Areas That Blair-Brown Governments Continue Reverse Conservative Social Policies

Introduction

Blair government aimed at raising taxes during the first term when Blair became the Prime minister. As a result, the Blair/Brown government introduced a minimum wage that would be adopted in the entire country and some employment rights that were new. Blair/Brown government led to significant constitutional changes such as promoting of new powers that were included in Civil Partnership Act enacted in 2004, and he signed several treaties that would help in the integration of UK with the European Union. Blair/Brown government also introduced some substantial reforms that were market-based in sectors of health and education. In the education sector, tuition fees of the students were added that was sought with the aim of reducing specific welfare payments categories and introduced strict anti-terrorism and legislation of identity card (Bulmer, 2008, 613). The Blair government witnessed a significant increase in the amount of new law that attracted much criticism. Blair had increased the powers of the police through increasing the arrestable offences numbers as well as the dispersal orders usage.

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In regards to promoting social equality, the first Blair government was perceived as being most redistributive across several decades. Starting from 1997 up to 2005, all benefits of the government were aimed at benefiting the children via tax credits as the income support and child benefit had risen to about 72% in real utilized terms. There were significant improvements that were made to offer financial support to the pensioner, and as a result, in 2004 the pensioner's poorest third were PS1,750 annually which was better off when compared to the previous system. Several changes were also made in the benefits of the social welfare. All families in the UK were permitted to earn more as there was cut on the housing benefit. This particular benefit was increased for the families whereby the primary earner was working part-time, and about two million pensioners were given automatic assistance with the third tax bill of the council. Under the Blair government, there was an increase in expenditure that was allocated for providing social service at the same time there were different measures of anti-poverty that were introduced (Bulmer, 2008, 600). In 2001-2005, there was an increase in public spending through having the government spending in sectors such as health, education and transport. Due to the implementation of several schemes of tax credit that aimed at supplementing low earnings, the Blair government introduced policies that significantly raised the earnings of lowest income earning population.

Blair government made changes in the rights entitled to workers. Blair implemented new powers of the employees like extended rights of the parents, a significant rise of maximum compensation amount as a result of the unfair dismissal, and the right of workers to join a given trade union. Furthermore, there was the passing of the Employee Reaction Act that introduced the legal right of workers to become represented by a trade union. Another reform on the social policy that Blair government introduced was a voting system that was proportional to legislation that changed the administrative structures found in the local government was passed. There was set up of Regional Development Agencies, and several changes were implemented to the control of referendums and political parties which was facilitated by introducing of Electoral Commission and sending riles that were stricter.

Causes of Poverty Decline under the Blair/Brown Governments

Blair/Brown governments helped to decrease poverty in the UK. The significant falls in child and pensioner poverty were mainly driven by very substantial additional utilization of tax and benefits credits. The changes that Blair/ Brown governments brought in the UK had increased annual expenditure on families' benefits for children as well as pensioners benefits. Pensioner and child poverty would have either risen or remain the same instead of falling substantially given that Blair/ Brown government could have failed to introduce big spending on increasing child and pensioner benefits. However, gains and Labour's tax changes obtained only little net implication on the distribution of income or the low-income earning adults that had no dependent children which entailed the group that rate of poverty did not decrease. However, these changes helped in preventing a more significant increase in the inequality levels as well as poverty rates than it occurred during the Blair/ Brown governments.

There was the significant increase in the employment rates of many individuals in the UK that resulted in a small detectable influence on the income poverty. For instance, the reductions that were experienced in the children proportions that were living in the workless families mainly acted to minimize the relative poverty affecting children by about 2% points. During the Blair/ Brown governments, there were several labour initiatives which may be considered as being anti-poverty policies (Payne, 2006, 920). Some of these policies include sure start, the introduction of new national minimum wage, increased childcare's financial support, substantial increases in the government spending n education, and the expansion of the population of young individuals obtaining higher education. The Bail/ Brown governments had foreseen that any given payoffs from the majority of the measures would be considered long run instead of being treated as intermediate.

