Over 20 per cent of children in the borough affected

Hackney is one of the worst ten places in the country for severe child poverty.

For the first time, children’s rights charity Save the Children has provided a local authority breakdown, and figures reveal there are 10,000 children in Hackney living in the deepest poverty.

It wants the Chancellor to draw up an emergency plan to tackle the problem.

Hackney is one of 29 local authorities across the country with more than one in five children living in severe poverty, with 22 per cent of its children affected.

According to the charity, a lone-parent family with one child aged under 14 in severe poverty is living on an income of less than �7,000 and a couple with two children under 14 is on less than �12,500.

With increasing unemployment and cuts in welfare payments, Save the Children’s fears that even more children will be forced in to severe poverty in the coming months.

Sally Copley, Save the Children’s head of UK policy, said: “Children up and down the country are going to sleep at night in homes with no heating, without eating a proper meal and without proper school uniforms to put on in the morning.

“No child should be born without a chance.”

A Hackney Council spokesman said: “While child poverty still remains an issue in Hackney, we are making progress in this area. One of the many ways we tackle this problem is by supporting parents to gain employment and increasing their income potential. Only last week, 1,500 people turned up to find out about employment opportunities at the council’s Ways into Work jobs fair.

“At the same time, we have continued to invest in schools across Hackney. For instance, we have built five new secondary schools and provided 3,000 new secondary pupil places since 2004.

“The Council was also recently involved in the setting up and establishment of a new credit union in Hackney, which teaches people the basics of financial planning and helps those who are financially excluded.”