The recent surge in government borrowing sees the UK bracing itself for significant tax rises in the Autumn budget. But there is also pressure to spend billions more on schemes to help end child poverty, which has reached record levels.

In 2021, UNICEF estimated that around 2.4 million children were living in relative poverty in the UK. A more recent report by the Trussell Trust, put the number at 4.5 million, with one in three children lacking adequate access to healthy and nutritious food.

Volunteers at a charity outlet in North London, are busy sorting through piles of donated children's clothing. There is everything from jumpers, socks and boots to winter coats, each being sorted into age groups.

With the cost-of-living crisis, many families rely on food banks, but increasing numbers are also turning to baby banks.

Little Village, a London-based network of baby banks, is one of the organizations trying to ease the pressure on families. Pregnant women and families with children under five are referred to the charity by doctors, midwives or social workers. Once accepted they can come to the store to collect what they need for free once every three months.

Little Village is part of an alliance of around 400 baby banks across the country all of which are struggling to keep pace with demand.

Nickie Everett, the manager of Camden's Little Village, said that they are "getting more and more families from different backgrounds, different circumstances, but with one thing in common. They just can't afford some basic necessities that you think people would be able to get. Sometimes we get families with one or both parents working, but still unable to afford things like, blankets, wipes, nappies, you know, the real essential items."

Almost seven million families receive child benefit payments but it is limited to a household's first two children. Critics claim that scrapping the limit would help ease child poverty, though so far the government has resisted – arguing it cannot afford the $4-5 billion a year it would cost.

In 2024 the government launched a child poverty taskforce. Its much-delayed report, due to be released imminently, could prove financially challenging for the government.

There has been widespread speculation in the press that the government may now be prepared to lift the two-child benefit cap.

However the CEO of Little Village and chair of the national Baby Bank Alliance, Sophie Livingstone, has expressed her concerns about the cap being lifted. Livingstone has said that her "concern is that the government will think that lifting the two-child limit will be enough.There are lots of other measures that the government needs to take to make that a reality for families".

Livingstone also listed other factors she would like to see in the recommendations released in the report. "Other factors include improving housing, improving childcare, making work pay, uprating benefits with the rate of inflation. There's a whole load of systemic reasons why families get pulled into and trapped into poverty."

Whatever the eventual outcome of the report, baby and food banks believe they will still be urgently needed for many years to come.