There are several reasons why parents are struggling to feed their children.

Many people who claim Employment and Support Allowance which is a benefit paid to those unable to work due to ill health or disability are required to attend a Work Capability Assessment which is essentially a medical to judge whether they are fit to work or not.

A person’s own doctor could find them unfit for work and yet the company who do the medicals will find them fit for work, which then leads to a lengthy appeals process where more than 40per cent of appeals are successful.

This cost the government £66 million last year.

Many benefit claimants receive sanctions for not attending appointments at job centres or because they are not deemed to be actively looking for work.

The result of this is receiving zero income for a fixed period of time despite many having valid reasons for missing appointments.

They then have to apply for a mandatory reconsideration of the decision however there is no time limit on how long this can take and in the meantime people are paid nothing.

The government’s aim is to get benefit cheats back into work however in reality they are just penalising the most vulnerable people in society.

People also have the Bedroom Tax to contend with despite there being insufficient properties for them to downsize to and they cannot move anyway if they have rent arrears until those arrears are cleared.

The whole system is a farce and in my opinion is a breach of people’s human rights.

Michael Egan,

St Helens