Downing Street has hit back at suggestions that the UK is breaching international law, as a UN envoy sharply criticised poverty rates and welfare spending in the country.

The UN’s special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights Olivier De Schutter used an interview with The Guardian to complain that £85 a week from Universal Credit for single adults over 25 is “too low to protect people from poverty”.

He suggested that it breached an the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which guarantees the right of “everyone to social security, including social insurance”.

“The policies in place are not working or not protecting people in poverty, and much more needs to be done for these people to be protected,” he said.

He told the paper that increasing Universal Credit would be “the single most important step that the UK could meet towards meeting its international obligations”.

Number 10 rejected the comments made by Mr De Schutter.

A spokesman for the Prime Minister said: “We simply don’t agree. We know that households are at least £6,000 a year better off in full-time work than out on benefits. And our record on this is clear – there are 1.7 million fewer people in absolute poverty and there are almost 700,000 fewer children growing up in workless households since 2010.

“And we have taken unprecedented levels of support post-pandemic in response to high inflation, not least paying half of people’s energy bill.”

Professor Philip Alston, the previous special rapporteur, made highly critical comments about the UK’s welfare regime in 2018 after a 12-day, nine-city trip to the UK.