The politics of welfare

The idea of a national minimum, below which no one should fall, had taken a considerable hold before the first world war; before the second it had made further progress. If there was a guiding principle in social policy it lay in the implicit belief that the state should make or make possible a basic provision available to all in the matters of health, education, housing and social security. The cost of extending the pattern of provisions was high, especially in times of serious unemployment. The strain on local authority finance obliged the government to remake the poor law and local government.

As the thirties ran their course younger men in the Conservative, Labour and Liberal Parties who possessed the necessary combination of concern, energy and intelligence to confront the challenge of unemployment began to think not only of the macro-controls necessary for growth and stability, but also of the redistributive measures necessary to meet reasonable welfare criteria, and to understand something of the relationships between the two. The TUC, through its Economic Committee, was moving in the same direction. In this way the idea of an adequate level of effective demand began to converge with that of the proper level of social provision. But no explicit model of the economy in these terms was set up by the government or anyone else. Welfare provision continued, as in the past, to be pragmatic, each aspect of need having its advocates, and each set of provisions having to fight for public and Treasury acceptance.