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Exclusive: health chief says declaration of major incident shows spread not just in BAME groups

Gender differences in the amount of paid and unpaid work people do have shrunk over the past four decades, while the gap between low- and high-income households has grown to create a new ‘working time inequality’, according to a major new report published today by the Resolution Foundation.

The time of our lives, explores changes in people’s time use over the past four decades, how these shifts differ by gender, geography and household income level, and where these trends may head in post-covid Britain.

The gender divide between the amount of paid and unpaid work being carried out has decreased since the mid-1970s, according to a thinktank, but it remains significant.

In a study to examine changes in the last 46 years in how people use their time, the Resolution Foundation said men are now doing less paid work, while women are doing more.

It said women have increased their paid working hours by five hours and 18 minutes to 22 hours a week, while reducing their unpaid hours – such as time spent cooking, cleaning and taking care of children – by two hours and 44 minutes to 29 hours a week.

Top incomes – the share of total income held by those at the very top of the income distribution – are the central focus of much recent income distribution analysis, most especially that based on the pioneering research of Thomas Piketty and collaborators (see e.g. Atkinson et al. 2011 for a review) and the on-going work centred around the World Inequality Database project. Drawing on income tax and related administrative register data sources, the top incomes research field has highlighted how, in many countries, the most significant changes in income distribution are occurring at the top. The increasing share of income among this group is driving the much-discussed increase in overall inequality.

The average “healthy working life expectancy” for employees in England falls well below the state pension age, research suggests.

Workers aged 50 can expect an average of nine more healthy years while employed, according to a study. The findings question the current UK state pension of 65 – rising to 66 in October – and whether a sufficient proportion of people can work until they would be able to receive the state pension.

As the state pension age rises, researchers expressed concern about the health of the older workforce. Lead author of the study Marty Parker said that people will find it “challenging” to work for longer as the state pension age goes up.

It gives me great pleasure to raise a very important issue to the UK and to this House, particularly as we are about to debate the Domestic Abuse Bill, which returns to this place in the next fortnight or so.

In preparation for today’s debate, I was aided greatly by a number of groups. I would like to thank Refuge; Southall Black Sisters; Women’s Aid; the End Violence Against Women Coalition; Hackney Council; London Councils; Imkaan, which does amazing work in this area; and my local organisation, Sistah Space, with whom I met recently and who were the inspiration behind this debate.

The number of knife crimes in England and Wales has risen 6% to a new record high, official figures show.

Police-recorded offences involving a knife or sharp instrument rose to 46,265 for the year to March, up from 43,706 in the previous 12 months, according to information released by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on Friday.

This was 51% higher than when data of this kind was first collected in 2010/11 (30,620) and is the highest number on record, the report said.

BRITAIN is facing an equality crisis as richer households take on more and more work but poorer ones lose out, leading experts have warned.

The Resolution Foundation think-tank said efforts to improve the nation's work-life balance could actually make things worse for low-income families.

A study undertaken at Keele University suggests that employees who turn 50 can expect only an average of nine more years in good shape. Yet the pension age is now 65 and will soon rise to 66.

A new study has estimated that on average people in England from age 50 can expect to be healthy and in work for nine more years.

State Pension age in the UK is going up from 65 to 66 for men and women by October 2020, and will increase to 67 by 2028. The new research has found that if healthy working years are lived consecutively from age 50, the average age that people are in work and healthy until is 59-years-old.

The study, led by Keele University working with Newcastle University, provides the first estimates of healthy working life expectancy for adults aged 50 in England, and the results question whether a sufficient proportion of people can work until they would be able to receive the state pension.

A new study has estimated that on average people in England from age 50 can expect to be healthy and in work for nine more years.

State Pension age in the UK is going up from 65 to 66 for men and women by October 2020, and will increase to 67 by 2028. The new research has found that if healthy working years are lived consecutively from age 50, the average age that people are in work and healthy until is 59-years-old.

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Daisy Fancourt was at her home in Surrey in southeast England when the UK government formally announced a nationwide lockdown. Speaking in a televised address on March 23, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson laid out a suite of measures designed to curb the spread of COVID-19, including closing public spaces and requiring people to stay home except for exercise and essential tasks. For Fancourt, an epidemiologist at University College London (UCL), the announcement meant more than just a change to her daily life. It was the starting gun for a huge study, weeks in the planning, that would investigate the effects of enforced isolation and other pandemic-associated changes on the British public.

Experts from University College London and the University of Michigan studied health data on nearly 18,700 people aged 55-64 in England and the States.

AN INCREASING number of Asians are suffering financial and mental abuse dur­ing lockdown and need additional sup­port, campaigners have said.

Charities have seen a rise in people seek­ing help for different forms of domestic vio­lence since the UK went into lockdown in March, as victims have found themselves forced to live with their abusive partners and family members.

A campaign called #FaithsAgainstDo­mesticAbuse, backed by a number of chari­ties, has called on the government to pro­vide more help for services, particularly to those supporting survivors from ethnic mi­nority backgrounds.

RESEARCH CARRIED out by analysts at the Policy Exchange finds that fraud and error during the COVID-19 crisis will cost the UK Government somewhere in the region of £4.6 billion. The lower bound for the cost of fraud in this crisis is £1.3 billion and the upper bound set at £7.9 billion in light of total projected expenditure of £154.3 billion by the Government (excluding additional expenditure announced in the 8 July 2020 Economic Update).


The research has been conducted by Rob Walton (Senior Fellow at the Policy Exchange Think Tank), Sophia Falkner (Research Fellow) and Benjamin Barnard (head of technology policy). They suggest that the true value of public sector fraud may be closer to the upper bound due to the higher-than-usual levels of fraud that normally accompany disaster management (more of which anon).

Lee Waters introduced an independent report today (July 16) recommending that Wales becomes the first nation in the world to adopt the bold new measure by 2023.

It follows the results of a year-long study by a taskforce made up of police, local authorities, public health experts and other key partners such as road safety groups.

The report makes 21 practical recommendations for implementation across Wales, and Mr Waters said: “Eighty children were killed or seriously injured in Wales in the past year for which we have figures. That’s 80 families whose lives will never be the same again.