Human Resources committee  I would just answer that I agree with Peter. Mental health is a big issue, and there has been a massive increase in the prescribing of anti-depression drugs. There has been, and continues to be, major discrimination by employers against employing people who have a history of mental health problems.

Human Resources committee  On the broader picture, we know from comparative studies across Europe that welfare states redistribute money from the rich to poor and from men to women, mainly, but also across the life course, taking money away from the middle-aged and giving it to the elderly, in terms of pensions, and to the young, in terms of family and child benefits.

Human Resources committee  I'm at a slight difficulty here, because we recently did some work for the government on what the likely distributional effect would be if the government brought in an individual carbon level of six tonnes per person and then made people buy carbon credits above that. Our material hasn't been released, so I have to respect its confidentiality.

Human Resources committee  Perhaps I can also respond to that. Unemployment has fallen tremendously since the early nineties, when it was over 3 million. It fell to half a million and it's now at about 800,000. That's using consistent definitions, and of course it depends on the definitions. For all intents and purposes, the unemployment figures of 3% to 4% show full employment.

Human Resources committee  A large part of the relief comes through the pension system. It goes to all seniors as a payment just before Christmas. That's universal. Then there's more targeted relief for seniors claiming various benefits where there are supplements to those benefits. So that does vary a little bit with different programs as well.

Human Resources committee  The people likely to be fuel-poor are those who have very low incomes and those who live in older dwellings, particularly houses built before 1919, or in housing that is in disrepair and has not been modernized. You get two overlapping groups: the poor in terms of income, and those who are in housing that is substandard and inadequate.

Human Resources committee  The definition of fuel poverty is fairly non-contentious, in that families should not have to spend disproportionate amounts of their resources to adequately heat their homes. The contentious bit is how that is measured. It was done based on some work a very long time ago, in the 1970s, by an academic called Brenda Boardman.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much for those intelligent questions. First, I want to deal with the late teens. The government has done much less for this group and for working-age adults than it has done for younger children and the elderly. To a certain extent, the ideology of the poor law still prevails, in that it is easier politically to consider the young and the old as deserving and maybe late teenagers and young people as undeserving, and therefore the government is much more cautious about investing more money in that group.

Human Resources committee  Right. You've asked some very key questions there. The U.K. government's focus on child poverty was in part due to an ideological shift within the Labour Party from a socialist focus on equality of outcome based on need to one more concerned with equality of opportunity. If you're interested in equality of opportunity, you have to invest heavily in children from year zero in order to try to level the playing field and increase the chances of social mobility.

Human Resources committee  Good morning. I'd like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to talk to the Parliament of Canada and this very important committee in its important inquiry. I had hoped to be able to show you slides, but unfortunately, the powerpoint system where I am at the moment is not working.