Resolution Foundation Event Recordings

Catch up on a recording of our recent event discussing the outlook ahead of the Chancellor's Spring Forecast.
The Autumn Budget was barely three months ago, but the UK has experienced plenty of economic and political drama since then. In the short time between OBR forecasts, there have been encouraging signs on the public finances and the outlook for inflation. But growth remains sluggish and uncertainty elevated amid rising geopolitical tensions. There are some signs of productivity ‘green shoots’, but the risk is they are indicative of higher unemployment.
 
Speakers
Karen Ward - Managing Director at JPMorgan Asset Management
Yael Selfin - Vice Chair and Chief Economist KPMG in the UK
Andy King - Specialist Partner at Flint Global
James Smith - Chief Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Ruth Curtice - Chief Executive at the Resolution Foundation (Chair)

Britain does not feel like a nation at ease – and hasn’t done for a very long while. By more than two-to-one, Britons last year judged the country to be on the “wrong track” rather than heading in the “right direction”. Ruth Curtice, the Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation, discusses the experiences and prospects for the nation's poorer half with Scarlett Maguire and Tom Clark.

The Resolution Foundation has documented two decades of UK economic underperformance and stagnant living standards.
 
18 months into a government elected on a mandate of change and growth, and following the publication of Mountain climbing, we're assessing their growth strategy – its intentions, its achievements, and its prospects moving ahead into an uncertain world. Lord David Willetts, the President of the Resolution Foundation, is joined by Sophie Hale, Research Director at the Resolution Foundation, and Anna Leach, Chief Economist at the Institute of Directors.

The UK has made good progress towards net zero in recent decades. But the agriculture sector stands out as having made barely any progress. To meet our legally-binding climate targets, agriculture and land use will need to decarbonise seven times quicker this decade than in the past 15 years. Fundamental changes to how we make food and use land will be needed. But decarbonisation in this area is hard and any efforts will need to overcome considerable political and living standards barriers to reform.
 
How can policy makers meet the decarbonisation challenge while protecting living standards for farmers and consumers, while also upholding food security? How can better-designed land-use policy play a role? How should the sector’s generous subsidy system be overhauled? And who should pay for greening food production?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of our latest policy proposals on the farming sector, we will hear from leading experts on the challenges of cutting emissions from food production, reshaping how land is used, and how to take a living standards-first approach to these.

The roll out of Universal Credit began way back in April 2013, a process that has been beset by delays, design changes, controversy and criticism from across the political spectrum. But 13 years on, the roll out is almost complete and Universal Credit is here to stay. As we approach this crucial milestone and the Government is undertaking its own internal review of the benefit, now is a good opportunity to take fresh look at UC’s design and structure and ask what operational changes could be made to improve the experience and outcomes for the seven million families claiming UC today.
How could changes to Universal Credit improve income stability for its claimants? How could the interaction between the benefit system and work be smoother? What could be done to improve trust in Universal Credit? And can make Universal Credit be made to work better without breaking the bank?

Resolution Foundation Research Director Lindsay Judge talks you through the learnings from recent benefit reforms in Scotland, joined by Louise Murphy and Ben Geiger. Read 'Delivering dignity' on our website today to learn more.

Adult social care is a vital public service. But this is not reflected in the pay and job quality on offer for England’s 1.5 million social care workers. Low-pay, zero-hours contracts, and breaches of labour market rules are worryingly widespread, and have contributed to a longstanding recruitment and retention crisis. The Government has rightly sought to address this by setting up a new Adult Social Care Negotiating Body (ASCNB), that brings together workers and employers to draw up a Fair Pay Agreement (FPA). But there are still big questions about how to turn this worthy ambition into deliverable improvements across the sector.
How can the ASCNB be set up quickly while delivering lasting improvements to care workers’ conditions? Which workers should be covered by the FPA, and what terms and conditions should be included? And how should the FPA be enforced in a sector currently rife with labour market non-compliance?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person event and interactive webinar to debate and discuss these questions. Following a presentation of the key recommendations from a new Resolution Foundation report, we will hear from leading experts on the key policy questions the Government needs to resolve to ensure the success of the Adult Social Care Negotiating Body and Fair Pay Agreement.

Immigration is one of the most salient and polarised issues among the British public – and one that successive Government policy initiatives have failed to resolve. Now central to the UK’s political debate, the issue regularly makes headlines and is used as a device by parties to win public opinion. Seen by some as a missing part of the UK’s growth strategy, and by others as having gone too far, any discussions are often binary and divisive. And while politicians recognise the need to get immigration policy right; they continue to be torn over what strategy is best, let alone how to deliver it.
In his latest book Why Immigration Policy Is Hard, Professor of Economics at the LSE and former Chair of the Migration Advisory Committee Alan Manning makes the case that while immigration policy will never satisfy everyone, that doesn’t mean it can’t be (and needs to be) done much better. Using cutting-edge international research, Alan seeks to inform debate by first building a picture of migration across the world, then assessing the issue from both the migrant and receiving countries’ perspective. Alan then assesses options for policy design, pushing for decisions to be made even where there are difficult trade-offs.