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The use made of social capital in UK health policy by New Labour has been criticised as evidence of an ideological retreat away from traditional social democracy. This article argues that the influence of the concept on policy development in the public health field has, in fact, the potential to complement, rather than provide an alternative to, social democratic approaches. Its operationalisation in the establishment of local health initiatives, when combined with the broader policy framework, appears to reinforce the gradual shift in UK primary care towards a more public health orientation, a shift generally regarded as vital for the secure establishment of health inequalities on the UK health agenda.
This chapter considers Labour’s difficulties in dealing with what has become an important but rather intractable problem — that of pensions. It discusses the problems that Labour inherited in this area in 1997, with increased poverty rates resulting from low state provision of pensions, women disproportionately represented among the older poor and much of the growth in inequality indexes coming from the growth in occupational pensions. It considers whether pensions reforms have made the subsequent system more social democratic. It considers entitlement, the public/private mix and benefit levels before coming to the conclusion that the 2007 and 2008 reforms represent a new direction for policy, but notes the lack of clarity as to whether these reforms will develop should there be a change of government. It questions whether employer opposition to some of Labour’s ideas might represent a significant test of the social policy credentials of David Cameron’s Conservative Party.
Consideration of pension financialisation in recent years has focused on the rise of defined contribution pensions, highlighting the greater level of individualised interaction this has encouraged between citizens and the financial sector. This development has generally been seen as unequivocally neo-liberal, complementary to retrenching reforms replacing private provision for public. This chapter, in contrast, argues for a less rigid, more fluid understanding of UK pension financialisation, one that has entailed the interaction of financialising and progressive social protection agendas in a politics more diverse and negotiated than proposed in the current literature. The result in 2019 is a UK public-private pension mix under which at least some traditional social protection objectives are met through social regulation rather than public provision. To emphasise the continuing role for agents in today’s system, the paper finishes by proposing two ambitious, but feasible, regulatory reforms designed to enhance the system’s socially protective features.
Concerted support from business organisations for increased state welfare provision is unexpected in liberal capitalism, but in Britain this occurred prior to recent major reforms of pensions. Using Mares’ micro-theory of employer behaviour and studies of public/private mixes, this article shows that three umbrella organisations of employers and insurers supported higher state pensions because incremental state regulation of non-state provision over many decades and threats about even greater compulsion in the private sector had significantly reduced company control while increasing their costs. As a result, a higher state pension appeared more attractive to all business actors than further regulation of the private sphere. On this basis, we suggest that state regulation should be incorporated more firmly into theories of institutional development and interest formation in liberal regimes.
Post-Brexit, UK migration rules treat ‘EU- and non-EU citizens equally’. Thus, a much larger number of working migrants have less access to social rights than before. This article compares how the different welfare entitlements for working migrants and non-migrants affect the incomes of 21 hypothetical households; some workers are single, some have a child. Using micro-simulation, we assess the risk of poverty and the extent of inequality for migrants and non-migrants. We show that the system excludes new migrants from the social contract which defines the rights of UK citizens as working parents, leading to significant poverty risks and inequality.
Few commentators believe the UK government’s policy framework for achieving its target to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions to net zero by 2050 is sufficient. There is a strong case for a carbon or energy tax, but from a social policy perspective such taxes raise distributive concerns. Yet, as this chapter shows, taxation of carbon already exists in the UK in a range of fiscal instruments that affect the cost/price of GHG emissions. These have emerged uncoordinated with little concerted analysis of their distributive impact or the adequacy of benefit payments that mitigate impact. The chapter shows existing UK carbon taxation to be highly regressive with mitigation efforts wholly insufficient, particularly with respect to the lowest-income decile households. What is required, it is suggested, is a re-consideration of domestic energy taxation encompassing the development of fully worked through compensatory mechanisms, including universal services delivering basic needs.
