Welfare state in the United Kingdom
The welfare state of the United Kingdom began to evolve in the 1900s and early 1910s, and comprises expenditures by the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland intended to improve health, education, employment and social security. The British system has been classified as a liberal welfare state system.
History
Before the official establishment of the modern welfare state, clear examples of social welfare existed to help the poor and vulnerable within British society. A key date in the welfare state's history is 1563; when Queen Elizabeth I's government encouraged the wealthier members of society to give to the poor, by passing the Poor Act 1562.The welfare state in the modern sense was anticipated by the Royal Commission into the Operation of the Poor Laws 1832 which found that the Poor Relief Act 1601 was subject to widespread abuse and promoted squalor, idleness and criminality in its recipients, compared to those who received private charity. Accordingly, the qualifications for receiving aid were tightened up, forcing many recipients to either turn to private charity or accept employment.
Opinions began to be changed late in the century by reports drawn up by men such as Seebohm Rowntree and Charles Booth into the levels of poverty in Britain. These reports indicated that in the massive industrial cities, between one-quarter and one-third of the population were living below the poverty line.
A 2022 study linked trade shocks during the first globalization with increased support for a welfare state and reduced support for the Conservative Party.
Liberal reforms
The late nineteenth century saw the emergence of New Liberalism within the Liberal Party, which advocated state intervention as a means of guaranteeing freedom and removing obstacles to it such as poverty and unemployment. The policies of the New Liberalism are now known as social liberalism.File:ChurchillGeorge0001.jpg|thumb|Liberal politicians David Lloyd George and Winston Churchill enacted the 1909 People's Budget which specifically aimed at the redistribution of wealth.
The New Liberals included intellectuals like L. T. Hobhouse, and John A. Hobson. They saw individual liberty as something achievable only under favourable social and economic circumstances. In their view, the poverty, squalor, and ignorance in which many people lived made it impossible for freedom and individuality to flourish. New Liberals believed that these conditions could be ameliorated only through collective action coordinated by a strong, welfare-oriented, and interventionist state.
After the historic 1906 victory, the Liberal Party launched the welfare state with a series of major welfare reforms in 1906–1914. The reforms were greatly extended over the next forty years. The Liberal Party introduced multiple reforms on a range of issues, including health insurance, unemployment insurance, and pensions for elderly workers, thereby laying the groundwork for the future British welfare state. Some proposals failed, such as licensing fewer pubs, or rolling back Conservative educational policies. The People's Budget of 1909, championed by David Lloyd George and fellow Liberal Winston Churchill, introduced unprecedented taxes on the wealthy in Britain and radical social welfare programmes to the country's policies. In the Liberal camp, as noted by one study, "the Budget was on the whole enthusiastically received." It was the first budget with the expressed intent of redistributing wealth among the public. It imposed increased taxes on luxuries, liquor, tobacco, high incomes, and land – taxation that fell heavily on the rich. The new money was to be made available for new welfare programmes as well as new battleships. In 1911 Lloyd George succeeded in putting through Parliament his National Insurance Act, making provision for sickness and invalidism, and this was followed by his Unemployment Insurance Act.
The minimum wage was introduced in Great Britain in 1909 for certain low-wage industries and expanded to numerous industries, including farm labour, by 1920. However, by the 1920s, a new perspective was offered by reformers to emphasise the usefulness of family allowance targeted at low-income families was the alternative to relieving poverty without distorting the labour market. The trade unions and the Labour Party adopted this view. In 1945, family allowances were introduced; minimum wages faded from view.
The experience of almost total state control during the Second World War had encouraged the belief that the state might be able to solve problems in wide areas of national life.
The Liberal government of 1906–1914 implemented welfare policies concerning three main groups in society: the old, the young and working people.
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Beveridge Report and Labour
The aftermath of the First World War boosted demands for social reform, and led to a permanent increase in the role of the state in British society. The end of the war also brought a period of unemployment and poverty, particularly in northern industrial towns, that deepened into the Great Depression by the 1930s.During the war, the government became much more involved in people's lives via governmental organisation of the rationing of foodstuffs, clothing and fuel and extra milk and meals being given to expectant mothers and children. The wartime coalition, and the introduction of family allowances. Many people welcomed this government intervention and wanted it to go further.
