Human Resources committee  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 wa

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

Human Resources committee  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.

Human Resources committee  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. T

Human Resources committee  Yes, there has been equal pay legislation, but there nevertheless remains a substantial pay gap. David might correct me on this. I think it's possibly a 17% or 18% gender pay gap. However, while gender pay gap and equal pay legislation is extremely important, I suspect that from

Human Resources committee  I'll say a couple of things, then give David a chance. The first point to emphasize is that this rise in the number of lone-parent families, up to about a quarter, has been a very long-term trend. It's tempting to imagine that it is accelerated under the new Labour government he

Human Resources committee  Thank you. I assume that we are moving now into a new era in terms of permanently higher energy costs, and then the consequent actions that we, as scientists, want to take to reduce our energy consumption. And it seems to me, really, with the way we do things in Britain, the cha

Human Resources committee  Shall I go first on that, David? Let me make almost a political observation, not a party political observation. I find that there's a lot more public support for the idea of doing something about fuel poverty than perhaps there is about doing something about the wider forms of

Human Resources committee  Shall I answer that one?

Human Resources committee  The answer is that it's a very big part. And the answer to your other question, I think, is no, it has not in any sense been properly raised. Something we have not really discussed around our tables with you today is the whole situation of disabled people, many of whom have wor

Human Resources committee  I think the government here has been very successful in raising the lone-parent employment rate, and its tax credit system, which is designed to deliver a significant increase in income to a lone parent if they are working 16 hours a week, is definitely a part of that, a scenario

Human Resources committee  Let me add very briefly that from an economic perspective you might want to introduce that type of thing to seek to incentivize people to use less and make more efficient use of energy. What we have to recognize, though, and perhaps this is where having a comprehensive anti-pove

Human Resources committee  The answer to that is a quarter. A quarter of children now live in lone-parent families. This has been the result of a very long, steady rise, from I think about 10% back in the late 1970s.

Human Resources committee  This time I'll have a go at it first; save David for a change. I think it's very important that you look at not only what is counted officially as unemployment, even if you take the ILO measure. Unemployment has fallen substantially. However, the number of people who are economi

Human Resources committee  In answer to that, the main policy involving tax credits is a major labour market intervention. It essentially favours adults with children relative to adults without. Also, arguably one of its criticisms is the subsidy to employers as well as employees. One thing we notice is