Human Resources Committee on June 17th, 2008

[Prof. David Gordon]

I'm sorry if I misunderstood your question. I wasn't trying to deliberately misunderstand it.

I agree with you entirely. It is obviously far better to help people to help themselves than to give them some kind of minimum income support every week. However, these policies can often be very expensive. It can often be cheaper to give income support every week, at least in the short term. So governments often don't want to invest the money it would require sometimes to help people to help themselves. But even once you have done that--and to a certain extent I think the U.K. government has been pursuing a lot of those kinds of active labour market policies--a significant number of people are still caring for and responsible for disabled adults or disabled children. They really do need income support to have an adequate standard of living, because that care and work really does have to be done.

[Dr. Peter Kenway]

Mr. Lake, could I just add to that? I certainly think that one thing you could not throw at the government we've had for the past ten years--and I'm not suggesting you are--is that it has in any sense thought it was sufficient to give people income support and leave it at that. They have been very vigorous in their active labour market policies, very much along the lines you were suggesting in your contribution a moment ago.

One can always argue about whether they implemented it properly or whether they had the right priorities, but I think in terms of a strategy they have very much been pursuing the sort of thing you were suggesting should be pursued. It's not altogether bad, but as David said, it's expensive. I think you do have to look at the U.K. as perhaps a sign that there's a limit to that as well.

If I may add one more point, which has come up a number of times--it came up in the previous question--about business, our government has not put any demands on business, nor has it really sought to alter the behaviour of business. I think you probably have to do both--try to equip and enable the individuals, but also alter behaviour in business. I think we have pursued a rather one-sided policy there. If you pursued a two-sided policy you might have a bit more success than we have.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Thank you, Dr. Kenway.

Thank you, Mr. Lake.

We would normally go to the NDP, but as I mentioned, Tony Martin is in Ireland doing some work on poverty. Mr. Lessard has offered to take his questions, and I'm afraid I can't allow that. I think Mr. Martin's assistant would like to jump in and ask some questions, and I can't allow that either. So we do have one round left, and I'm going to start with Mrs. Yelich, and perhaps Mr. Brown as well, for five minutes.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Thank you.

I wanted to talk a little bit about some of your strategy on the poverty study, because we are embarking on this study. You didn't really talk about a market basket, except you talked about the fuel poverty, and that still interests us. I want to back up what Jacques said, that the emphasis on fuel poverty should probably be a very important part of our study. Is there any other emphasis we should make? Are there other areas you think would make a huge contribution to this market basket?

When I'm thinking of a market basket I'm thinking about looking at different measurements of poverty. We talked about income and medians, but today you never spoke about a market basket. I don't know if you're familiar with that or if you have used it and you just didn't use that as an analogy. I wanted to know if that's something you have used. Earlier you did speak about some families that maybe don't have the same opportunities, given their situations. I'm just wondering if you have any suggestions for that, studying poverty.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Who wants that one?

[Prof. David Gordon]

Do you want me to answer that, Peter, or do you want to?

[Dr. Peter Kenway]

No, you answer it, David. It's your specialty.

[Prof. David Gordon]

The U.K. government has rejected the idea of using budget standards in order to test the adequacy of the income support rates. In the past in Britain, with the work of Booth and Rowntree, these kinds of studies were used widely. Rowntree's work in the 1930s was used to set the national assistance rates at the foundation of the welfare state. There was some work done in the 1960s then to test the adequacy of the supplementary benefit rates, the income support rates. That work was classified by the government as an official secret, and I think to this day it still remains an official secret.

Market-based measures, project standard measures, are unlikely to be used by the U.K. government in the foreseeable future. There are a number of good academic studies, both in Britain and Europe, using different levels to set the criteria, such as the minimum income you need to maintain healthy living, using the medical criteria on how much you need in order to have exercise and adequate diets. These are very interesting studies if you compare to our income support rates, particularly when it looks at the amounts of money available for families with disabled members, particularly disabled children.

But I think the U.K. government is not going to pursue those measures. The Australian government did look at them recently and also has not used them, because they believe there are too many matters of opinion on what should be included and what shouldn't be included. I think they saw the example of the Russian Duma, where there were big debates in their parliament about how many bras should be included in the basket for women of various ages, and British civil servants shuddered with horror at that.

