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Morning Briefing: UK social safety net ‘deliberately removed’, says UN report
Cuts and welfare reforms have “deliberately removed” the UK’s social safety net causing “systematic” poverty, according to a report commissioned by the United Nations
In the news
In his final report on poverty in the UK published today, Philip Alston, UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said that “much of the glue that has held British society together since the Second World War has been deliberately removed and replaced with a harsh and uncaring ethos”, per the BBC.
He also compared Universal Credit to “a digital and sanitised version” of Victorian workhouses.
The Department for Work and Pensions said the report was “barely believable”.
In Scotland, The Guardian reports that the Poverty and Inequality Commission has warned that the Scottish government will miss its own targets on child poverty unless it substantially increases investment.
And Scottish government ministers have been urged to set a new target for accessible housing after it emerged that the number of disabled people on the country’s council housing waiting lists has almost doubled in two years, according to The Scotsman.
Meanwhile, Reuters has conducted a poll which concluded that Britain’s housing market “has so far weathered” uncertainty about leaving the EU, but that prices will fall in London this year.
The South Wales Argus reports that a family waiting to move into a housing association home at a development in Abergavenny is sleeping on a relative’s floor months after they were due to move in because of developer delays.
ITV News has covered the story of a tower owned by Hyde which has been covered in plastic for nearly a year while cladding removal work is carried out.
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Elsewhere, The Conversation website has published an article linking the Grenfell Tower disaster to the decline of local journalism in the area.
In south-east London, tenants of a Riverside-owned estate have voted overwhelmingly in favour of their estate being demolished and replaced in a ballot, according to the Bromley Times.
Chronicle Live reports that Home Group is due to report on a trial of five different types of construction it has been conducting at its Gateshead Innovation Village today.
In Derbyshire, a Conservative MP has backed a newly elected Labour council’s bid to scrap its local plan over green belt sites included by the previous Conservative administration, per Derbyshire Live.
Trade publication Investment Trust Insider carries a piece from ReSI Capital Management, owner of ReSI, arguing that shared ownership homes will plug the UK’s housing gap.
Finally, the BBC has uploaded a video showing what a house would like if it was designed using algorithms and machines.
On social media
Although ’residualisation’ in social housing has receded recently, levels of economic activity in social housing lag behind those of other tenures. Social renters are also more likely to be employed in routine or semi-routine occupations. #ukhousing t.co/3M7BG0PoKD pic.twitter.com/MeU8MlMFF6
— Human City Institute (@HumanCityInst)Although 'residualisation' in social housing has receded recently, levels of economic activity in social housing lag behind those of other tenures. Social renters are also more likely to be employed in routine or semi-routine occupations. #ukhousing https://t.co/3M7BG0PoKD pic.twitter.com/MeU8MlMFF6
— Human City Institute (@HumanCityInst) May 22, 2019
What’s on
- The Work and Pensions Select Committee will hold an evidence session on Universal Credit and ‘survival sex’ starting at 10.05am
- Housing and homelessness minister Heather Wheeler will appear at a session by the joint committee for the Draft Domestic Abuse Bill at 4.15pm
- The annual Housing First Scotland conference on homelessness will be held in Edinburgh today, with first minister Nicola Sturgeon among the speakers
