UK has lowest long-term poverty rate in EU

BRITONS are the least likely in Europe to be mired in long-term poverty, an official report found yesterday.

It said the UK had the lowest rates of long-lasting poverty in the EU, and that Britons pulled themselves out of hardship faster than the citizens of any other European country.

The findings said fewer than one in 20 in this country remained poor over the four years that began in 2012.

The verdict is at odds with the claim made during the election that Britain suffers high rates of poverty and inequality.

At the weekend, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn won cheers from crowds at the Glastonbury festival, where the cheapest ticket was £243, when he asked: ‘Is it right that so many people live in such poverty, in a society surrounded by such riches?’

The report, published by the Office for National Statistics, said: ‘Of those who were in poverty at least once in the fouryear period, across all EU states the UK had the largest proportion of individuals who were in poverty for just one year, and the smallest proportion who were in poverty for all four years.’

The Whitehall analysis contrasts with the claims of poverty lobbyists who claim large numbers of Britons are permanently on the breadline.

Last year Oxfam said ‘one in five people live below the poverty line and struggle to pay their bills and put food on the table’.

The ONS report measured numbers living below an income of less than 60 per cent of the national average, which puts the poverty line at just over £300 a week.

It said the British persistent poverty rate, measured not over the full four-year period, but based on those who are poor now and were for two out of the previous three years, was 7.3 per cent in 2015.

This measure meant that 4.6 million people – around one in 14 rather than one in five – were stuck in long-term poverty.