“David Cameron, do you know how many food banks there were in this country when you came to power?” “Ed Miliband, do you think Britain is full?”
Jeremy Paxman went straight for the jugular in his interviews of the Tory and Labour leaders in the first of the televised election debates. Discussion of the economy, immigration and welfare cuts dominated the conversation. Cameron said he had “turned the economy around” and that a Conservative government would find a further £10bn in welfare savings, though he would not specify where they would be made. Miliband was forced into the defensive over Labour’s record on the economy and immigration, but said that a Labour government would balance the books by the end of the next Parliament through “fairer taxes” and cuts in departments outside of Health and Education.
With further welfare cuts inevitable, how have public attitudes to welfarism changed in recent years? Does religious affiliation make a difference?
The graph shows the overall positions of each religious group on a ‘Welfarist-Individualist’ socio-political axis, based on their responses to a series of statements in the British Social Attitudes survey from 2000 to 2012 (see below). On this scale 1 is the most ‘welfarist’ possible and 5 is the most ‘individualist’.
During this period, there was slightly greater preference among the population as a whole for a more individualised approach to social security. Public opinion tended to move further away from welfarism and towards individualism since 2001, though this pattern slowed somewhat in the last few years of the period.
Anglicans were generally less welfarist than other groups, and Catholics and Nonconformist more welfarist, but the differences between the groups were not huge.
In 2000 those of no religious affiliation were the most pro-welfare group. But by the end of the period this had reversed – they were equal with Anglicans in being the most ‘Individualist’ group.
Responses from those of non-Christian faiths fluctuated widely over the period. The group was most supportive of the welfare state from 2004 to 2008, but least supportive in 2003 and 2009. These oscillations may have been influenced by the small sample size for this group.
Differences of opinion between religious groups in this scale were almost always less significant than the general shift in public opinion away from welfarism during this period. How the public will respond to the competing party visions of the welfare state’s future remains to be seen.
These conclusions are drawn from the responses of different religious groups to the following Welfarist-Individualist statements in the BSA survey:
• The welfare state encourages people to stop helping each other
• The government should spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor, even if it leads to higher taxes
• Around here, most unemployed people could find a job if they really wanted one
• Many people who get social security don’t really deserve any help
• Most people on the dole are fiddling in one way or another
• If welfare benefits weren’t so generous, people would learn to stand on their own two feet
• Cutting welfare benefits would damage too many people’s lives
• The creation of the welfare state is one of Britain’s proudest achievements
This snippet taken from our report on Voting and Values in Britain: Does religion count? (pp. 108-109).
See the full report here and an Executive Summary here for further analysis of voting behaviour and religious identity.
Data source: British Social Attitudes 2000-2012
Individual traditions within the 'Other Christian' and 'Other religion' categories are grouped together within the BSA data due to small sample sizes.
