Welfare State
Encyclopedia
The Welfare State is a commitment to health, education, employment and social security
Social security
Social security is primarily a social insurance program providing social protection or protection against socially recognized conditions, including poverty, old age, disability, unemployment and others. Social security may refer to:...

 in the United Kingdom.

Background

The United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

, as a welfare state, was prefigured in the William Beveridge
William Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...

 Report in 1942, which identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease. Clement Attlee's 1945 Labour government pledged to eradicate these evils, and undertook policy measures to provide for the people of the United Kingdom "from the cradle to the grave."

Some primary reasons for the establishment of a welfare state include the reports drawn up by men such as Rowntree
Rowntree
-Companies:*Rowntree's, the confectionery company owned in the 19th & 20th centuries in York by members of the Rowntree family**Directors and employees of this company***Oliver Sheldon *Rowntree trusts**Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust...

 , son of the famous confectionery manufacturer, and Booth
Booth (surname)
Booth is a surname of English origin. At the time of the British Census of 1881 , its relative frequency was highest in Cheshire , followed by Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lancashire, Nottinghamshire, Aberdeenshire, Lincolnshire, Staffordshire and Westmorland. In all other British counties, its relative...

, into the levels of poverty in Britain in the early twentieth century. These reports indicated that in the massive industrial cities of the north, a high percentage of people were living below the level of subsistence, or the poverty line
Poverty threshold
The poverty threshold, or poverty line, is the minimum level of income deemed necessary to achieve an adequate standard of living in a given country...

.

The deeper reasons for the establishment of the welfare state are complex. Certainly governments who had seen the revolutionary wave of revolts after the First World War were keen to ensure that deep reforms reduced the risk of mass social unrest after the Second World War. In addition, modern, complex industry had more need for a healthy and educated workforce than older industries had. Crucially, the experience of almost total state control during the Second World War had inured the population to the idea that the state might deal with wide areas of national life. Finally it seems likely that the social mixing involved in mass evacuation of children, and of service in the armed forces, had increased support for welfare among the middle classes.

History

This policy resulted in massive expenditure and a great widening of what was considered to be the state's
State (polity)
A state is an organized political community, living under a government. States may be sovereign and may enjoy a monopoly on the legal initiation of force and are not dependent on, or subject to any other power or state. Many states are federated states which participate in a federal union...

 responsibility. In addition to the central services of education, health, unemployment and sickness allowances, the welfare state also included the idea of increasing redistributive taxation, increasing regulation of industry food and housing (better safety regulations, weights and measures
Weights and Measures Act
A Weights and Measures Act is an Act of Parliament determining trade law where the weight or size of the goods being traded are important. For example, if a bottle of milk is for sale and has a label saying it contains one pint, then the law states that it must contain that amount.-United...

 controls, etc.)

However the initial foundation of the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...

 (NHS) did not involve building new hospitals but merely the nationalisation of existing municipal and charitable foundations. The aim was not to substantially increase provision but to standardise care across the country; indeed Beveridge believed that the overall cost of medical care would decrease, as people became healthier and so needed less treatment. Instead the cost increased dramatically, leading to severe financial problems, and charges (for dentures, spectacles and prescriptions) were introduced in 1951 (by the same Labour government that had founded the NHS three years earlier). Despite this, the principle of health care "free at the point of use" became a central idea of the welfare state, which later governments, critical of the Welfare State, were unable to reverse. The classic Welfare State period lasted from approximately 1945 to the late-1970s, when policies under Thatcherism
Thatcherism
Thatcherism describes the conviction politics, economic and social policy, and political style of the British Conservative politician Margaret Thatcher, who was leader of her party from 1975 to 1990...

 began to privatise public institutions, although many features remain today, including compulsory National Insurance
National Insurance
National Insurance in the United Kingdom was initially a contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment, and later also provided retirement pensions and other benefits...

 contributions, and the provision of old age pensions.

The Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, standing in 1945 on a programme of establishing a Welfare State, won a clear victory. However, since the 1980s the British government
Politics of the United Kingdom
The politics of the United Kingdom takes place within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch is the head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government...

 has begun to reduce some provisions in England: for example, free eye tests for all have now been stopped and prescription charges for drugs have constantly risen since they were first introduced in 1951. Policies differ in different countries of the United Kingdom, but the provision of a welfare state is still a basic principle of government policy in the United Kingdom today.

Criticism and failings

Critics of the welfare state claim that, in relieving citizens of personal responsibility for their welfare, the government has inadvertently encouraged irresponsible and immature attitudes, with the result that three of the five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, and idleness, are still common. In 1980, T. E. Utley, wrote that the welfare state was "an arrangement under which we all largely cease to be responsible for our own behaviour and in return become responsible for everyone else's. The temptations which this way of doing things offers to synthetic anger, fraudulent penitence, all other forms of hypocrisy and the sheer evasion of duty are infinitely too strong for fallen man".

See also

  • Social welfare


Housing:
  • Public housing
    Public housing
    Public housing is a form of housing tenure in which the property is owned by a government authority, which may be central or local. Social housing is an umbrella term referring to rental housing which may be owned and managed by the state, by non-profit organizations, or by a combination of the...

  • Housing estate
    Housing estate
    A housing estate is a group of buildings built together as a single development. The exact form may vary from country to country. Accordingly, a housing estate is usually built by a single contractor, with only a few styles of house or building design, so they tend to be uniform in appearance...

  • Council house
    Council house
    A council house, otherwise known as a local authority house, is a form of public or social housing. The term is used primarily in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Council houses were built and operated by local councils to supply uncrowded, well-built homes on secure tenancies at...


External links

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