Post-pandemic, post-Beveridge?

Millions of us have been supported by social security during the pandemic, which has provided a living standards lifeline amid a deep economic shutdown. But the inadequacy of the UK’s benefit system has also been exposed. The Chancellor had to invent whole new kinds of income protection overnight and boost the basic level of benefits, while holes in the safety net for the self-employed and those needing to self-isolate have proved extremely costly.

What lessons has this crisis taught us about our social security system? To what extent has the crisis – or the benefit cuts that preceded it – changed public attitudes towards welfare? And is now the time to deliver the long-promised, but rarely-delivered, Beveridge or even Bismarck-esque overhaul of the social security system?

To mark the launch of a new report on the UK’s post-pandemic welfare state, the Resolution Foundation is hosting an interactive webinar to discuss and answer these questions. We will hear from Baroness Philippa Stroud – one of the leading architects of Universal Credit – and Kate Summers from the Welfare at a (Social) Distance project, on the need for, and direction of, future welfare reforms. Viewers will be able to submit questions to the panel before and during the event.