Claim OwnershipResolution Foundation Events Podcast
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Recordings of live Resolution Foundation events discussing our latest research and hosting policy debates on improving the living standards of low-to-middle income families.
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The Chancellor has prepared the pitch for a tough second Budget, with tax rises expected as part of a fiscal strategy designed to reassure markets that the UK’s public finances are firmly under control. But the Chancellor has also promised to protect the NHS, boost growth and support families with the cost of living. Acting decisively on all of these priorities would be no mean feat as part of a Budget that takes more than it gives.
How tough a settlement has the Chancellor delivered on tax rises and spending cuts? To what extent have manifesto pledges been breached? How much will the measures announced help or hinder economic growth? Who are the main winners and losers? And to what extent has this Budget laid the groundwork for the rest of the Parliament?
Speakers
Richard Hughes
Chair of the Office for Budget Responsibility
Kamal Ahmed
Columnist at the Daily Telegraph
Yael Selfin
Vice Chair and Chief Economist at KPMG
James Smith
Research Director at the Resolution Foundation
Ruth Curtice
Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
Please note that due do technical difficulties the last couple of minutes of this event are not included in the recording.
November 13th 2025
The Budget run-in has centred around what taxes the Chancellor will need to raise to meet her fiscal rules. But housing could potentially play an equally decisive role. Ambitious planning reform could deliver the economic growth that Britain so desperately needs, the current mess of property taxation is ripe for reform, and better support for families in rented accommodation could raise living standards and reduce child poverty. Successive governments have failed to grapple with Britain’s housing challenges, but can the Chancellor afford not to grasp it?
How can planning reform be strengthened, and what might it mean for growth? How much appetite is there for touching the terrible twin taxes of stamp duty and council tax? And how should housing feature in the Government’s new Child Poverty strategy that will sit alongside the Budget?
SPEAKERS
Emily Williams
Director of Residential Research at Savills
Paul Cheshire
Emeritus Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE
Jamie Carswell
Director of Housing and Safer Communities at the Royal Borough of Greenwich
Hannah Aldridge
Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the Resolution Foundation
Ruth Curtice
Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
The Resolution Foundation has recently published research assessing how the Government can help families with high energy bills. Our Chief Executive discussed the proposals with Jonathan Marshall (one of our Principal Economists) and Adam Scorer, the Chief Executive of National Energy Action. Tune in to learn about the drivers of Britain’s stubbornly high household energy bills, and how reform of the costs added onto bills offers a route for helping families with the cost of living this winter. To learn more, read 'Splitting the bill' on our website today: https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/splitting-the-bill/
After delivering her first Budget last autumn, which included the biggest tax rises in decades to fund a major boost to public services, Rachel Reeves said that she would not be coming back with more tax increases. Fast forward 12 months and she’s about to do just that given a deteriorating outlook for the public finances risk the fiscal rules being broken. So the task for the Chancellor at this Budget is to show that she is serious about meeting her rules, boosting growth, and relieving cost of living pressures. Delivering all three in one Budget is an unenviable task.
How has the UK’s economic outlook changed since March? To what extent is our economic future being shaped by present uncertainty, or past poor performance? How much tax and spend tightening might the Chancellor need to? And how can she raise more revenue in a way that does the least harm to economic growth and living standards?
The number of 16-24 year olds who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) is increasing, and drawing more political focus. Policy makers are right to worry about this major living standards concern – not earning or learning in early adulthood can stunt careers and earning potential for many years into the future. But if we’re to help NEETs we need to understand who they are and why they’re NEET, so that solutions are based on actual rather than imagined problems.
How many young people are NEET in Britain today? What’s driven the recent change, and how does it differ by age and gender? What are the key education and labour market problems facing young people today, and what can policy makers do to help them?
In recent years, UK households have faced a number of economic challenges, contributing to subdued growth and increased living costs. These pressures have been particularly noticeable during the period of elevated inflation following the pandemic, and higher interest rates in response. These conditions have influenced household finances and behaviours, which affects how policymakers seek to shape the monetary policy environment.
In a keynote speech at the Resolution Foundation, External Member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee Dr. Catherine L. Mann will discuss how the recent episode of above-target inflation and higher interest rates have affected households’ consumption, savings, and financial behaviour. As part of that assessment, she will also consider how above-target inflation tends to be associated with higher volatility and uncertainty, and what that means for households’ decisions.
Following Catherine’s keynote address, we will hear a response from former MPC member Michael Saunders before both panellists take part in a Q&A, chaired by President of the Resolution Foundation David Willetts.
