The Labour governments of 1997-2010 were highly successful in reducing the numbers of rough sleepers and in enabling resettled homeless people permanently to escape from the streets. David Christie and Nicholas Crowson argue that their approach has direct relevance to for the efforts of the current administration to tackle the problem of homelessness on a scale not seen since the 1990s.

The government of Keir Starmer wants to enhance public access to the countryside. Previous Labour administrations have passed significant leglislation on this subject, and ministers and officials need to be aware of the lessons of these earlier initiatives. Glen O'Hara argues that these lessons from history include the importance of patience, story-telling, a sense of the local, an emphasis of positive rather than negative rights and the mobilisation of civic society. 

The British government’s recent commitment to raising defence spending as a proportion of the budget, alongside plans to cut spending on welfare, has led to considerable debate over the shift from welfare to warfare. Yet as Jessica Meyer argues, the history of the twentieth century suggests that warfare and welfare are intertwined and effective welfare provision will remain necessary for the successful administration of a policy based around the new priorities.

The debate around the Termanlly Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, which has provoked strong reactions both for and against assisted dying, is complicated by the deep health equalities in the UK and the lack of sufficient funding for good palliative and hospice care. The authors of this opinion article argue that the Bill demands we think about what these inequalities mean for society's search for a better kind of end to life.

Dame Judith Hackitt, who chaired the Health & Safety Executive from 2007 to 2016, reflects on the conference History and Policy’s Trades Union and Employment Forum will be hosting on 25 November on the history of health and safety at work.

On Friday 7 June, St John’s College, Cambridge hosted a special colloquium entitled ‘Health and Wealth: debating demography, gender, politics, welfare and policy’ to mark the retirement of one of History & Policy’s co-founders, Professor Simon Szreter.