The British welfare state has
variously been decribed as `the jewel in the crown or `a millstone round the
neck of the country. It consists primarily of four pillars:
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The National Health Service:
free health care to all British citizens
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A state pension for all citizens
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Free education for all children up to the age of 18
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Unemployment benefit for people who find themselves out of
work.
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The National Health Service
(NHS) can trace its current form to the Beveridge report in 1945, which was implemented by
the Labour government immediately after the second world war. In effect, this nationalised
what had until then been a network of independent local doctors practices and
hospitals. Staggeringly, the NHS employs almost a million and a half people: it is the
worlds third largest employer (after the Chinese army and the Indian railways). The
total population of Britain is about 60 million. The very laudable concept is to ensure
everyone, even the most vulnerable members of society, can have the best possible health
care.
Because the NHS is free at the point of
delivery, it is inevitable that demand for its services is unconstrained. Many people
visit their doctors or hospitals more frequently than is really necessary. This puts a
strain on the available resources. It means that waiting times are longer than they need
be and the amount of attention the dedicated and well-qualified staff can give to
individual cases is small. No government in recent times has seriously attempted to do
anything about this. It is electorally impossible: no-one would vote for a politician who
would make them pay for something they get free now.
The NHS is phenomenally expensive.
It costs 8% of British GDP (to put this in context, the total revenues of the Philippine
government is about 16% of a much smaller GDP). Even so, the amount of money available for
the NHS is finite. Resources are theoretically prioritised so that front-line services
come first (but there is one notable exception dealt with below). Therefore the buildings
are shabby and dirty compared with many other countries. There is a special set of
diseases which people catch mainly by going to hospital.
The Labour government has recognised
this and is attempting to correct it by pouring extra money into the NHS. This
superficially sensible move is in fact misdirected because the vast majority of the extra
money is being eaten up by pay rises (not unreasonably: nurses pay in particular has
been derisory for years, and many have to be recruited from overseas), and wasted in
bureaucracy. It is not unusual to find more than 50% of the staff in a hospital doing
paperwork and not looking after patients. Sadly, therefore, all the extra money has not
resulted in a noticeable improvement in patient care. Add this to the unconstrained
demand, and it is clear why the service continues to deteriorate and why more people are
joining private medial schemes.
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A universal old age pension was introduced in 1945. At that
time, the retirement age was set at 65 for men and 60 for women.
Since then, average life expectancy
has increased by ten years, but the retirement age has not changed. So the cost of
providing pensions has risen colossally. It is mildly ironic that, despite this, Britain
is better off in this regard than most other European countries. In the 1960s, taxes in
Britain rose to stupid levels. Pension contributions were (up to a certain amount)
deductible against tax. So, many companies set up occupational pension schemes as a way of
rewarding employees without all the fruits of their work going to the Government to be
wasted. Then, in the 1980s, as Britains uncompetitive economy was revitalised by the
government of Margaret Thatcher, job security declined; the government created incentives
for people to set up their own personal pension schemes directly with insurance companies.
These two actions dramatically reduced the risk to the State from increasing pension
costs.
Nonetheless it is a real problem.
Over the next 50 years, the number of pensioners will steadily rise compared to the number
of people in work supporting them, from 1:4 now to 1:2 by 2050. The only credible solution
to this is to increase the normal retirement age, but politicians have so far lacked the
guts to do anything about it. The alternative of expanding the working population by
allowing more immigration has three problems: (a) the country is already pretty full, (b)
there is no guarantee that all the immigrants would find reasonable jobs, and (c) when the
immigrants themselves came to retire, it would create another pension `bulge.
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Education, `by which means alone we are rendered fit members
of regularly organised society, is another flagship of the British social welfare
system. As with health, the underlying concept of the education system is that everyone,
even the poorest and those from less advantaged backgrounds, can benefit from the highest
standard of education. Sadly, as with health, the reality does not live up to this noble
aspiration.
All children are entitled to a free
nursery school place from the age of four. Primary schools take children up to about
eight, followed by junior schools which take children until either 11 or 13. Secondary
schools take children up to 18, beyond which (in theory) the most able can proceed to
university. Standard tests are taken at 11 and 13. Major examinations, which count as
qualifications for employment later, are `GCSE (normally nine or ten subjects taken
at 16), and `A levels (normally 3 or 4 subjects taken at 18).
State secondary schools are known as
`comprehensive, which means that they have a comprehensive range of subjects and
pupils with a comprehensive range of abilities.