The Beveridge Report of 1942, essentially recommended a national, compulsory, flat rate insurance scheme which would combine unemployment, widows benefit, child benefit and retirement benefits into one central government support scheme. In regards to healthcare Beveridge preferred the contemporary healthcare system of voluntary and private hospitals "more than that of a taxpayer funded healthcare" believing more people would access healthcare when they need it if they were voluntarily involved in their own healthcare. But it is key to note Beveridge still emphasised that healthcare should be accessible for everyone in the United Kingdom and that people should give what they can according to their means when receiving healthcare in voluntary hospitals. Beveridge himself was careful to emphasise that unemployment benefits should be held to a subsistence level, and after six months would be conditional on work or training, so as not to encourage abuse of the system. That was however predicated on the concept of the "maintenance of employment" which meant 'it should be possible to make unemployment of any individual for more than 26 weeks continuously a rare thing in normal times' and recognised that the imposition of a training condition would be impractical if the unemployed were numbered by the million. After its victory in the 1945 general election, the Labour Party pledged to eradicate the Giant Evils, and undertook policy measures to provide for the people of the United Kingdom "from the cradle to the grave." While the original intention of the report was to abolish these Giant Evils, the implementation of these suggested policies aimed to reduce income, health, and educational inequalities. However, the lack of real follow-through on Beveridge's recommended strategies meant that the Labour government ultimately failed to abolish poverty with their welfare reforms.
Included among the laws passed were the National Assistance Act 1948, National Insurance Act 1946, and National Insurance Act 1946.
Impact
This policy resulted in increased expenditure and a widening of what was considered to be the state's 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, and increasing regulation of industry, food, and housingThe foundation of the National Health Service did not involve building new hospitals, but nationalisation of existing municipal provision and charitable foundations. The aim was not to substantially increase provision but to standardise care across the country; indeed William Beveridge believed that the overall cost of medical care would decrease, as people became healthier and so needed less treatment.
However, instead of falling, the cost of the NHS has risen by 4% annually on average due to an ageing population, leading to a reduction in provision. Charges for dentures, and spectacles were introduced in 1951 by the same Labour government that had founded the NHS three years earlier, and prescription charges by the successive Conservative Government were introduced in 1952. In 1988, free eye tests for all were abolished, although they are now free for the over-60s.
After 1979, Margaret Thatcher had laid the post-war Keynesian consensus to rest, in favour of an Individualist and Monetarist Welfare policy, guided by the economy. This Thatcherite consensus was characterised by policies such as Privatisation, driven by her belief in Individualism and Competition. Therefore, her main focus was to attempt to control public spending, privatisation, targeting and rising inequality, so much of the 1980s was focused on cutting public spending in the UK.
Policies differ in different regions of the United Kingdom, but the provision of a welfare state is still a basic principle of government policy in the United Kingdom today. The principle of health care "free at the point of use" became a central idea of the welfare state, which later Conservative governments, although critical of some aspects of the welfare state, did not reverse.
Welfare spending on poor people dropped by 25% under the United Kingdom government austerity programme of 2010 - 2019, cuts to benefits that disabled people receive were significant, Personal Independence Payments and Employment and Support Allowance have both dropped by 10%. Over half of families living below the breadline have at least one relative with a disability. Cuts include, tax credits, universal credit, child benefit, disability benefits, Employment and Support Allowance and Incapacity Benefit and housing benefit. Frank Field said, "A £37bn attack has been mounted on the living standards of many of our fellow citizens to such an extent that possibly millions struggle to keep on top of their rent, pay the bills and buy adequate food. Likewise, an unknown number are unable to clothe their children properly before sending them to school where all too many of these children not only rely on free school dinners as a cornerstone of their diet, but on breakfast and supper clubs as well."