Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband has launched the new two-year research project "Fighting Poverty and Inequality in an Age of Affluence;100 years on from the Poor Law Minority Report" to be run by the Fabian Society and the Webb Memorial Trust .

The speech at London's Commonweatlh Club kicked off the Fabian research project into poverty and inequality which will culminate in 2009, which will commemorate the centenary of the 1909 Minority Report of the Poor Law Reform Commission by making a major contemporary contribution to the strategy for fighting poverty and inequality in 21st Century Britain. It will address a number of significant policy areas, including parenting and family policy, citizenship and citizen participation, and inequalities of wealth and power, as well as the challenge of shifting public attitudes to poverty and inequality.