Income Inequality

Debate between Lord Lea of Crondall and Lord O'Neill of Gatley

Thursday 21st January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, it is very dangerous to goad someone with my background about data, but there are considerable and widespread data on these matters published completely independently of the Government. In fact, the data show that the so-called Gini coefficient, which is one of the widely accepted global measures of inequality, has been showing a slow decline in British inequality since the mid-1980s, as I said earlier, both at the disposable income level and before disposable income.

[Lord Lea of Crondall (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the Gini coefficient. I was a member for some time of the Royal Commission on the Distribution of Income and Wealth. Obviously, there are different measures. I assure the Minister that we can swap anecdotes about data. But to be specific, is it not long overdue to remove the charity status of the public schools, given the inbuilt inequality of opportunity which that concrete part of our social structure creates?

[Lord O'Neill of Gatley]

My Lords, one of the widely regarded measures shows that inequality may have widened, which is the one that would include the broadest measures of wealth to account for house prices. That is the only one that shows that; all the others, as I have said, show the exact opposite of the tone of most of these questions. That is why we are also focused, as part of the productivity plan and otherwise, on trying to do something about broadening the supply of houses and to discourage the degree to which landlords have been influencing the housing market. These policies, along with the others I mentioned, will continue to attract the justifiable prime focus of our economic policies.