UN Committee On Economic, Social And Cultural Rights

EDM number 406 in 2016-17, proposed by Caroline Lucas on 06/09/2016.
Categorised under the topics of Asylum, Benefits policy, Employment, Equality, Homelessness, Housing, Industrial relations, Legal aid, Overseas territories, Pay, Sex discrimination, Taxation and Working age benefits.

That this House notes the concluding observations of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on the UK's sixth periodic report, published by that Committee on 14 July 2016; welcomes the Committee's recommendations to the Government to reverse the cuts in social security benefits introduced by the Welfare Reform Act 2012 and the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016, restore the link between benefit rates and the cost of living, review the use of benefit sanctions, increase the level of welfare support provided to asylum-seekers, adopt measures to address the housing crisis, including measures to reduce homelessness and increase the supply of social housing to take all appropriate measures to tackle the use of exploitative zero-hours contracts and other insecure forms of employment, tackle persistent discrimination against migrant workers, adopt effective measures to eliminate the gender pay gap, review the impact of reforms to the legal aid system and ensure access to justice, abolish employment tribunal fees, intensify its efforts, in coordination with its Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies, address global tax abuse and conduct a comprehensive assessment of the cumulative impact of austerity measures introduced since 2010 on disadvantaged individuals and groups, particularly women, children, disabled people, ethnic minorities, migrants and refugees; and calls on the Government to publish a comprehensive response to the Committee setting out how it will meet those recommendations.

This motion has been signed by a total of 27 MPs.