Millions of Britons in extreme poverty - report

Extreme forms of poverty thought to exist only in the developing world are now prevalent in Britain, a report said yesterday

Extreme forms of poverty thought to exist only in the developing world are now prevalent in Britain, a report said yesterday. Absolute poverty is on the increase and five million people are now suffering from severe deprivation of basic human needs, the Breadline Europe study found.

The condition - which was defined by the UN at the 1995 World Summit on Social Development in Copenhagen - includes lack of food, safe drinking water, sanitation facilities, health, shelter, education and information.

British welfare benefit rates are now significantly lower than the incomes needed to avoid absolute poverty, according to the report funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council.

Co-editor Prof Peter Townsend, professor of international social policy at the London School of Economics, said: "The UK has become the special case of Europe.

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"Some observers believe that, under successive governments, the country has been going so far down the road of residualising welfare that it has become detached from most of the other European states and is following lamely in the wake of the US."

The highest rates of absolute poverty were found among lone parents. More than two fifths (41 per cent) with one child have incomes below the minimum £163 a week, and more than half with two or more children have less than the requisite amount. Of households with two adults and one child, 15 per cent have less than the essential £205 a week.

A quarter of single pensioners have to survive on less than the fundamental amount of £106 a week.