The Blair/Brown governments were successful in declining poverty levels in the country as they adopted a sensible approach for attaining distributional goals. Although benefit and tax policy had quick implications, other plausible systems were not. Therefore, Blair/Brown governments utilized a sensible approach that involved a lot of patience in making sure that they implement policies which may attain sustainable effects that would bear fruits in the medium as well as in long-term. Another reason why Blair/Brown governments declined poverty in the UK was that they implemented mean changes to sectors such as transport, education, health and childcare in manners that would allow their implications become robustly evaluated. According to Heffernan, (2011, 171), the government emphasized policy effectiveness which could be determined by having a proper evaluation of the policies implemented. Additionally, Blair/Brown governments obtained substantial gains from performing of a system of a tax benefit skillfully. Blair/Brown governments' chosen redistribution level was attained more efficiently. Blair/Brown governments ensured that they adopted stronger work incentives through focusing on individuals that were more responsive like lone parents and parents of children at school-age. This helped the Blair/Brown governments in ensuring that essential goals remained transparent and straightforward.

Causes of Inequality Increase In 1997-2010

There are several reasons why the UK experienced an increase in income inequality in 1997-2010. As a result of technological progression, there was an increase in financial returns that were realized in the education sector by the labour market. This is a significant cause of the rise in income inequality that was associated with the UK. Financial returns made to the education system may be viewed as a wage premium which many skilled employees enjoy more than less skilled workers. As a result, many individuals will be motivated to obtain better skills when there is high wage premium provided for the qualified employees which would raise the supply of the skilled labour that is relative to the unskilled worker. According to Stewart, (2011, 24), technological changes experienced in 1997-2010 increased wage premium and having higher wage premium caused increased income inequality between unskilled and skilled labour.

Another potential explanation of the rice of income inequality in1997-2010 is due to trade liberalization. The standard approaches usually indicate that while trade liberalization occurs between the developing nations that have relatively surplus of unskilled labour, and developed states that are characterized by the abundantly skilled worker, there is increased inequality in the developed countries. In normal circumstances, this is caused by the fact that trade is liberalized in the manner that goods are usually produced by unskilled labour which may be provided at a reduced cost in the developing states, may be imported into the developed countries thus decreasing the price of goods. Therefore, in 1997-2010, this resulted to lower wages being allocated for unskilled labour in the developed countries that resulted in declining of unskilled wage that was not comparable to the skilled wage that would indicate the rise of inequality.`

The other reason explaining why there was an increase in income inequality was due to changes that were made in government welfare and tax system. In 1997-2010, there were consecutive cuts made to top tax rates that directed increased the net incomes as well as income distribution including increased incentives that were allocated to individuals that were earning high salaries. This resulted in the strengthening of most upper income that was relative to the remaining population. The overall changes which were made to the benefit and tax system during 1997-2010 under labour government increased income inequality.

Another major contributor to income inequality was the changes implemented on the patterns of family employment. In 1997-2010, there was an increase in the families that lacked an individual working in them hence there was an increased number of single-parent households that were workless. At the same time, there was an overall increase in the rates of female employment which resulted in rising in household numbers having two earners. These two significant trends resulted in employment polarization whereby more families had individuals at work. As a result, this contributed to income inequality between the households having the joint-earner families being the ones enjoying higher incomes than the workless families. The increase in many individuals on benefits provided to the rise in the income inequality in 1997-2010. Despite the reduction of unemployment rates, the number of individuals that received state's benefits increased as more people relied on the state benefits like incapacity and sickness benefits. It is argued that in 1997-2010, there was disguised unemployment which meant that several individuals had lower income.

Another cause of the increase in income inequality in 1997-2010 was the increase in property values. This led to reduced disposable incomes that were available for most of the young individuals. The increased property values during this period resulted in making living standards more costly as there was increased renting. As a result, there was the rise in wealth inequality among people in the UK that contributed to increases in income inequality.

Cause of Increase of Poverty since 2010

In the UK, poverty has increased since 2010 due to some reasons. Most individuals in AUK since 2010 have been experiencing daily uncertainty and insecurity which makes them feel excluded from wealthy society norms. Poverty has caused significant harm to families as it affects their health, well-being and interfering with life chances. Furthermore, poverty that individuals are experiencing in the UK has resulted to broader damage on the economy and society leading to deprivation of talents and skills of individuals who would otherw...