now facing a cost of living emergency, thanks to a toxic combination of incomes which are simply far too low and rapidly rising household bills.

“What we – and North East babies, children and young people – urgently need is concrete action from the Government to protect people from crisis now, and meaningful, joined-up plans to dramatically reduce the number of families trapped in poverty in the months and years to come.”

The government’s levelling up strategy was also called into question by the North East Child Poverty Commission after the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) charity found the poorest adults could be forced to spend more than half of their income after housing on rising energy bills which could “devastate” the poorest families.

Poorer families with children will be hardest hit by cost-of-living rises as they face bigger bills, have smaller savings and are less able to take on extra work.

Read more: Levelling Up: Half of people unclear on what it means

Low-income families could spend on average 18 per cent of their income after housing costs on energy bills after April due to a predicted rise of just under 50 per cent.

Ms Bailey added: “Welcome commitments to ‘level up’ areas like ours are meaningless if they do not result in a tangible increase in people’s living standards, with a determination to tackle child poverty once and for all.

“If a reduction in child poverty in the North East isn’t going to be one of the main ways of measuring the success of levelling up, what on earth is?”

The JRF is calling for help for the poorest households with targeted emergency payments, and to strengthen the “woefully inadequate” social security system which is causing “avoidable hardship”.

The Government said it would continue to “look closely” at what further measures may be needed.

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