ABSTRACT
The extent of poverty in the United Kingdom (UK), its causes and possible remedies have been a topic of intermittent but vigorous public debate since the classic research studies by Charles Booth in London and Seebohm Rowntree in York at the turn of the century (Booth 1903; Piachaud 1987; Rowntree 1901). It is as though poverty becomes an issue of widespread public concern at intervals of about 30 years. Fresh interest in the subject has usually been prompted by the publication of disturbing research evidence; this is greeted with a reaction of widespread distress and shock, which fuels a debate about what appropriate steps should be taken to try to reduce or eradicate poverty. This debate has been made consistently and considerably more difficult, contentious and frustrating by the lack of any official definition of poverty. Indeed, research evidence about poverty has usually provoked governments into a defensive reaction where the accuracy or the significance of the research has been called into question, and the implications for policy are denied or fudged. This marked reluctance to develop or sanction an official definition of poverty, or overtly to build into the policy process any one of the possible definitions suggested by academic enquiry, or, more recently, by one or other of the international or supra-national organisations, has hampered coherent discussion about both the nature and extent of poverty, and appropriate social policies.
