When, in his dotage, Beveridge turned to writing his memoirs, he paid tribute to one of his first employers in his research career. For the idea that was central to the foundation of the modern welfare state – the idea of a ‘national minimum of civilised life’ – came not from Beveridge himself, but from an earlier champion of the welfare state.
It was the central moral vision of Beatrice Webb’s seminal work, the 1909 Poor Law Minority Report, which called for the abolition of the Victorian Poor Laws, and it should continue to guide us in today’s febrile climate of welfare reform debate.
That debate has disturbing echoes of the very thinking that Beatrice Webb sought so hard to repudiate. Just as in 1909, there still exists a perceived moral shibboleth between a deserving and an undeserving poor. Glance at the tabloids in any given week, and the contemporary political salience of this distinction is clear.
What made Webb’s report so radical was the way in which the idea of a national minimum took a sharp turn away from the notion that welfare was to be distributed strictly in accordance with these tough classifications. In part the rejection of these categories was driven by a hard-headed analysis of the inefficiencies of the Poor Law. By segregating and demonising the destitute the Poor Laws helped create the perception of an underclass, whilst at the same time crushing their spirit and any hope of regaining independence. Small wonder that only the most desperate turned to the state for assistance. Not only did the Poor Laws fail to prevent rather than treat poverty, the treatment itself was part of the problem.
Yet implicit in this analysis there is the deeper value of equality of social status. The civilised minimum envisaged by Webb was an unequivocally egalitarian principle. State assistance was to be seen to be a right of all citizens, and not alms dispensed out of charity to the poor. But the notion of a civilised minimum bears emphasis too. More than a safety net, Webb’s welfare state was to judge the minimum in accordance with the prevailing social norms of a decent life. Inevitably, this takes us far beyond mere material poverty. In today’s language we would make the point through the concept of social exclusion. If internet access had been available in 1909, this would have been part of the civilised minimum. For Webb herself, it included access to parks and green space.
But this vision was the light that failed. Both Beveridge and Bevan passionately advocated the need for a social safety net below which no one should fall, but this was different from the ideal of a social minimum. For the assumption it was based upon was a very narrow view of poverty as material deprivation. Welfare remained what it has always been in Britain – relief for the poor. And we know from long experience that welfare for the poor quickly becomes poor welfare. Overly targeted resources undermine broader public support for welfare institutions, as they are seen to be only for an undeserving poor. Nowhere is this clearer than in public attitudes, and media representations of, large social housing estates. Stigma works in other ways as well. It can prevent the take up of benefits, as many claimants (particularly the elderly) seek to protect their sense of self-esteem from the labels of welfare.
It needn’t have been this way. Webb’s idea of a national minimum of civilised life could have become a reality. Something very much like it drives other continental models of welfare provision; with welfare for all, not just the poor, and the middle classes – waiting to draw upon the state backed pensions – having a vested interest in its continuing health. And there is an important lesson for social equality too: the national minimum that Webb called for breaks down a binary distinction between a tax-paying ‘us’ and a welfare claiming ‘them’. It is this key lesson for Webb’s Minority Report that needs to drive forward debate about welfare reform.
The Fabian Society conference Fighting Poverty and Inequality in an Age of Affluence, commemorating the centenary of the Poor Law Minority Report, is held at LSE on February 21.
www.fabians.org.uk