Human Rights Watch Submission to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

1. We write in advance of the 77th Session of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Committee) regarding its review of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland’s (UK) compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR). Human Rights Watch has dedicated considerable attention in recent years to researching and advocating on economic, social and cultural rights in the UK, including the right to food and cuts to social security during the establishment and implementation of the flagship Universal Credit program; increasing child poverty linked to the “two-child limit” social security policy; harms caused by the use of algorithms in social security benefit calculations under Universal Credit; the ongoing misuse of so-called “temporary accommodation” to address homelessness; the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on the right to education for all children and access to free school meals for children from low-income families; and the provision of age-based social care.[1] We have also made multiple interventions on the inadequacy of social security benefits, including in the context of the economic slowdown precipitated by state responses to the Covid-19 pandemic, and, more recently, the cost-of-living crisis.[2]
2. This submission is limited in scope to specific aspects of the State Party’s response to the Committee’s List of Issues where we consider that the Committee would benefit from further clarification of the information provided by the UK government, including in relation to the following:

• the non-incorporation of ICESCR protections into domestic law and lack of effective means for seeking a remedy where an ICESCR violation is alleged;
• changes to the measurement of poverty;
• enactment of the socio-economic equality duty;
• key aspects of social security policy and programs;
• food insecurity and a national food strategy; and
• continuing concerns about the inappropriate use of “temporary accommodation” for homeless families and contingency asylum accommodation, in particular relating to children.[3]

3. This submission also provides some updates to information contained within our pre-sessional submission (January 2023) and statement (March 2023), where there have been noteworthy developments, including areas of continuing concern, as well as positive steps announced by the current UK government, which took office in July 2024.[4]

Justiciability of ICESCR Rights (art 2.1)

4. In response to the Committee’s question requesting information on the full justiciability of economic, social and cultural rights under the Covenant, with specific response to the 2021 judgment of the UK Supreme Court in the case of R (SC & Others), the State Party fails to provide a clear or full response. The UK government summarizes the position in the 2021 Supreme Court judgment as follows:

“The UK is confident that it is fully compliant with its UN treaty obligations including ensuring effective remedies where required by any breaches […] The case of R (SC & Others) recognised the long-standing constitutional position that domestic courts cannot enforce unincorporated international treaties. The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) gives further domestic effect to the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). However, the Supreme Court also recognised that the UK intends to be bound by international treaties and that the European Court can have regard to international law in interpreting the ECHR and establishing consensus among States.”[5]

5. The government’s response is a formally correct statement of the position in UK law, but it evades the Committee’s question and obfuscates on the issue of justiciability. At present, in the absence of incorporation of the ICESCR, there is no domestic remedy available for any alleged violation of an ICESCR right as a covenant right in and of itself. In the hypothetical scenario the government hints at, the only potential route for bringing ICESCR obligations to bear on the UK through the courts would be for an individual to litigate a case alleging a violation under the ECHR to the European Court of Human Rights, and hope that the European Court considers ICESCR as relevant to its interpretation of the ECHR. It is important to note that such a route would limit the ICESCR’s relevance almost exclusively to the interpretation of a civil or political right under the ECHR, except in the rare and narrow instance where a case were to raise the right to education under ECHR Protocol No. 1. In neither event would the case primarily be concerned with the justiciability of ICESCR rights.
6. In addition to the absence of enforceable remedies to ICESCR violations in domestic courts, the UK government’s failure to ratify the Optional Protocol to the ICESCR leaves people who allege violations of rights under the Covenant without a route to petition the Committee directly.
7. Furthermore, given the UK government’s reliance on the European human rights architecture to justify its position, the Committee should note that while the ECHR has been incorporated into UK domestic law since 1998, the UK government still has not ratified its social and economic rights counterpart treaty, the (Revised) European Social Charter 1996, or accepted the collective complaints procedure under that treaty.
8. In sum, the UK government position on justiciability falls well short of “achieving progressively the full realization of the rights recognized in the Covenant by all appropriate means, including particularly the adoption of legislative measures” (ICESCR art, 2.1). It is clear that for the UK government and courts, economic, social and cultural rights are, at best, relegated to second-order concerns which may, in limited circumstances, be considered where relevant by a European court.
9. Meanwhile devolved authorities in Scotland have paused their plans to incorporate the ICESCR into Scots law through the proposed Human Rights Bill for Scotland.[6]
10. The UK government has not extended the application of the Covenant to the overseas territories of Anguilla and the Chagos islands (the British Indian Ocean Territory). Regarding Chagos, it classifies the territory as not having a permanent population, despite the UK government having forcibly removed the entire Indigenous population in the 1960s and 1970s and ever since prevented their return, a crime against humanity, leaving the entire population in exile from their homeland, and many Chagossians living in extreme poverty.[7]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee ask the UK government to:

• incorporate the ICESCR, including by adopting legislation applicable to all parts of the UK, and its overseas territories and crown dependencies; and
• take steps to ratify the Optional Protocol given the current absence of routes through domestic law to make Covenant rights justiciable.

