The Fabian Society has published a collection of writing to mark the centenary of one of the most important moments in British welfare history: the publication in 1909 of Beatrice Webb's Minority Report to the Royal Commission on the Poor Law. Her call for the Poor Law and workhouse to be scrapped and replaced with a universal welfare state was too radical for the time but paved the way for William Beveridge, her young researcher on the Minority Report, to use that vision three decades later to usher in the post-war welfare state.

The Government must protect poorer consumers from the cost of shifting to low-carbon energy generation, former Environment Agency chair Sir John Harman says in a new Fabian pamphlet published on 28th January.

As reported in the Independent, Harman argues in the The Green Crunch that moving to a secure mix of low or zero-carbon energy sources will mean a higher long-term unit energy price — leaving the state needing to step in against fuel poverty.