ABSTRACT
All modern states are now “welfare states”. In all of them a high proportion of government expenditure is devoted to such items as old age pensions, health care, education, social services and provision for the unemployed, although different states make these provisions in different ways. In all such countries, including Britain, at the end of the twentieth century the level, characteristics and objectives of such social expenditure are central to political debate-in determining the outcomes of elections, for example. At the beginning of the century this was not so and levels of government social expenditure were much lower. In 1900 less than three per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Great Britain was devoted to publicly funded social services. In 1993 education, health and social security took almost 25 per cent. Historians disagree about how and why these changes have come about, and also about their social, economic and political implications.