Changes to measuring poverty, and enacting the socioeconomic equality duty (art 2.1)

11. The UK government’s answer to the Committee’s question on the “proportion of the population living below the nationally defined poverty line” is correct, but omits mention of one potentially promising development.[8] We encourage the Committee to seek information from the UK government during the interactive dialogue and follow up to concluding observations about the changing measurement of poverty in official statistics. The UK Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) is in the process of developing a new measure for relative poverty, the “Below Average Resources” measure, to complement the existing “Household Below Average Income” measure.[9] Human Rights Watch considers this change to be a potentially positive development, which, if implemented well, could offer a more holistic measure of relative poverty that better correlates with measures of material deprivation and food insecurity.
12. The current UK government’s confirmation to the Committee that it intends to enact the “socioeconomic inequality duty” contained in the Equality Act 2010 in England is a clear, positive step.[10] The duty would require all public bodies to “have due regard” to reducing inequalities of outcome which result from socioeconomic disadvantage when making strategic decisions.[11] However, the definition of “socioeconomic disadvantage,” and the process by which the UK government will apply the duty in England and to Great Britain-wide bodies alongside versions of the duty already enacted by devolved authorities in Scotland and Wales, require significant clarification to assess how well the legislative step would work.

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee:

• commend the UK government for its plans to improve the measurement of poverty, and to enact the socioeconomic equality duty; and
• seek clarification during the interactive dialogue on the definition of socioeconomic disadvantage and the enactment of the duty across the territory of United Kingdom.

Social security programs and policy (art 9 and 11)

13. Inadequacy of Universal Credit: The inadequacy of levels of social security support under Universal Credit, and their falling real value in relation to living costs, are a longstanding matter of concern and the central issue for a national campaign with wide-ranging support. Human Rights Watch, along with other leading human rights organizations in the UK, supports this campaign – known as the “Guarantee our Essentials” campaign. It is coordinated by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a leading UK anti-poverty charity, and the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank network.[12] The campaign calls for an independent assessment of the adequacy of social security benefits, and a guarantee in law to ensure that no one’s level of social security benefit falls below the level of adequacy established by the independent process, even when social security payments are partially withheld as the result of a sanction applied against a benefit claimant.
14. Inflation-indexing of social security benefits: The following information may be of interest to the Committee in response to its request to the State Party for information on inflation-indexing of social security benefits to guarantee a level of benefit sufficient to ensure an adequate standard of living.[13] Although the government’s assertion that the “Secretary of State for Work and Pensions is required by law to review benefit and pension rates every year to see if they have retained their value in relation to the general level of prices or earnings” is formally true, officially published data make clear that this legal requirement may not result in a meaningful difference for people on low-incomes receiving such benefits, because the government retains discretion as to whether or not adjust social security payments as a result.[14] The real value of Universal Credit actually fell from 2015 to 2023 for every category of recipient for which the UK government provides data. This was despite an increase of 10.1 percent (indexed to inflation) in statutory benefit payments in 2023 (as well as more modest increases in 2022 and 2021), and a short-lived 2020-21 pandemic-linked “uplift” of £20 per week to benefit levels.
15. The two-child limit policy: The current UK government has elected to retain for the time being the “two-child limit” social security policy, put in place by the previous government in 2017, despite clear evidence that the policy is a driver of child poverty and of violations under the ICESCR. The two-child limit, legislated for in the Welfare and Work Reform Act 2016, is an arbitrary social security policy, that cuts off child-related social security support (under Universal Credit or Child Tax Credit) to low-income households which have a third or subsequent child born after April 6, 2017.[15] Larger families are left with fewer resources as their need increases.
16. Official data published in July 2024 show that 440,000 families are affected by this arbitrary policy.[16] The specialist organization Child Poverty Action Group notes that these families are losing out on up to £3,455 in social security support per child per year, and has published analysis estimating that around 10,000 children fell into poverty within the first three months of the new UK government taking office as a result of the continued operation of this policy.[17]
17. The benefit cap policy: The Committee should also note that the current government has retained the benefit cap, or the absolute limit on the income that a household can receive in social security benefits, a policy created by its predecessors which has a stark, negative effect on low-income households. While the State Party report notes that the benefit cap increased by 10.1 percent in in April 2023 following a 2022 review, this figure masks a fall in the real and nominal value of the benefit cap.[18]
18. The value of the benefit cap has reduced not just in real terms, but also in nominal terms since its original introduction in 2013, resulting in people facing poverty and financial hardship as a direct result of governmental policy decisions, which analysts have referred to as “state-imposed hardship”.[19] When introduced in 2013, the benefit cap was £26,000 per year for a family. However, ten years on, the government had reduced the cap to £25,323 per year in London, and £22,020 elsewhere in the UK.[20]
19. According to official data, 123,000 households were affected by the benefit cap in May 2024, with a sharp (61 percent) increase in the number of households having their benefits capped between February and May 2024, largely due to the 10.1 percent increase in 2023.[21]
20. Winter fuel payments: The State Party refers in its response to Winter Fuel Payments as one mechanism among others to help address the cost of living. The Committee should note that in July 2024, a month prior to its submission of the State Party report, the government announced a retrogressive move, changing the Winter Fuel Payment of £200 or £300 from a universal entitlement for all people aged 66 or over to a means-tested entitlement for older people on low-incomes receiving a form of basic support called Pension Credit.[22] The government subsequently confirmed that it had decided to make the change without a specific impact assessment of its impact on older people’s health and well-being.[23]
21. The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions made public internal statistical modelling by her ministry, in response to questioning by a parliamentary select committee in November. The models show that the government estimates an additional 50,000 to 100,000 pensioners to fall into relative poverty, and 50,000 into absolute poverty, as a result of the policy’s operation in each year between 2024/25 and 2029/30.[24]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee call on the UK government to:

