British Welfare State of the United Kingdom and Its History: Analytical Essay

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This essay will discuss the British Welfare State of the United Kingdom and its history. The British Welfare State of the United Kingdom established in the 1900s and early 1910s and consists of consumption by the government of the United Kingdom designed to make or better improve health, education, employment and social security. The British Welfare State come into existence because studies of poverty showed the welfare provisions could not deal with increasing urbanisation and industrialisation (Thane, 1996, p. 7). The global economic decline from (1929) would lead countries to examine further prosperity improvements. High unemployment (12% of the employed population in Britain was at its poorest) showed that better British welfare provision was called for (Robbins, 1994, p. 208). To paraphrase Karl Marx, British Welfare States make their own histories, but not within circumstances of their own choosing.

The development of the “British Welfare State” in the United Kingdom is for the most part marked to the 1945-51 Labour governments at the end of the Second World War (Timmins, 1996; Powell and Hewitt, 1998; Hughes and Lewis, 1998; Pierson, 1998). It is generally identified with the Beveridge Report of 1942. One of the key assumptions of the Beveridge Report of 1942 was that the British Welfare State would ensure employment for all citizens by protecting them. The main reason for the British Welfare State was to recover from the Second World War. The National Archives, (2003) report that the British Welfare State is a system which was put in place by the government where it agreed to under write certain levels of employment, income, education, medical aid, social security and housing for all its citizens. According to Brown (1995: 1) states that the British Welfare State has no clear meaning and no clear purpose, and it is impossible to define its true meaning. Klein (1985) states instead of introducing a social security scheme or a national health scheme, it should be considered that firms should mandatorily insure its employees and their families. According to Harris (1992), legislation after the Second World War created in Britain was one of the most bureaucratic and public British welfare systems in the modern world but in history would have been the exact opposite. According to Lewis (1995), it may be necessary to rethink the nature of the British Welfare State as according to Lewis (1995) he felt that the British Welfare State was a simple increase in state intervention and it is more accurate to see Britain as having a mixed economy of welfare.

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In 1967 the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA 1967) produced a report titled “Towards a Welfare Society” stating that the government should not provide welfare for individuals that could financially provide for themselves. The report commented that rather than a free national food service, the individuals should be provided with cash allowances to allow them freedom of choice. The reported also stated that there will be many individuals that will remain deprived and children will also need protection. The Second World War brought much needed changes such as evacuation, food rational, the abolition of the household means test and greater planning for the economy (Titmuss 1950; Hennessy 1992; Page 1996: ch. 3). The Beveridge Report of 1942 is identified as having of historical importance after the Second World War. The Beveridge Report of 1942 recognised the problem as overpowering the “five giants” of want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. At the heart of his resolution was a flat rate social insurance scheme for every paid individual, suggesting that all paid workers contribute a flat rate pay into the social insurance scheme to enable them to benefit in times of need and for this to work a National Health Service and family allowances services needed to be put in place. Beveridge assumed that a man was the main wage earner of the dwelling and it was believed strongly that marital men would work to bring home the household wage whilst the marital wife would stay at home.

The coalition government generated a report on education, health, employment and social insurance and produced the Butler Education Act 1944. After Labours appointment landslide in 1945, Acts pursued on health, national insurance, industrial injuries, family allowances and housing. On 05th July 1948, the British Welfare State came into place. The Labour government put into place the fundamental frameworks in the Beveridge Report. Labour was more giving in agreeing to full pensions somewhat than granting entitlements to build up over the next 20 years but were less giving in deciding on the level of benefits that individuals would obtain (Glennerster 1995; Hewitt and Powell 1998; Lowe 1999a). In schooling, the extensive discussion of issues centred around comprehensive as opposed to selective schooling, and the role of private schooling. There were concerns that the Labour government was following the Butler 1944 Education Act. In the 1960’s, the Labour government set up the Public Schools Commissioner, which issued two reports, neither of which led to much action before the Labour government left office in 1970 (Glennerster 1995). Margaret Thatcher’s time as Education Secretary stamped out free school milk and was known thereafter as the “milk snatcher” but despite this saved around £8 million per year. Margaret Thatcher progressed on to become Education Minister (Sullivan 1996: 159). Margaret Thatcher lifted the system for educating leaving age and salvaged the Open University from closing. She issued a White Paper policy document titled “Education”. The White Paper policy document announced for 90 per cent of 4-year olds to be in preschool, 40 per cent additional teachers and a 60 per cent growth in places in higher schooling within the next 10 years.

