The government has been urged to invest £12.8 billion a year in affordable housing

About 130,000 families are living in one-bedroom flats and children are sleeping three to a bed as their parents spend the night in the kitchen or hall.

The National Housing Federation (NHF) estimated that 1.3 million children in England — more than one in ten — were living in overcrowded homes.

They are said to be overcrowded if a child has to share a bedroom with two or more siblings or sleep in the same room as their parents or share with a teenager of the opposite sex.

About 96,000 more children are living in overcrowded homes today than were a decade ago, the report from the NHF said.

Using data from the English Housing Survey supplemented by a Comres poll of families living in