Our Great Welfare State
by Ritchie Mehta (31 August 2009)
In 1942, under the influence of William Beveridge, Britain was to be transformed into a ‘Welfare State’, which could tackle the five ‘giant evils’ that plagued our society. These were categorised as ‘disease, want, ignorance, squalor and idleness’ and lay the foundations for a post war Britain. These five ‘giant evils’ formed the basis of our welfare provision – with the creation of public sector housing, education, our renowned National Health Service and provision for the elderly. But today as we remind ourselves of the ‘five evils’ it is becoming apparent that Britain is falling short on ensuring our elderly can sustain a reasonable life without the prospect of ‘squalor’.
According to the latest report by the Work and Pensions Committee around 2 million pensioners live in poverty and have to decide between basic necessities such as food or heating. Perhaps a more chilling statistic is that since 1997, 260,000 pensioners have died due to cold-related illnesses. It would certainly seem that the British winters are not only cold and dark for many pensioners but also increasingly dangerous as the household bills get ramped up during this period.
This situation has put Britain at the heart of controversy as according to a report by the European Commission; our pensioners have the fourth highest level of poverty in Europe. British pensioners are currently worse off than their counterparts in countries such as Romania and Poland.
Is the situation likely to improve? With our nation sitting on a huge amount of public debt, coupled by recession, increasing unemployment and an ongoing banking crisis it looks like pensioners have been put further down the pecking order. In addition, with discussions in play of whether we should increase the pensionable age to 70, and many private and public institutions re-assessing their employees pension provision, it seems that things are only heading in one direction at the moment – down hill. One can only imagine what the late Beveridge would have made of this situation, our great ‘Welfare State’.