Taking responsibility: A fair welfare contract
Article
The concept of 'rights and responsibilities' is now firmly entrenched in debates about welfare policy and is most obviously associated with arguments about benefit conditionality. However, habitual use of this concept risks obscuring the complex and contested set of ideas on which it draws. The idea of 'balancing rights with responsibilities' or 'everyone meeting their responsibilities' is unsurprisingly popular.
However, without a closer interrogation of the claims that underpin the concept of rights and responsibilities, this potentially potent idea loses focus and meaning, obfuscating the political purposes of those who use it.
In the context of welfare policy, it is important to think through the terms of a progressive conception of rights and responsibilities - including what it would mean for our society to be animated by such principles. If we accept that citizens have certain civic responsibilities, which can legitimately be enforced, we need to be clear about the corresponding roles and responsibilities of both the state and civil society, on which such citizen obligations depend.
This chapter delivers a sense of what a fair welfare contract might look like - and what it would take to achieve one. It begins by considering the different terms in which we might think about a fair welfare contract, and what we consider to be the best interpretation of them. It then goes on to explore what sort of responsibilities individuals, the state and civil society can plausibly be said to have under a fair welfare contract, before offering some thoughts on what this means in practice. Note: this is the second chapter of an ippr report, 'It's all about you: citizen-centred welfare', edited by Jim Bennett and Graeme Cooke, to be published in September 2007. The full report will be available to download free from the ippr website. Other extracted chapters will also be available to download.
Related items
Dr Parth Patel on BBC Politics Live - July 2024
IPPR's Dr Parth Patel on BBC Politics Live discussing the new Labour government, Covid, migration and international affairsA ‘mandate’ to deliver: Who voted Labour and what do they want?
This year’s general election saw the Labour party achieve a historic landslide, winning 218 new seats and a comfortable majority in the House of Commons.Half of us: Turnout patterns at the 2024 general election
One-half of adults in this country voted at the 2024 general election, the lowest share of the population to vote since universal suffrage.