Four years ago John Hills and colleagues published a well-received evaluation of New Labour policy towards poverty and social exclusion entitled A More Equal Society? (Hills and Stewart, Reference Hills and Stewart2005). The title of the sequel – Towards a More Equal Society? – is not suggestive of progress since then. Indeed, one of the main findings of this invaluable collection is that more progress was made towards a more equal society prior to 2005 than subsequently.

Overall, the editors and authors steer a delicate course between acknowledging the real progress that has been made under New Labour and exposing the severe limitations of what has been achieved. In the editors' words, the picture they paint is ‘complex and nuanced’ (p. 357): the answer to the question posed in the book's title ‘depends on which inequalities are being examined, between whom, and over which time period’ (p. 358). Most chapters point to achievements, of varying degrees of significance, but invariably any positive verdict is then qualified in some way.

The book starts by placing New Labour's record in the context of its dire inheritance from the Conservatives, followed by an overview of its three terms in office. It is then divided into three parts: the first covers a number of specific policy areas and groups; the second adopts a cross-cutting approach; and the third looks forward and pulls the threads together to provide an overall assessment.

Four of the ten chapters in Part One focus on aspects of income inequality: poverty in general, child poverty, pensions and incomes in later life, employment, inequality and redistribution. They include a useful analysis, based on modelling, of the counterfactual of what poverty and inequality would have looked like in the absence of New Labour's tax-benefit policies. Sefton et al. estimate that ‘overall poverty in 2008–09 would have been up to six percentage points higher and child poverty up to 13 percentage points higher under a continuation of the previous government's tax-benefit policies’ (p. 44). Moreover, ‘adding in the value of health and education spending strengthens the redistributive impact of fiscal policies and substantially improves the relative position of the poorest’ (p. 44). Inequality would also have been significantly higher.

Other chapters in Part One cover education, health, neighbourhoods, ethnic inequalities (in particular with regard to education, employment and incomes, policing and community cohesion) and migrants. The last is rather different from the rest in that it does not explicitly assess the impact of New Labour's policies. There are no specific chapters on gender or disability, although some reference is made to these dimensions of inequality elsewhere.

Part Two includes chapters on public attitudes, the devolved administrations and international comparisons of poverty, inequality and child well-being. In Part Three, Polly Vizard provides a positive assessment of the establishment of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, concluding that ‘a major transformation of the equality and human rights landscape has been achieved under New Labour’ (p. 317). Nevertheless, she also points to weaknesses and to uncertainties regarding the future. In particular, while a Bill of Rights ‘could extend and entrench equality and human rights standards’, the ‘downside risks . . . are policy dilution and reversal’ (p. 318).

A pessimistic note for the future is struck by John Hills in the penultimate chapter, which discusses the intergenerational transmission of advantage, wealth, demographic trends and environmental sustainability. In each case, he warns that ‘the environment within which policy will be made in the next decade and years beyond may make it even more difficult to achieve egalitarian objectives’ (p. 338). This leads into the depressing observation of the concluding chapter by the editors that, given that ‘the decade from 1997 was in many ways very favourable to an egalitarian agenda’, ‘the period surveyed may have been “as good as it gets” for some time to come’ (p. 341).

In fact, the outlook is probably even worse than indicated because the book would appear to have been written before the full scale of the economic crisis had become clear. Apart from the occasional reference, discussion of its implications is notable by its absence. One such reference is at the end of the chapter on public attitudes where Tom Sefton speculates as to whether the crisis will ‘make people even more resistant to redistribution, because the resources available for this are so constrained’ or make them ‘more sympathetic to those dependent on benefits as the structural causes of unemployment are now so evident’ (p. 242). Sefton rehearses both sides of the argument as to whether New Labour can be held responsible for the hardening of public attitudes over the period but gives the impression of having some sympathy with its policy of ‘redistribution by stealth’. He perhaps does not take seriously enough the opportunity for ‘“selling” a more progressive agenda’ (p. 243) provided by New Labour's early popularity.

This is, however, a minor cavil, as is my dislike of the uncritical use of the damaging language of ‘benefit dependency’ in a couple of places (pp. 48 and 115). Overall, this is an indispensable book for anyone with an interest in British social policy, in particular those of us with fading memories of the twists and turns of policy over the past ten years. It should find its way on to reading lists for a range of courses. Its concluding paragraph is particularly pertinent, given the likelihood of a change of government: ‘The UK's experience in the 1980s and 1990s showed that the laissez-faire strategy of hoping that rapid growth in living standards at the top would “trickle down” to those at the bottom did not work. The last decade has shown that a more interventionist strategy of “pump up” is hard. The period since 1997 shows that gains are possible, but they require continuous effort to be sustained’ (p. 359). That continuous effort has not been sustained (as reflected in the depressing poverty and inequality statistics published in May 2009). The danger is that a new government will conclude that it was the ‘pump up’ strategy which was at fault rather than the failure to sustain it.