The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is once again facing the prospect of a UN investigation. Because the UN has just received a swathe of complaints about the DWP.
The DWP: facing the UN again
As The Canary‘s Tracy Keeling reported in June:
"The UN has launched an almighty investigation into the Conservative government… The UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Prof Philip Alston, will lead an inquiry on the impact of the government’s austerity policies over the last eight years…"
Alston will embark on a fact-finding mission to the UK in the autumn…
The probe will be the UN’s first in a western European country in over half a decade.
Alston will visit the UK from 5-16 November. So he laid out specific areas on which he wanted submissions to focus (you can read them here). Of the 30 topics and questions covered, 10 related to welfare; five of those being Universal Credit. Many of the submissions focused on these.
But they also show that many think welfare is key to UK poverty and human rights violations. Because over half the submissions built the DWP into their evidence.
www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2018/09/24/the-dwp-is-now-facing-its-fifth-investigation-by-the-un/