Support for rural businesses
A debate on support for rural businesses will take place in Westminster Hall on 18 June 2025 at 2:30pm. The Library will publish briefing materials ahead of the debate.

This briefing explains UK poverty statistics, including historical trends and forecasts, and poverty by employment, tenure, ethnicity, disability and region.
Poverty in the UK: statistics (820 KB , PDF)
The focus in this briefing is on poverty defined in terms of disposable household income (income after adding benefits and deducting direct taxes). However, poverty may be defined in different ways and there is no single, universally accepted definition.
Two commonly used measures of poverty based on disposable income are:
Median income is the point at which half of households have lower income and half have higher income.
Income can be measured before or after housing costs are deducted.
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) data shows that around 17% people in the UK were in relative low income (relative poverty) before housing costs in 2023/24. This rises to 21% once housing costs are accounted for.
15% of people in the UK were in absolute low income before housing costs in 2023/24, and 18% were in absolute low income (absolute poverty) after housing costs.
Over the longer-term, poverty rates have reduced since the late 1990s for children, pensioners, and working-age parents. However, for working-age adults without dependent children the likelihood of being in relative low income has increased.
The Resolution Foundation, a living standards think tank, predicted in August 2024 that if there was no change to economic forecasts or policies from the 2024 election, an extra 1.5 million people including 400,000 children would be in relative poverty after housing costs in 2029/30, from a rate for all individuals of 22% in 2024/25 to 23% in 2029/30.
The DWP modelled the effect of the changes made to benefits in March 2025, including changes to PIP entitlements, Universal Credit Health and Work Capability Assessment and found that these changes mean an additional 250,000 people in relative poverty after housing costs in 2029/30, compared to a scenario where these changes were not made.
The government formed a Child Poverty Taskforce in August 2024, which will publish a strategy in Spring 2025, “to reduce and alleviate child poverty”.
The following groups had the highest rates of relative poverty after housing costs in 2023/24:
There is debate about whether income is the best way to measure poverty. The Social Metrics Commission (SMC) proposed basing the measure on the extent that someone’s resources meet their needs. This accounts for differences among households such as costs of childcare and disability, savings, and access to assets. The DWP have developed a new measure called Below Average Resources (BAR), using the framework suggested by the SMC.
A research project funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, a poverty charity, estimates a Minimum Income Standard: the level of income needed to meet a minimum acceptable standard of living each year.
Measures like material deprivation and destitution provide an insight into how many people are unable to afford essentials.
Poverty in the UK: statistics (820 KB , PDF)
A debate on support for rural businesses will take place in Westminster Hall on 18 June 2025 at 2:30pm. The Library will publish briefing materials ahead of the debate.
An overview of the employment rights and support available to informal carers, and public policy reviews on this topic in recent years.
Unemployment data tells us about the strength of the labour market. Find the latest data on unemployment in several major world economies.