This chapter considers the broader impact of neoliberalism on welfare and penal policy. The main thrust of the argument here is that there has been an ideological and culture shift, which can be summarised as follows: the War on Poverty to a War on the Poor. The main thrust of the argument here is that as the state has withdrawn from a programme of social welfare provision, state systems and responses to poverty have become increasingly punitive in their outlook and approach. In the UK, this general trend is discernible from the mid-1970s onwards.

There was a brief hiatus under the first Blair Labour government. However, this period of investment in public services stands out against the trend, with the shift accelerating after the riots in 2011. There were two clear themes in the Blairite approach to welfare – an investment in education and health, although this investment was accompanied by a more moralistic discourse. The early achievements of the Blair years in tackling poverty and investing in public services have been lost. Alongside the positive investment in services such as Sure Start, the return of a more moralistic discourse around the causes of poverty and appropriate policy responses was evident. This tone continued under the coalition government.

Garland (2014) notes that intellectuals such as Beveridge, Marshall and Titmuss, behind the development of modern social protection systems in the UK, were opposed to the use of the term ‘welfare state’. They recognised that then, as now, its opponents use it pejoratively. The modern state has many, sometimes contradictory, functions. All modern developed states are welfare states in the sense that there exist forms of social insurance, education and healthcare, which are in some ways the responsibility of government. However, the dominance of the neoliberal discourse has meant that the term ‘welfare state’ has come to be only associated with government relief for the poor (Garland, 2014). This obscures not only the true functions and role of social protection, but also the broader role of the state. Hills (2015) demonstrates that the nature of welfare is much more complex than these debates allow. They also obscure which groups benefit from state welfare, and the mechanisms underpinning this.