Nothing prepared me for the child poverty I see in Britain. November's budget can and must halt its inexorable rise | Gordon Brown

"Run-down housing estates in Britain's former industrial heartlands remind us of the poverty described by George Orwell in The Road to Wigan Pier in 1937 but these days there is no Orwell to chronicle what the arithmetic of deprivation means for families condemned to lives of poverty. Millions of children, as the children's commissioner for England, Dame Rachel de Souza, told us this summer, are faring very badly, living in almost Dickensian levels of poverty. And what she calls the striking awareness children have of being poor requires us to find a modern-day Dickens to hear their voices. For the past two years and from my experience of working with a new charity, Multibanks UK, which complements food banks by offering clothing, bedding, hygiene goods and baby goods for families in need I, like the children's commissioner, have been seeing the hidden injuries of poverty."

"It's not only the shortage of basic essentials as food prices rise far faster than wages and child benefits. It's the totality of the conditions in which so many of the generation I call austerity's children young people born into poverty in the Tory years are living: homes without heating, bedrooms without beds, kitchens without kitchen utensils, floors without coverings and even toilets without toilet rolls. For many it is much worse: damp mouldy rooms, outside toilets and no kitchen table to eat at or write up their school work on, only a cold floor."

"In our kitchen there's loads of holes that rats come through at night and sometimes they bite through our walls, a girl of seven said in the children's commissioner's report. And for the nearly 170,000 homeless children in England, there is no stability: entire families are being housed in cramped temporary accommodation on top of each other. I've moved houses seven times, a 10-year-old girl reported."

Run-down housing estates in former industrial areas illustrate widespread poverty affecting millions of children. Children experience acute material deprivation beyond food shortages, including lack of heating, beds, kitchen utensils, floor coverings and toilet supplies. Many live in damp, mouldy rooms, with outside toilets, no kitchen table, and rodent infestations. A charity, Multibanks UK, complements food banks by supplying clothing, bedding, hygiene items and baby goods to families in need. Nearly 170,000 children are homeless in England and face housing instability in cramped temporary accommodation with frequent moves and no long-term stability.

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