A/HRC/41/39/Add.1 B. Employment alone is insufficient 26. The Government says work is the solution to poverty and points to record employment rates as evidence that the country is going in the right direction. But the fact that a fifth of the population of the United Kingdom lives in poverty, despite record employment levels, makes clear that employment alone does not keep people out of poverty. 27. Four million workers live in poverty, an increase of more than half a million in the last five years. In-work poverty is rising faster than employment and is higher than any time in the last 20 years, driven by rising poverty among working parents. Half of working-age people in poverty are working,35 and one in six people referred to Trussell Trust food banks is working. 28. Almost 60 per cent of those in poverty in the United Kingdom are in families where someone works, and a shocking 2.8 million people are in poverty in families where all adults work full-time.36 According to the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, 10 per cent of workers over 16 are in insecure employment. 37 And 10 years after the 2008 financial crisis, employees’ median real earnings are, remarkably, still below pre-crisis levels.38 V. Dismantling the social safety net 29. The United Kingdom should be proud of its historically strong safety net. Like public health care and education – services which benefit nearly everyone in the United Kingdom at some point in their lives – the social safety net has supported many Britons during periods of hardship. In fact, a majority of the United Kingdom population will use some form of means-tested benefit over an 18-year period.39 Most British people thus have a personal stake in the social safety net functioning effectively. Yet, it has been systematically and starkly eroded, particularly since 2010, significantly compromising its ability to help people escape poverty. The Special Rapporteur heard time and again about important public programmes being pared down, the loss of institutions that previously protected vulnerable people, social care services at a breaking point, and local government and devolved administrations stretched far too thin. Considering the significant resources available in the country and the sustained and widespread cuts to social support, which have resulted in significantly worse outcomes, the policies pursued since 2010 amount to retrogressive measures in clear violation of the country’s human rights obligations. 30. The ideological rather than economic motivation for the cutbacks is demonstrated by the fact that the United Kingdom spends £78 billion per year to reduce or alleviate poverty, quite apart from the cost of benefits; £1 in every £5 spent on public services goes to repair what poverty has done to people’s lives.40 Cuts to preventive services mean that needs go unmet and people in crisis are pushed toward services that cannot turn them away but cost far more, like emergency rooms and expensive temporary housing. 31. The voluntary sector has done an admirable job of picking up the slack from these cuts. But it is not an adequate substitute for a Government fulfilling its obligations. Food banks cannot do the Government’s job, and teachers – who may very well rely on food banks themselves – are not equipped to ensure that their students have clean clothes and food to eat. 35 36 37 38 39 40 8 Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK Poverty 2018, pp. 4 and 34. Social Metrics Commission, A New Measure of Poverty, p. 86. Equality and Human Rights Commission, Is Britain Fairer? The State of Equality and Human Rights 2018, pp. 38, 46 and 52. Jonathan Cribb and Paul Johnson, “10 years on – have we recovered from the financial crisis?”, Institute for Fiscal Studies, 12 September 2018. Robert Joyce and Barra Roantree, “Who benefits from benefits?”, Institute for Fiscal Studies, 1 March 2018. Glen Bramley and others, Counting the Cost of UK Poverty, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 1 August 2016.