I think it is worth pursuing, but I don't think it will be pursued actively at the government level in Europe in the foreseeable future.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Good. So the only real recommendation I see coming for a possible accent to our study would be the fuel poverty. That definitely should be a big part of our study. I want to have your comment on that again, because I think it would be a recommendation we should make to the committee to be studying what impact it would have on our people, on our study, and on our attack on poverty. That was my question--if you do think it is very important for us to make it part of our study.

[Dr. Peter Kenway]

I would add that I think the other big thing in the U.K. context that's really important is housing costs. We have two income measures that are fairly standard, both before and after housing costs. They show quite different things. They have very different geographical impacts.

Maybe we aren't going to get a budget standard basis for benefits, but that doesn't mean one shouldn't look at particular areas of costs. I certainly think that in the U.K. housing as an area of expenditure is probably the highest single item now. It's also worth saying that I think it was always housing costs that made it very difficult all the way through history for the budget standard things, right the way back to the work of Sir William Beveridge in the forties. So it's big, and it's definitely important to very many citizens.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Thank you very much.

Do you want to add something quickly, Professor Gordon?

[Prof. David Gordon]

I was going to say I personally think the approach that is being taken in Canada is a very good approach. I think fuel poverty is important. Housing is crucial in the U.K., although maybe not so crucial in the Canadian context.

Another basic utility, like the cost of water, is also something that probably needs to be looked at.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Thank you very much.

I'm just going to ask one question, and that will be the last question.

When we discussed this with your Irish colleagues who were working in government departments on poverty issues, they had indicated there was a broad consensus across the political landscape that poverty was a big issue, and Ireland had some pretty significant success since 1997.

Considering the relative volatility of politics in the U.K. right now, is there a significant difference between Labour and the Conservatives? For example, if David Cameron formed the next government, would there be a different approach to poverty? I wouldn't ask a government official that, but I would ask you two learned fellows that question, for a quick answer.

[Dr. Peter Kenway]

I'll go first and give you a chance, David.

I think the Conservative Party in Britain has only really recognized poverty as an issue since Cameron became leader. Before that they really remained in some sense in denial. It's been an extremely good thing; it's politicized what was previously an apparently technical subject.

I think more than enough noise has been made by the Conservatives in criticizing the Labour government over its failings, so much so that should they get elected in 2009 or 2010, it would not be possible for them to ignore poverty, but I think they will do different things. However, once they get into office--if they get into office--I still think that at quite an early stage they will find that what Labour has done will be largely what the civil service will continue to recommend as being the optimal approach, and it might take them time to do anything radically different.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Go ahead, Professor Gordon.

[Prof. David Gordon]

I agree with Peter. All political parties across the U.K. are signed up to the idea that poverty needs to be reduced and/or eradicated. The Labour government has set its stall out that it should be judged on how well it does, and other parties have responded by taking poverty seriously and testing the government on its claims.

Particularly since David Cameron came in, there has been a dramatic change to the Conservative Party's attitude towards poverty, in that they seem to be willing to pursue rigorous anti-poverty policies, whereas in the past they may not have prioritized that issue.

In the regional assemblies the Welsh nationalists and the Scottish nationalists all give high priority to anti-poverty promises, as do the Northern Ireland parties.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank Professor David Gordon, director of the Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research at the School of Policy Studies, University of Bristol. Thank you, sir. I want to also thank Dr. Peter Kenway, director of the New Policy Institute of London. Thank you both very much for your analysis and expert opinion today. We will be doing some more studies on the U.K. policy towards poverty when we come back in the fall.

I remind committee members of two things: first of all, there is no meeting on Thursday; second, the report on the EI commission was tabled yesterday, and the clerk will be making that available to us in due course.

Since there is no meeting Thursday, I'm sure you would want to join with me in thanking our staff for all the hard work they have done in enabling us to have a good session and doing some good work at this committee.

Mr. Lessard, did you want to say something?

[Yves Lessard, Bloc, Chambly—Borduas, QC]

Mr. Chair, I am not sure if you are aware, but, tomorrow afternoon, the Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development is meeting to watch the film The Invisible Nation. I am sure that you received the invitation. It would perhaps be a good opportunity for our committee to go. It is at 3:30 p.m., but I do not remember the room. We had put Richard Desjardins and his group that made the film on our list of guests for our study on poverty. It is tomorrow at 3:30 p.m. It will last an hour or an hour and a half.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lessard; so noted. We encourage all members to take note of that.

Thank you to the staff. Thank you, members. Enjoy your summer. We'll come back and get serious again about poverty in the fall. Thank you very much.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

I want to thank the vice-chair, who did a good job.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Michael Savage]

The meeting is adjourned.