Dr. Mike Brewer:

I am the interim chief executive of the Resolution Foundation, a think-tank devoted to securing improvements in living standards for low-to-middle income households. Before working here, I had roles as an academic and at a research institute. In all of these roles, I studied the impact and operation of the tax and benefits system.

I will say three quick things. First, I confess that in the 2000s, I was a supporter of the idea of combining the UK’s different benefit programmes into one. This was because we could see the downside that having so many programmes was having on claimants, in terms of the complexity, compliance costs and poor take-up rates. That does not mean I am a devoted cheerleader of universal credit now. Second, I will outline two things that might come up in our discussion. The first is that universal credit is, of course, not the only way in which one could design a single integrated system that combines in-work benefits and out-of-work benefits. The design of universal credit has changed a lot since it was first proposed by the UK Government in 2010. Also, the world has changed since universal credit was introduced. Indeed, UC was designed in the 2000s when the context in the UK was that the key labour market issues were unemployment and workless households but unemployment is now very low and more people are in insecure or volatile work. The reason that people are not working is not unemployment any more, but ill-health and caring responsibilities. The UK has changed in the past 15 years. The nature of work and the nature of not being in work has changed. What might be found from some of the evidences, is that perhaps universal credit has not quite adapted to that. I will leave it there so we can have time for members' questions.