“The welfare state, while seeming to bless and promote a more equal society, is a social disaster.” This is what we were saying back in the 1960s and 70s when Monica and I were pastoring a church in the East End of London. We were practising forms of community development where we could see the disastrous social effects that welfare provision was having upon the local people.

Damaging dependency

When we began our ministry in 1952 the Welfare State was still quite new. It had only been introduced in the late 1940s, but we could already see both its benefits and, sadly, its effect of increasing ‘dependency’ in the lives of many people.

Today, that dependency screams at us from every statistic produced by the ONS. The front-page story in The Times last Friday was under the heading “Learn work skills or face benefits cut, jobless told.” The article said that there are 1.2 million unemployed who are job seeking. By contrast there are 9 million unemployed but who are NOT job seeking! They are expecting the state to look after them – and to give them a good standard of living.

Surely, rights and obligations should go together.

An even more startling statistic is there are 2.2 million people of working age who are living on health benefits. Some have severe, long-term needs that mean that they (and their carers) are unable to work at all, or in a very limited capacity, and so rely on these allowances. Yet many others are capable of some work, but are said to be not seeking employment because they are afraid of losing their state support. There are many ways in which they could contribute to society, given the right advice, support and training – which would add to their sense of wellbeing and value. But many see these payments as a ‘right’ without recognising their social obligations. Surely, rights and obligations should go together?

Reaping the ‘rewards’

It is also reported that most of those claiming health benefits are due to mental health problems. The greatest single cause of mental health problems today arises from family breakdown, which is a clear sign of a sick society. Britain now has 51.5% of babies born out of wedlock, with most people scorning marriage and living in unstable relationships of limited duration and then expecting the State to take care of them, and their offspring, when things go wrong. So now we are not only producing a ‘bastard’ nation with no understanding of values or heritage, but an increasing number of children and young people who are so unstable they can’t even be sure of their gender, let alone their personal identity and family history. It is not surprising that so many beds in NHS hospitals are occupied by people with mental health problems.

So now we are not only producing a ‘bastard’ nation with no understanding of values or heritage, but an increasing number of children and young people who are so unstable they can’t even be sure of their gender, let alone their personal identity and family history.

The government is planning to require attendance at job centres for two weeks on a daily course preparing them for re-entering the workplace. This is because there are so many jobs unfilled in industry and in the hospitality and agricultural sectors where they are desperate for workers. We are the only nation in the Western world that has not bounced back after the Covid restrictions. This is largely because we have institutionalised 'dependency' through the Welfare State and now we are reaping its economic as well as its social consequences.

Loss of community

We could already see this as a social problem during our pastoral work in London back in the 1950s and 60s. This was everywhere to be seen – even in the physical geography of East London, where the centuries-old community life was systematically being destroyed as street after street of small houses were replaced by tower blocks.

As people were stacked up into the sky, they never passed anyone’s front door going down in the lift and across the concrete foreground on the way to the anonymity of the supermarket that had replaced the friendly corner shop where everyone was known. Loneliness was far greater in the inner city urban areas than in rural villages – and the South was affected more than the North.

Centuries-old community life was systematically being destroyed as street after street of small houses were replaced by tower blocks.

Mental health problems, previously very rare, began to appear. The government’s reaction was to invent new ‘professionals’ to replace the neighbourhood community help that had been destroyed – they were ‘social workers’, 'health visitors', ‘youth workers’, ‘probation officers’ and various other kinds of welfare workers.

Empowering neighbourly support

The neighbourly love and support in every urban village community was destroyed and replaced by ‘professionalism’ that produced what sociologists defined as ‘social anomie’ and the death of community. My wife and I reacted to this by forming 'The Newham Community Renewal Programme' that recently celebrated its 60th anniversary. It was a Christian programme of community development, using biblical concepts and values to regenerate community in a rapidly changing social environment.

We were not there to ‘service’ the local population but to promote self-help and the serving of one another. By serving other people, and stimulating the same values among their neighbours, each person found a personal dignity and discovered gifts and abilities that they did not know they possessed.

This, of course, was what Jesus did. He saw the latent generosity in the mean little tax collector Zacchaeus. He saw the Gospel writer in Matthew the tax collector, and he saw Peter, the great leader of the Early Church, in Simon the fisherman.

We were not there to ‘service’ the local population but to promote self-help and the serving of one another.

We saw lives transformed by an encounter with the living Jesus, and we saw those who had only had a basic education – known locally in the East End as “learning to labour” – discover skills and leadership abilities that were previously unknown.

Courage needed

Politicians are proud that the Welfare State provides for all the needs of everyone from ‘birth to grave’ or ‘womb to tomb’, but it has in fact become the opium of the people. It has produced a ‘spirit of dependency’ in millions of people that reduces their ability to help themselves. Until our politicians have the courage to dismantle some of the Welfare State and find ways of teaching people to do things for themselves, and for each other, and to pay for things that they can well afford (like medicines for well-off pensioners), we will continue on the road to becoming a banana state.

Though we won’t even have the benefit of the bananas, because no-one wants to pick them!