The story of wealth across Britain has, until recently, been a straightforward one – decades of rising prices, benefiting those lucky enough to own assets. But that story has been upended in the past few years as interest rates rocketed off their historically low levels in response to the highest inflation in decades. Britain needs to look again at the size and distribution of household wealth, and people’s ability to become wealthier.
What happened to household wealth during the pandemic? What has that meant for wealth inequality? Were some families financially vulnerable even before the cost of living crisis? To what extent do people become more or less wealthy over time? And how does wealth mobility – or the lack thereof – affect people’s lifetime living standards?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from the Foundation’s Wealth Audit we will hear from leading experts on the level, distribution and mobility of wealth across Britain, and why it matters.
Britain is desperate for stronger economic growth, and technological progress – notably through AI – is often touted as a route out of stagnation. After all, technological change is commonly thought to have been the main driver of economic growth throughout history. However, if that reading of technological change is far too simplistic, with progress in fact far stilted, what does that mean for our future economic prospects?
In a groundbreaking new book, economist Carl Benedikt Frey looks back over the past millennium to show how technological change has driven growth, but also stagnation. Using these lessons from history, Carl then looks ahead to the impact of AI – whether it will really deliver the stronger economic growth we all crave, or what can be done to shape that change.
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar to debate and answer the questions by Carl’s new book. He will be joined by Resolution Foundation President Lord Willetts to discuss the impact of technical change on economic growth and living standards, and what policy makers can do to shape that change in a positive direction.
The Chancellor has fired the starting gun on the run-in to one of the most challenging second Budgets in living memory. The Chancellor has already said her fiscal rules are sacrosanct, but higher gilt yields, policy u-turns and a likely growth downgrade mean she is on track to miss them without further fiscal consolidation. With spending plans agreed only last June, all roads point to more tax rises.
What should be the tax strategy for the upcoming Budget and beyond, and what might that mean for who loses out? Is there an economic case for breaking Labour’s tax manifesto commitment, and is it worth the political cost of doing so? And how should the Chancellor align her tax strategy with wider ambitions to boost growth and living standards?
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar to debate and answer these questions. Following a presentation of the key highlights from its latest research on how to deliver tax reform that doesn’t damage growth, we will hear from leading experts on the trade-offs the Chancellor is likely to face on tax in her upcoming Budget.
Savings are supposed to be the first line of defence against financial shocks. But in reality, millions of families across Britain don’t have enough to be more than a few pay-days away from trouble. For many low-income households in particular, the focus is less about building up savings and more avoiding the building up of debts and arrears. All of this can leave families vulnerable to one-off costs such as a car break-down or bust boiler – let alone bigger shocks such as redundancy.
How financially resilient are the 13 million low-to-middle income families that make up Unsung Britain? After the cost of living crisis and the rise of ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ schemes, how many families are in problem debt? How can those on lower incomes be encouraged to save more? And how should we deal with the large rise in rent, council tax and utilities arrears?
Speakers
Tim Jarvis
Director for Markets at Ofgem
Vikki Brownridge
Chief Executive of StepChange
Sebastian Burnside
Group Chief Economist at NatWest Group
Felicia Odamtten
Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Ruth Curtice
Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation
After a not-so-quiet summer, MPs are returning from recess to a torrent of public policy challenges. Immigration remains the public’s top concern, with the economy and the NHS not far behind. Defence has also climbed the list – with the extra spending it brings adding to already daunting public finance pressures. Decisions on these issues come with unavoidable trade-offs; at a time when the parties will undoubtedly be keeping a close eye on their own performance in the polls.
What are the biggest public policy challenges facing the UK? Which of these are most important to the public? What are the options for addressing these, in the immediate and long-term? And what might the implications of potential decisions the Government make on these be?
Speakers
Rob Ford
Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester (Virtual)
Anita Charlesworth
Senior Economic Adviser at The Health Foundation
David Bailey
Professor of Business Economics at the Birmingham Business School
Anand Menon
Director of UK in a Changing Europe
Ruth Curtice
Chief Executive of the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
The Chancellor has fired the starting gun on the run-in to one of the most challenging second Budgets in living memory. The Chancellor has already said her fiscal rules are sacrosanct, but higher gilt yields, policy u-turns and a likely growth downgrade mean she is on track to miss them without further fiscal consolidation. With spending plans agreed only last June, all roads point to more tax rises.
