• Shocking poll finds some parents of young children have stopped buying both fruit and meat over the past year

• Parents far more likely than non-parents to have skipped meals and changed spending habits due to high food prices

• Ahead of new inflation figures to be released, Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey calls for expansion of free school meals and more support for farmers

A new poll commissioned by the Liberal Democrats has revealed parents with children under the age of 18 have been hardest hit by rising food prices.

As a result of high food bills, a staggering one in six (17%) parents say they have gone hungry over the past year in order to feed their children.

Parents with children under the age of 18 are far more likely to say they have made changes to their spending habits at supermarkets as a result of rising prices.

In the last twelve months, over one in ten (13%) parents of children under the age of 18 say they have stopped buying fruit. One in ten (11%) say they have stopped buying meat.

Almost one in two parents (48%) say they have started buying yellow sticker items at supermarkets over the past year. Whilst half (51%) say they have changed the supermarket they use due to prices, far higher than those without children (34%). A quarter (25%) of parents say they have skipped meals over the past year, more than those without children (15%).

The new polling comes as food prices have become the main source of spiralling inflation.

The Liberal Democrats are calling for an expansion of free school meals to the 800,000 children in poverty who don’t currently receive them, along with extra help for farmers with their energy bills to help bring food prices down.

The party has also led the way in calling for an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority into potential profiteering by supermarkets and food multinationals.

Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey said:

These shocking findings are a damning verdict on this Conservative government’s record on the cost of living crisis. Jeremy Hunt has sat on his hands while food prices spiral out of control, forcing parents to make heartbreaking decisions.

Enough is enough, Conservative ministers must act now to tackle soaring food bills before more families suffer. That means immediately expanding free school meals, giving farmers more support with their energy bills and cracking down on profiteering by the big supermarkets.