• immediately end the two-child limit and benefit cap policies;
• commit to setting up an independent mechanism to evaluate the adequacy of social security benefit level, and to take steps once such an adequacy level has been established, to ensure that no recipient of such benefits is left below it; and
• reverse the decision on the Winter Fuel Payment.

Food insecurity, national food strategy and right to food (art 11)

22. In its List of Issues, the Committee sought a response from the State Party on the “measures taken to develop a comprehensive national strategy to promote and protect the right to adequate food.”[25] The UK government’s response addresses a number of issues including food insecurity measurement, existing schemes for promoting healthy food, and free school meals for children from low-income households.[26]
23. In December 2024, media sources and key food industry and food policy commentators reported that the Minister for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs would begin work in 2025 to develop a UK-wide national food strategy, involving devolved authorities, that will address food insecurity.[27] The details of the strategy have not yet been made public.
24. The Department for Environment, Farming and Rural Affairs released a promised analysis of food insecurity and food bank use, including data disaggregated by various characteristics (household income band, age, disability, urban/rural, social security support received, etc.).[28] The data showed increasing food insecurity over a three year period, with food insecurity particularly affecting people in the lowest two income quintiles and households with an adult with disabilities.[29] The data also showed that these trends as closely linked to households most likely to seek charitable food aid.[30]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee:

• seek clarification from the UK government during the interactive dialogue on its steps in the national food strategy to reduce the need for food aid provision; and
• call on the UK government to ensure that its responses to food insecurity and growing demand for food aid meet its obligations with regard to the right to food, and more broadly the right to an adequate standard of living.

Temporary accommodation and contingency asylum accommodation (art 11)

25. Human Rights Watch and the Childhood Trust have documented the impact on children of long periods in substandard and uninhabitable temporary accommodation, including on their rights to adequate housing, health, and education under the ICESCR.[31] Human Rights Watch and Just Fair have also documented the impact on families and unaccompanied children seeking asylum of extended periods in contingency hotel accommodation.[32]
26. In its List of Issues, the Committee sought a response from the State Party on the use of “temporary accommodation,” in particular the maximum length of time spent in temporary accommodation, and the measures in place for people in temporary accommodation to transition to longer-term housing.[33] The information provided by the UK government does not provide a response to either question. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of people who have been placed in “temporary” accommodation for several years, and in one case for six years.[34]
27. The Committee also sought information from the State Party on the maximum length of time spent in asylum reception centers and other temporary facilities and the measures in place to transition to more stable housing.[35] The information provided in the UK government’s response does not provide clear information on the maximum length of time in conditions such as contingency hotel accommodation, or about transition to longer-term solutions, saying instead:

“Initial accommodation is usually shared accommodation in a hostel-type environment or hotel. It is for asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute […] Asylum seekers who have been granted support from the Home Office may remain in initial accommodation until there is space in dispersal accommodation. Dispersal accommodation is longer-term temporary accommodation managed by accommodation providers on behalf of the Home Office. Asylum seekers will normally be allowed to stay in dispersal accommodation until their asylum claim has been fully determined. It is not always possible to stay in the same property.”[36]

28. The Home Office has previously informed the Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration that it had “an internal target of 19 days for completing consideration of eligibility for, and implementation of, movement to dispersal accommodation,” although the Inspector found people staying in hotels for months at a time as a result of a shortage of available accommodation.[37]
29. In the absence of clear information on maximum time lengths people seeking asylum can be placed in temporary accommodation, the Committee may also find it useful, as a proxy, to have recent information on the wait time for an initial asylum decision in the UK. Researchers from the Migration Observatory have estimated, based on 2011-2023 data obtained under a Freedom of Information Act request, that 78 percent of people had to wait a year or longer for an initial asylum decision, and 14 percent had to wait for three years or longer. The same study also found the average wait time for an initial asylum decision in 2022 to be 20.1 months.[38]
30. Recent research by Human Rights Watch and Just Fair has documented the unsuitability of hotel accommodation for both unaccompanied children and families with children seeking asylum.[39]

Human Rights Watch recommends that the Committee call on the UK to:

• create a time-bound action plan with a formal target to reduce the number of children in temporary accommodation by ensuring families are transitioned to permanent housing;
• end the use of hotel accommodation for unaccompanied children;
• rigorously apply the 19-day target for moving families with children to dispersal accommodation, in recognition of the reality that contingency hotel accommodation is not suitable housing for children in families beyond very short-term stays; and
• ensure that the timing and location of all accommodation assignments respects, protects, and fulfils children's right to education without interruption.