What should be the tax strategy for the upcoming Budget and beyond, and what might that mean for who loses out? Is there an economic case for breaking Labour’s tax manifesto commitment, and is it worth the political cost of doing so? And how should the Chancellor align her tax strategy with wider ambitions to boost growth and living standards?
SPEAKERS
Dan Neidle
Tax lawyer, journalist and commentator
Lord David Willetts
President of the Resolution Foundation
Adam Corlett
Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Ruth Curtice
Chief Executive at the Resolution Foundation
Britain is desperate for stronger economic growth, and technological progress – notably through AI – is often touted as a route out of stagnation. After all, technological change is commonly thought to have been the main driver of economic growth throughout history. However, if that reading of technological change is far too simplistic, with progress in fact far stilted, what does that mean for our future economic prospects?
In a groundbreaking new book, economist Carl Benedikt Frey looks back over the past millennium to show how technological change has driven growth, but also stagnation. Using these lessons from history, Carl then looks ahead to the impact of AI – whether it will really deliver the stronger economic growth we all crave, or what can be done to shape that change.
The Resolution Foundation is hosting an in-person and interactive webinar to debate and answer the questions by Carl’s new book. He will be joined by Resolution Foundation President Lord Willetts to discuss the impact of technical change on economic growth and living standards, and what policy makers can do to shape that change in a positive direction.
Making Britain work for everyone: How can employers go further to recruit and retain disabled workers?
Speakers include Charlie Mayfield, lead of the Keep Britain Working review
Boosting employment among people with a health condition or disability is a crucial part of this Government’s agenda; from reaching an employment rate of 80 per cent, to reducing economic inactivity and curbing welfare spending. Yet disabled people continue to face barriers to employment. Encouraging employers to go further in hiring and retaining disabled people is key to shifting the dial on this.
From healthcare to carers’ care
How disabilities and caring responsibilities impact the lives of lower-income Britain
The rising prevalence of ill-health and disability across Britain has been under the spotlight recently; not least the implications for the country’s benefits bill. But the impact on those who are ill or disabled, and the family members who care for them, has been less discussed. Disability and the caring needs that can come with it already disproportionately affect the poorer half of Britain, and many of these families face a severe income penalty as a result.
A timely discussion exploring the profound transformation of global trade, amid rising tariffs and mounting geopolitical tensions.
What are the broader economic implications for the UK, US and wider global landscape?
The discussion will be chaired by Chaired by the Rt Hon Lord David Willetts, joined by an expert panel; Professor Meredith Crowley, Russell Napier and Sherman Robinson.
Brought to you by the Resolution Foundation, Society of Professional Economists and Royal Economic Society.
New deal or no deal
How will the Employment Rights Bill impact workers, businesses and the wider economy?
Kate Bell
Assistant General Secretary at the TUC
Neil Carberry
Chief Executive of the Recruitment and Employment Confederation
Darren Newman
Employment Law Consultant
Nye Cominetti
Principal Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Greg Thwaites
Research Director at the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
The price is tight
How are the cost of essentials affecting low-to-middle-income families across Britain?
Speakers
Clare Moriarty
Chief Executive of Citizens Advice
Peter Levell
Deputy Research Director at the IFS
Lalitha Try
Economist at the Resolution Foundation
Mike Brewer
Deputy Chief Executive at the Resolution Foundation (Chair)
Britain is racked by pay divides – on gender, race, age and education status. But one of its starkest inequalities centres on geography, which is far more complex than Londoners earning more than everyone else. But while regional pay inequality is widely discussed, what drives these divides is less well understood. And that really matters if we’re to tackle these inequalities.
The Government’s fiscal events have had a shaky start so far. The Autumn Budget unveiled £41 billion of tax rises by 2029-30, while the Spring Statement was dominated by controversial welfare reform that will hit poorer families the hardest. The Spending Review provides a fresh opportunity to focus on growth and living standards, as it sets out the details of over £40 billion additional annual day-to-day public service spending, and over £100 billion worth of infrastructure funding. But with Britain facing the strong headwinds of global economic turbulence and strained public services, will it be third time lucky for the Chancellor?
Has the Government boosted public services across the board, or has the NHS taken the lion’s share of the cash? Has public investment centred on repairing Britain’s fraying social infrastructure – its schools, hospitals and housing stock – or building new economic and energy infrastructure? Have limited resources been effectively prioritised to support growth and improve living standards? And how might the Spending Review shape the upcoming Budget this Autumn?
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