WELFARE STATE

Welfare State

Welfare State

Introduction

If, we look into the history, the discretionary provisions dominated the Britain's welfare, with friendly and mutual societies providing a whole lot of benefits to the people. Voluntary and local authorities used to run the hospitals and the health insurance contribution financed a national system for having panel doctors. These insurance contributions were determined by the state, and the source was mutually owned societies.

In 1906, the Liberal Government got huge success in the elections. The main aim of the reforms made by the Liberal Government during the period of 1906-1911 was to save the friendly societies. A point, which is noteworthy to mention, is that the modern welfare state in UK has emerged based on the legislation of the Liberal Welfare Reforms. The incident of these reforms emerged as a result of realising that the Poor Law provision needs alterations. As a matter of fact, a prime reason for the victory of Liberals was that they were the first to make poverty as an important issue during elections (Field, 2011, pp. 1).

Thus, the need for a welfare state aroused and the William Beveridge Report of 1942 predicted that the United Kingdom will soon become a welfare state. This report revealed five big evils of the society including, disease, idleness, squalor, want and ignorance. The Labour Government of 1942 assured that these evils will be eradicated from the society and for this purpose the government took various policy measures for the people of United Kingdom, from cradle to grave.

Why the Welfare State was formed?

A few basic reasons for the formation of a welfare state in the United Kingdom were reports developed by Rowntree and Booth, showing various levels of poverty prevailing within the United Kingdom during the starting of twentieth century. These reports revealed that a huge percentage of people, living in the enormous industrial cities of the north, were leading a life which was below the poverty line or the level of survival. The more comprehensive reasons for switching to a welfare state are more difficult. First of all, the governments who had experienced the conditions of social unrest and revolts after World War I was over, obviously never wanted the same thing to happen on a massive scale after the World War II. Moreover, the complex and modern industries required educated and healthy workforce compared to the traditional industries. Most importantly, the experience of total state control which people faced during the World War II, taught them a lesson that the state will have to deal with large areas of national life. Finally, it is apparent that the social mingling entailed in the service of the armed forces and in the large scale evacuation of children provided better grounds of support for welfare amongst the middle class of the society.

With the breakout of the World War II, majority of the people living in the United Kingdom, though the situations will go worst. Rationing started and the plans of evacuation were put in effect ...