MPs back trials to test social policy options

Two thirds of UK MPs say they support the use of randomised controlled trials to test the government's social policy, according to a survey by the Social Research Institute of the polling organisation Ipsos MORI.

Twelve per cent of MPs “strongly supported” the use of such trials to test social policy, while 55 per cent “tended to support” it. Eleven per cent tended to oppose the proposal, 19 per cent neither supported nor opposed it, while 1 per cent didn’t know and 1 per cent strongly opposed it. 

However, 35 per cent tended to agree or strongly agreed that randomly choosing which people should get a policy intervention, a crucial part of such trials, would be unfair. Forty-two per cent either tended to disagree with this or disagreed with it.