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The Fabian Society, in association with the Webb Memorial Trust , has conducted a major research project to celebrate the centenary of a landmark contribution to social justice.
At a time when arguments about the causes of poverty, the principles of social justice and the responsibilities of the state are again contested issues, the project explored how the Minority Report's key insights should be renewed and applied today, and set out some core principles of contemporary citizenship that should underpin a new welfare settlement for the 21st century. In the spirit of Beatrice Webb's central concern with winning public support for change, the project also explored public attitudes towards poverty and inequality, to investigate what must be done to build a public consensus for making a socially just society a reality.
Lead researchers: Tim Horton, Research Director, and James Gregory, Research Fellow. For more on the Webb Memorial Trust click here The project advisory group had the following members*: Rushanara Ali Young Foundation; Mike Brewer Institute for Fiscal Studies; Kate Green Child Poverty Action Group; Lisa Harker Daycare Trust/ IPPR; Peter Kellner YouGov; Peter Kenway New Policy Institute; Barry Knight (project chair) Webb Memorial Trust; Jane Lewis LSE; Seema Malhotra Price Waterhouse Coopers; Audrey Mullender Ruskin College, Oxford; Jane Roberts Parenting UK; Karen Rowlingson University of Birmingham; Shamit Saggar University of Sussex; Nicholas Timmins FT; Polly Toynbee Guardian; Stuart White Jesus College, Oxford. *institutional affiliations refer to those held when the project was conducted The views expressed in project publications are those of the authors alone.
Project Publications Project pamphlet: What’s fair? Applying the fairness test to education Project pamphlet: From the Workhouse to Welfare
Project events Policy Debate: In the Mix: Narrowing the gap between public and private housing Centenary Conference, London School of Economics Panel Debate: Solidarity Lost? Reviving the will to redistribute Project Seminar: The Development of the British Welfare State Project Seminar: Dysfunctional Societies: Why Inequality Matters Panel Debate: A Return to Victorian Inequality? The Rise of the Super-Rich, Fabian AGM 2008 Project Seminar: Housing and Citizenship Peter Townsend Lecture: 1909-2009: Beatrice Webb and the Future of the Welfare State Project Seminar: Social Justice, Conservatism and the State Project Seminar: Social Justice, Liberal Democracy and the State Ed Miliband lecture for project launch: Fighting Poverty and Inequality in an Age of Affluence
2008 Party Conference events TUC Conference: Divided Society? Communities and Citizenship Liberal Democrat Party Conference: Climbing the Ladder: Can Social Mobility End Poverty? Labour Party Conference: Child Poverty Challenge: Can Middle England Care About Equality? Conservative Party Conference: Child Poverty Challenge: Is it the Warmth or the Wealth?
Articles, Media and Reaction The legacy of the Poor Laws: Jenni Russell on the British welfare state Guardian coverage of What’s Fair? Independent coverage of The Solidarity Society Independent editorial on The Solidarity Society Daily Mirror coverage of In the Mix Independent on Sunday coverage of In the Mix James Gregory argues for a Housing Cost Credit The Minority Report's Significance: Alan Johnson on health inequalities Tim Horton on fair and effective welfare Guardian editorial in praise of Beatrice Webb Sarah Wise and Pat Thane discuss the Minority Report on Radio 4 Letter to the Guardian on the Minority Report Sunder Katwala on 2009: a year of anniversaries Sunder Katwala discusses the Fabian tradition in Comment is Free James Gregory discusses the long-term impact of the policies raised in the Minority Report Tim Horton on the dividing lines over welfare reform Tim Horton discusses Beatrice Webb on BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour |
Beatrice Webb's 1909 Minority Report to the Poor Law Reform Commission first set out the vision, arguments and values of social justice that were to become the foundations of the modern welfare state. It challenged the dominant assumption that the poor were solely to blame for their own poverty, demonstrating that the causes of poverty are structural as well as individual, and argued that society has a collective responsibility to prevent poverty, not merely alleviate it. Fighting poverty and inequality in an age of affluence commemorated the centenary of the Minority Report by making a major contemporary contribution to the strategy for fighting poverty and inequality in today's Britain.
