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eleven - New Labour, poverty and welfare in rural England

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 January 2022

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Summary

Introduction

Our economy and society are changing fast. Our welfare state must help us respond to these changes. It must focus its energy on tackling poverty and social exclusion. Society has a responsibility to support those unable to support themselves. It should help support people in acquiring the new skills they need for the jobs of the future. It must help UK companies succeed in the new global economy. (Hutton, 2006, p i)

… the lack of information about rural disadvantage in government research programmes and in assessments of how policy is working in tackling rural disadvantage suggests that consideration is not being given to rural issues (and particularly rural disadvantage) at all stages of policy processes. (CRC, 2006a, p 19)

In the first extract, taken from the Foreword to the 2006 Green Paper on welfare reform in the UK, John Hutton, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, sets out the government's general approach to welfare provision. On the one hand, he suggests that the welfare state should continue to provide support for vulnerable and needy groups within society. On the other, Hutton argues that the welfare system should play a role in bringing excluded groups into the labour market, strengthening Britain's position within the increasingly competitive global economy. In the first part of this chapter I want to discuss the development of New Labour's reforms of the welfare state since it came to power in 1997, highlighting the main elements of these reforms and positioning them within a broader historical context. This provides the introduction to the main part of the chapter, which examines New Labour's approach to poverty and welfare in rural areas.

As is apparent from the second extract above, little research or analysis has been undertaken on the rural impacts of New Labour's welfare policies. While government has claimed that its welfare policies are aimed at disadvantaged groups in all parts of the country and that it is aware of the distinctive dimensions of poverty in rural areas, there exists little evidence of the impacts of welfare reform in rural (and urban) spaces. This evidence gap, together with the government's initial prioritisation of urban forms of poverty and social exclusion, has led to claims that New Labour's anti-poverty and welfare agendas have been insensitive towards the rural dimensions of disadvantage (see CRC, 2006b).

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Chapter
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New Labour's Countryside
Rural Policy in Britain since 1997
, pp. 189 - 204
Publisher: Bristol University Press
Print publication year: 2008

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