Poverty rapporteur says removal of £20 a week uplift based on ‘very ill-informed understanding’ of impact
Cutting universal credit by £20 a week is an “unconscionable” move that breaches international human rights law and is likely to trigger an explosion of poverty, the United Nations’ poverty envoy has said.
In an excoriating intervention alongside a letter to the UK government, Olivier De Schutter, the UN-appointed rapporteur on extreme poverty, told the Guardian that the withdrawal of the £1,000-a-year uplift from next month was “deliberately retrogressive” and incompatible with Britain’s obligation to protect its citizens’ rights to an adequate standard of living.
