This House of Lords Library briefing provides information on long-run trends in real earnings, placing the weak performance since the financial crisis into a historical perspective.
Earnings: A Long-run Perspective (317KB PDF)
This briefing considers changes in earnings in real terms, ie adjusted for inflation. This is a measure of the quantity of goods and services which the person on average earnings can buy with their earned income. The briefing mainly relies on a long-run dataset produced in 2018 by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), relating to Great Britain, which was created by linking together several series from different sources covering different periods. The ONS described the final dataset as not fully consistent through time, and therefore warned that comparisons over time should not be taken as exact.
Between 2009 and 2018 real earnings fell by an average of 1.4% per year for men and 1.1% per year for women. In contrast, between 1938 and 2009 real earnings rose by an average of 1.9% per year for men and 2.6% per year for women. Had the average growth rate between 1938 and 2009 been sustained, real earnings would have been 35% higher for men and 39% higher for women in 2018 than they actually were. An even longer-term series of average earnings, going back to 1800, suggests that the falls after 2009 are unusual but may not be unprecedented. Despite the stronger performance of women’s earnings over the period 1938 to 2018, they had still only reached 80% of men’s average earnings in 2018, having increased from approximately 50% in 1938.
Earnings: A Long-run Perspective (317KB PDF)
The Sovereign Grant Bill is a government bill which would amend how the sovereign grant is set. This is a grant paid to the King to support the work of the sovereign. The bill would enable the size of the sovereign grant to be reduced following the completion of a 10-year works project on Buckingham Palace. The bill received cross-party support and was not amended in the House of Commons.
The Commercial Payments Bill [HL] seeks to tackle late payments to small businesses. It would impose minimum payment periods for invoices, prohibit the use of retentions in construction contracts and provide the small business commissioner with greater powers. The bill received an unopposed second reading in the House of Lords on 9 June 2026. 30 government amendments were made to the bill at committee stage.
![Commercial Payments Bill [HL]: Progress in the Lords](https://lordslibrary-parliament.studio24.dev/content/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/Business-VIGs-568x426.jpg)
The Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL] is a wide-ranging bill that aims to reform the way the UK financial services sector is regulated. This briefing provides a summary of the bill’s second reading and committee stage in the House of Lords ahead of its further consideration at report.
![Financial Services and Markets Bill [HL]: Progress in the Lords](https://lordslibrary-parliament.studio24.dev/content/uploads/sites/2/2020/09/Economy-568x426.png)