Introduction

Labour's first 600 days of office has seen significant moves in many parts of the welfare state. For example, in the area of ‘welfare’ Tony Blair (1998c, col 365) stated that in its 15 months of office Labour had:

• • reformed student finance;

• • brought in proposals to reform legal aid;

• • changed lone parent benefits;

• • introduced £3.5 billion for young people getting off benefit and into work;

• • proposed a fundamental reform of the Child Support Agency;

• • proposed the Working Families Tax Credit scheme, and action to get disabled people off benefit and into work;

• • put together the first ever comprehensive strategy on benefit fraud.

He claimed that Labour accomplished more welfare reform in 15 months than the Conservatives did in 15 years. Areas to be reformed in the forthcoming year included:

• • Disability Living Allowance;

• • Incapacity Benefit;

• • a minimum income guarantee for pensioners;

• • a single work-focused gateway into the benefit system;

• • asylum and legal aid (Blair, 1998c, col 368).

In its first Annual Report the Labour government claimed that it had been “a year of welfare reform” (Government's Annual Report, 1998). The government had set a ‘cracking pace’ in delivering its 177 manifesto commitments: 50 had been carried out, 119 were under way and on course and only 8 had yet to be timetabled. Despite contrary claims from the Conservatives, the five key ‘card’ pledges were being delivered (Jones, 1998).

In the debate on the Queen's Speech in November 1998, Blair (1998d, col 27) stated that in the previous Parliamentary session the government had proposed 22 Bills and delivered 52 Acts. In the shorter forthcoming Session, nearly 20 Bills were promised. He continued that the centrepiece of the Queen's Speech was the set of measures to improve the health service, schools, law and order and to reform welfare. Taken together, the measures – both the investment and the reform – amount to the largest programme of change in our public services for many years. He also pledged that the government would tackle subjects which were ducked when the Conservatives were in office (Blair, 1998d, cols 30-2).

As the contributors to this book show, Labour's period of office has seen substantial reform in many areas as shown by a number of White Papers, Green Papers, Parliamentary Bills, policy announcements and keynote speeches.