Director Matthew Oakley speaks as panelist at The Spectator and JRF Event

Director of WPI Economics, Matthew Oakley, was a panelist at the Spectator and JRF’s co-organised event entitled “The Conservative Route to Fighting Poverty” on 29th June.

The event, which included a keynote speech by former Conservative Party leader, the Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, and was chaired by Andrew Neill, featured a panel discussion around the topic “How successful have the government welfare reforms been?”, and another panel discussion on social justice and Brexit.

Oakley, who has spent well over a decade working in and around policy making in Westminster, discussed how poverty needs to be addressed by the current government. He highlighted that a) the issue of poverty is extremely complex, b) that the Government has a lack of knowledge of how to successfully combat it, and c) that more is needed to achieve any progress.

Other panelists included: Edward Boyd of the CSJ, Deven Ghelani of Policy in Practice, and Katie Schmuecker of the JRF.

During the Q&A sessions, Oakley explained the need for a relative measure of poverty, and articulated how the government must ensure the correct resources are allocated to the people who need them most.