Director Matthew Oakley gives evidence at Work and Pensions Select Committee

Matthew Oakley, along with Baroness Philippa Stroud (Chairman of the Social Metrics Commission), gave evidence to the committee 16th January 2019.

The committee, chaired by Frank Field, is conducting an enquiry into the effectiveness of the UK’s welfare system in protecting people against hardship and chronic deprivation.

Matthew and Philippa explained how the Social Metrics Commission devised the new poverty metric, and discussed the importance of looking at ‘Poverty Now’ to measure poverty in the UK. They also discussed the differences between and improvements made on previous and existing measures of poverty in the country, and what the profile of people in poverty looks like using the metric.

MPs present included Nigel Mills, Heidi Allen and Chris Stephens.