UK’s austerity policy ‘has driven people into poverty’
Back to Topic
Click to Print
Useful Websites
Glossary Term Selection
An “ideological” pursuit of austerity has replaced Britain’s social safety net with a “harsh and uncaring ethos”, according to the UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston.
By Dominic Brady
The government has “remained determinedly in a state of denial” about the scale of poverty in the UK, Alston’s scathing report for the UN, released today, has said.
“The results of the austerity experiment are crystal clear,” the special rapporteur wrote in his analysis, following an official visit to the country in November 2018.
“There are 14 million people living in poverty, record levels of hunger and homelessness, falling life expectancy for some groups, ever fewer community services, and greatly reduced policing, while access to the courts for lower-income groups has been dramatically rolled back by cuts to legal aid.”
He claimed local authorities throughout the country have been “abandoning” services but despite some “reluctant policy tweaks” the government has a “deeply in...
Want to see the rest of this article?
Would you like to see the rest of this article and all the other benefits that Issues Online can provide with?
- Useful related articles
- Video and multimedia references
- Statistical information and reference material
- Glossary of terms
- Key Facts and figures
- Related assignments
- Resource material and websites
