A UN report into extreme poverty in the UK is a “damning indictment of the government’s austerity choices”, the leader of St Helens Council has said.

Philip Alston, the UN’s rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, said poverty in the UK is a “political choice”, with the government inflicting “great misery” on its citizens with its austerity policies.

According to his analysis, around 14 million people live in poverty in the UK and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials.

Prof Alston said the costs of austerity have fallen “disproportionately” upon the poor, women, racial and ethnic minorities, children, single parents, and people with disabilities.

Local authorities have also been “gutted” by a series of government policies, the human rights law expert said.

In response to the analysis, St Helens Council leader Derek Long said: “This report is a damning indictment of the government’s austerity choices.

“Halving St Helens’ budget for tax cuts for the rich at a time when demand for services such as children’s and adults’ social care is rising is completely heartless.

“Residents are not fooled.

“Like the UN, they know that government cuts are undermining the local services they value, like schools, roads, libraries, waste collection and the 1,000 other roles we are required to fulfil from a dwindling budget.”

Prof Alston produced the report following a 12-day fact-finding mission across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

Prof Alston writes in the report: “The UK is the world’s fifth largest economy, it contains many areas of immense wealth, its capital is a leading centre of global finance, its entrepreneurs are innovative and agile, and despite the current political turmoil, it has a system of government that rightly remains the envy of much of the world

“It thus seems patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty.

“This is obvious to anyone who opens their eyes to see the immense growth in foodbanks and the queues waiting outside them, the people sleeping rough in the streets, the growth of homelessness, the sense of deep despair that leads even the government to appoint a Minister for suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard of levels of loneliness and isolation.

“And local authorities, especially in England, which perform vital roles in providing a real social safety net have been gutted by a series of government policies.

“Libraries have closed in record numbers, community and youth centres have been shrunk and underfunded, public spaces and buildings including parks and recreation centres have been sold off.”

The scathing 24-page report will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next year.

A spokesman rebuked Prof Alston’s analysis, saying household incomes were at a record high, income inequality had fallen, and that universal credit was supporting people into work faster.

In the report, Prof Alston said that while universal credit represented a “potentially major improvement” in the benefits system at its conception, in reality it is fast falling into “universal discredit”.

The report concludes by asserting that austerity could have spared the poor, “if the political will had existed to do so”.

Prof Alston writes: “The experience of the United Kingdom, especially since 2010, underscores the conclusion that poverty is a political choice.

“Austerity could easily have spared the poor, if the political will had existed to do so.

“Resources were available to the Treasury at the last budget that could have transformed the situation of millions of people living in poverty, but the political choice was made to fund tax cuts for the wealthy instead.”