In places of accommodation, private possession of property and council places of accommodation remained to increase whilst private rental remained to fall. Aneurin Bevan (1945) insisted on high standards in council places of accommodation, anticipating that this would draw attention to the social mix that high quality well-being care had drawn attention to National Health Service hospital wards (Powell 1995a). The field of well-being care saw an extensive hospital construction programme. The 1962 Hospital Plan was created to achieve equal distribution of hospital beds across the country, located in the new general district general hospitals. It was also a period of reorganisation. Most critics agree that the tripartite structure system in the National Health Service was far from perfect. However, while there was a general agreement on the identification of problems, there was little on the answer. The Labour government party issued two Green Paper consultation documents in 1968 and 1970. Nevertheless, the Conservative party brought ahead a different reorganisation in 1973 which was due to be implemented in 1974. It has been argued that it is likely to suggest to the development of the British Welfare State, in terms of its purposes and what was much needed in the 1940s. It is marked by a worldwide governmental margin outside the Poor Law. The authorities have proposed that in theory and in practice some were more equal than others and that there were second-class individuals (Williams 1989; Hughes and Lewis 1998). The British Welfare State carried out some extensive developments, but none was meaningful enough to make or become different its theoretical character.

The Labour government party between the years of 1974 and 1979 under Harold Wilson whilst restructuring the British Welfare State and welfare change was marked by problems as Timmins (1996) states. The Labour government party entered power in the aftermath of the miners’ strike against the former Conservative Health government. The Labour government party attempted to make a social agreement with the trade unions in return for an increased social wage. The Labour government party recognised different types of inequalities whilst restructuring the welfare state and welfare change for the National Health Service (Powell 1997a). It suggested a formula that reallocated the National Health Service capitals from over provided areas such as London to under provided areas such as the North and the Midlands. The Labour government party wanted to bring to an end privilege and preferences choice in schooling. Its principle objectives were the direct grant schools and remaining grammar schools. The Conservative council of Tameside declined to follow agreement or instructions with Labour government parties’ requests to go to comprehensive schooling and this then became a legal battle. The Law Lords decided in Tameside’s Conservative councils’ favour. The Education Act 1976 brought to an end direct grants to the private grammar schools and urged the outstanding grammar schools to go to comprehensive schooling. During the restructuring welfare state and welfare change, of the outstanding 150 direct grant schooling, 51 became comprehensive schooling, the rest became independent schooling. The Labour government party found itself creating more independent schooling than any other government in living memory (Sullivan 1996: 160). The Conservative’s government party entered into power during the years 1979 to 1987.

The first White Paper policy documents on governmental spending during the restructuring of the welfare state and welfare change came into place. Public consumption remains to be at the core of Britain’s current financial obstacles (Timmins 1996: 371). The Chancellor Geoffrey Howe first budget in the year of 1979 slashed the top and standard rate of income tax. The budget also disclosed the breaking of the link between pensions and earnings and additional governmental spending incorporated a sequence of cuts in social security benefits which ended up in a violation towards benefit fraud and a freeze on child benefit. Under the Conservative government party, the National Health Service underwent further reorganisation in the year of 1982, only 8 years after the last reorganisation. Unemployment has remained for many years a fundamental point in question for all government bodies. It was a primary worry for all inter-war leading government parties leading to the breakdown of the 1929 Labour government party. After the year of 1945, leading government parties pursued to preserve full (male) employment using a variety of techniques. The Conservative government parties criticised the increase in unemployment under the Labour government party during the years of 1974 to 1979, with the Conservative government party quoting “Britain isn’t working”. Under the restructuring of the welfare state and welfare change, education disbursement was to be delegated to the schools, lowering the power and disbursement of the local education authority (LEA). Some schools, described grant supported maintain schools, were able to opt out of the local education authority domination, pursuing from a ballot from parents and carers. The conclusion was that parents and carers, rather than the local education authority, would empower them to have higher influence in appointing schooling for their children. Funding would be determined by the number of children that attend the schools. The changing nature of the British Welfare State since the new welfare state has been a debate about social policy development and continue to change.

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