Many of these schools are good. But all are obliged to take all children from their
catchment areas. So some schools, particularly those taking pupils from rougher areas,
have a significant proportion of disruptive pupils. A few able children can still do well
in such schools, largely thanks to good parental support, but they need a huge strength of
character to overcome the bullying and negative peer pressure from the bad element.
The law doesnt help. It is
illegal for teachers to give any physical punishment to pupils, whatever their offence.
Further, teachers are too scared even to touch pupils for fear of being accused of
harassment or abuse. Many of the worst pupils know this, and flagrantly use it to taunt
their teachers and make life a misery for their fellow pupils. Any children who are shy or
weak willed are marked down as easy prey by these bullies, and seriously underachieve (or
worse) as a result. In such circumstances, any genuine attempt to teach the basics of
civilised behaviour such as good manners, deportment and elocution are doomed to failure.
Successive governments have
attempted to deal with this problem in various ways. The Conservatives tried to do it by
publishing league tables of school results. This competitive element is good, but capacity
is limited at the best schools so few parents are able to exercise the choice to send
their children to the better performing schools. The Labour government responded by
setting targets for such essential basics as literacy and numeracy. This again is good,
but the practical effect is to `dumb down the tests and exams to give the appearance
of continual progress without the unpleasant need actually to make any.
Under these circumstances it is not
surprising that many people who can afford to send their children to independent schools.
These are outrageously expensive (typically more than £10,000 per annum for day schools,
£20,000 for boarding) but generally give a good quality education and produce confident,
articulate and well-rounded children, able to participate fully in society. Unfortunately
it lays the parents (and pupils) open to accusations of snobbery or `elitism (a
favourite demon word of socialists) by people who are ideologically opposed to excellence
or choice, or who are envious of other peoples ability to exercise this choice.
Of course not all pupils excel at
private schools, and there are some children of wealthy or intelligent parents who become
disruptive. But independent schools can expel such renegades more easily. The stark fact
is that independent schools are much better, and those fortunate enough to benefit from
them find it worthwhile.
British universities vary widely in
standard. They include some world class institutions; Oxford, Cambridge and London are
internationally excellent in most subjects. Many other universities have individually
excellent departments such as Keele for veterinary science, Bristol for law, or Hull for
catalysis.
Unfortunately the present government
has set a target of having 50% of British children go to a university. They have failed to
match this with funding to increase capacity. They have also neglected to nurture
institutions which will bring more practical subjects up to rigorous degree standard to
suit people of different aptitudes. So, once more, the target can only be met by lowering
university standards to a level capable of being achieved by more people. As with targets
for testing, this will achieve the target but defeat the object. Furthermore, universities
charge tuition fees of up to £3,000 per annum. Add living expenses on top, and a student
can quite easily finish his course groaning under a burden of £20,000 debt. This can
deter students from poorer backgrounds, for whom such debt is both terrifying and
counter-cultural thus ensuring precisely the opposite effect to that intended.
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Unemployment benefit creates the widest difference of views
on the welfare state. Together with other welfare payments which are really unemployment
pay in disguise, eg income support and incapacity benefit, it is essentially a safety net
to ensure everyone in the country has a basic minimum income, and thus eradicate absolute
poverty. It has achieved this goal, but at a cost.
The argument in favour of
unemployment benefit is a moral one. In a relatively affluent society, no individuals
should be allowed to starve or freeze to death for want of a minimum income. This
principle has existed for centuries, from the old poor laws passed in the 16th
century. The responsibility was taken on by the state in 1945.
The counter-argument is essentially
moral hazard: by paying people who do not work, you encourage some people to avoid trying
to work a dependency culture. These people become benefit scroungers and
effectively freeload off the rest of society. In theory the level of unemployment benefit
is set sufficiently low to deter this effect, but in practice there are many people who
become adept at maximising their various benefits and live extremely comfortably without
ever doing a stroke of work. Also, it encourages fraud (eg people having black market jobs
but still claiming benefits). The cheats and scroungers therefore sour the taste for the
majority of honest people for whom unemployment pay can be an invaluable bridge to tide
them over between jobs. They feel, with justice, that having paid their taxes they should
get something back occasionally.
An argument one seldom hears is that
support for people who find themselves in distress has been the role of charities since
the concept of charity was invented. Unemployment pay in simply institutionalised charity.
But by the state taking on this role, people have come to look on it as a right not a
privilege. They therefore have no incentive (other than their self respect, if any) to
fulfil their corresponding obligation by finding work as fast as possible.
Foreign scroungers beware:
Entitlement to these benefits is restricted to British citizens. So sneaking into Britain
in order to freeload off the state does not work.
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