Thousands face putting children into care as poverty sweeps Scotland, Gordon Brown warns

Thousands of parents face putting their children in care because of a poverty epidemic sweeping Scotland, Gordon Brown has warned.The Former Prime Minister has revealed a staggering one in ten families using a charity he supports in Fife believe they could have to hand sons and daughters to social services.He has told of one recent case where a father left his distraught 16-year-old boy at a charity depot because he couldn’t afford to feed and clothe the teenager.Brown, who launches a campaign highlighting the “national emergency” this week, said: “Political attention is on the timing of the general election, but millions of families face a more immediate challenge - simply surviving to the end of the week.“From north to south a hidden poverty epidemic is spreading across the country.

It is fast becoming a national emergency.“This is the pandemic that no Minister ever mentions, a silent crisis striking thousands of children in bedless bedrooms, millions of parents in foodless kitchens, and dozens of communities in increasingly hopeless destitution.“In a recent survey from Fife 11 per cent of low income families said they would have faced eviction or having to put their children into care, but for the charitable help they received from the warehouse created by Kirkcaldy’s Cottage Family centre.“We know of desperate cases where children are having to take it in turns sleeping on a settee in homes where there are no beds and where boys and girls are arriving at school unwashed because all the weekly budget has gone on food, heating and rent.“Some schools are now installing launderettes to make sure children can have clean clothes.”Brown’s fears are supported by a report in the respected Lancet medical journal which found