‘Nearly half’ of UK children in poverty by 2021, UN expert warns

Nearly one in two of the UK’s children will be living in poverty by 2021 if the government remains in denial about the impact of cuts, predicts a United Nations report published today. In his damning report on extreme poverty and human rights, leading UN poverty expert Philip Alston, describes the already bleak life prospects of millions of children and families as a “social calamity”. In the final version of the report, which follows his visit to the UK in November 2018, the special rapporteur compares welfare changes to the Victorian workhouse movement. And he describes the results of the government’s “austerity experiment” as now “crystal clear” – with 14 million people and four million children in poverty. Read more.