Brent had one of the highest rates of child poverty in the country before the pandemic, new statistics show.

Research published by End Child Poverty, shows that 40 per cent of children in Brent were living in poverty, after housing costs were considered, between April 2019 and March 2020.

Dudden Hill councillor Krupesh Hirani, who is the local London Assembly member, said that these “alarming figures” are “yet another wake-up call” for the government to “fix our broken welfare system”.

End Child Poverty’s research has attributed the high cost of housing as a key driver behind these numbers, which places London above every other region of the UK in terms of child poverty levels.

The average rate across the country is 31pc.

In March 2020, the government raised Local Housing Allowance rates to cover the bottom 30pc of rents. However, Mr Hirani believes that ministers must boost this further to encompass up to 50pc of local rent levels, to prevent more families from falling into arrears to private landlords.

Cllr Hirani said: “Children in our community simply shouldn’t be going hungry or living in cold and overcrowded homes.

"Our children are being neglected by the government who seem keen to give off the impression that London’s streets are paved with gold.

“These alarming figures provide yet another wake-up call to ministers that prove that after a decade of austerity, the state is failing to fulfil its duty of care for vulnerable people in our society."

He is also urging the government to make wider reforms to the welfare system, such as an increasing child benefits, scrapping the two child-limit and formal five-week waiting period on Universal Credit payments, and a permanently extending the weekly £20 uplift.

He added: “We must remember that these findings reflect the situation before the pandemic, which has since exacerbated social inequalities and the financial struggles local families have been facing.

“We are in real danger of child poverty becoming a new normal in our community. We need the government to take immediate action and throw our children a lifeline by fixing the broken welfare system”.

A government spokesperson said: “We’re spending billions on welfare to support families most in need and latest figures show that the number of children in absolute poverty after housing costs has fallen by 300,000 since 2010.

“By increasing and maintaining Local Housing Allowance rates in recent years, nearly £1 billion of additional support has been made available for over a million privately renting households claiming Universal Credit or Housing Benefit in 2020/21.

"Support for private renters is still significantly higher now than it was before the pandemic.”