British Social Attitudes 43

Introduction

The British Social Attitudes survey is a high-quality survey that has been conducted by the National Centre for Social Research annually since 1983. One of its key aims is to identify and analyse how and why social and political attitudes are evolving in Britain in the wake of social, economic and political change.

This British Social Attitudes (BSA) First Look is an initial early release and examination of some of the key findings of the most recent survey conducted in September and October 2025. It focuses on some of the major policy issues and debates that currently face the country: taxation and spending, welfare, immigration, electoral reform, and assisted dying. 

Thanks to the more than 40-year legacy of BSA surveys, on each of these topics we have a long-running time series that sometimes stretches as far back as the first survey in 1983. This enables us to place current public attitudes in historical context, and to identify whether and to what extent the current public mood is distinct and unique - or whether it simply contains familiar echoes of the past.

Methodology

Fieldwork for the British Social Attitudes survey took place between 26 August and 6 October 2025. BSA was conducted using a push-to-web design, with a telephone option for those either unwilling or unable to take part online. Addresses from across the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland were randomly sampled from the Postcode Address File (PAF). At each selected address up to two adults aged 16 and over were invited to take part in the survey. In total, 4,680 fully completed interviews were obtained, with an individual response rate of 11.6% and a household response rate of 15.9%.

BSA was conducted using face-to-face interviewing between 1983 and 2019, and shifted to the current push-to-web design from 2020 onwards.

Taxation and spending

The 2019-24 parliament witnessed a notable expansion in the size of the state. ¹  Nevertheless, public services, including most notably the health service, have been struggling to recover from the pandemic. ^{2 3 4}  At the same time, the government is fiscally constrained; public sector net debt rose from 85% at the end of 2019 to 96% in June 2024, the highest level since the early 1960s. ⁵

Despite these pressures, at the 2024 election Labour pledged not to increase the rates of income tax, employee national insurance, or VAT. ⁶  Although the government has not pulled back on these promises, it has sought to fund extra spending, including not least on health, by freezing income tax thresholds ⁷  and increasing employers’ national insurance ⁸ . At the same time, it has endeavoured to constrain a rise in spending on welfare for those of working age who are not in employment because of disability or poor mental health. ^{9 10}  Meanwhile, the pressure on the government’s fiscal position has been exacerbated by a deterioration in the geostrategic environment, which, after many years of relatively low expenditure, has led to calls for increased defence spending. 

Public attitudes towards taxation and spending are sometimes said to behave in a ‘thermostatic’ ¹¹  manner. According to this theory, people have a sense both of how much tax they feel they should have to pay and of what public services they should receive as a result. When taxes and spending fall, people become concerned about the state of public services and start to seek increases in taxation and spending. However, when taxes and spending rise significantly, as they have since the COVID-19 pandemic, a growing number of people start to feel that levels are too high and instead seek a reduction in their tax burden. 

BSA has asked the following question in every one of its annual surveys since the series began in 1983:

Suppose the government had to choose between the following three options. Which do you think it should choose? 

1. Reduce taxes and spend less on health, education and social benefits 
2. Keep taxes and spending on these services at the same level as now 
3. Increase taxes and spend more on health, education and social benefits

Figure 1 shows how the pattern of responses has evolved since 1983. In line with ‘thermostatic theory’, the public reacted to the constraints on public expenditure imposed by the Conservative governments of 1979-97 by becoming increasingly supportive of more taxation and spending. However, public opinion swung back in the opposite direction in the wake of the increase in public expenditure undertaken by the 1997-2010 Labour government – only eventually to swing back again in the years running up to the COVID-19 pandemic after the then Conservative government had pursued a programme of ‘austerity’ in the wake of the financial crash in 2008.

Figure 1 Attitudes towards taxation and spending, 1983 – 2025

Although the public did not react immediately against the expansion of the state in the wake of the pandemic, there is now clear evidence that it has done so. In our latest survey, just 36% say the government should increase taxes and spend more, down four points on 2024, and 19 points below the figure recorded in the 2022 survey. Not since 2013 has the proportion wanting more taxes and spending been so low. But even more strikingly, an all-time high of 19% now say that taxes and spending should be reduced, up four points on 2024, and more than double the proportion in 2022 (8%). Indeed, until the last three years, the proportion saying that taxes and spending should be reduced had never even been as high as 10%.

This suggests that not only has the public reacted thermostatically to the increase in taxation and spending in a similar vein as before, but also that attitudes have become more polarised. Indeed, they vary much more by party preference than was the case when there was previously a thermostatic reaction. This can be seen in Table 1, which shows how attitudes vary by party support for each of 2010 (when support for more taxation and spending was previously at its lowest), in 2022 (at the end of the pandemic, just before the thermostatic reaction began to emerge), and in our latest survey.

^{The figure for Conservative/UKIP/Reform in 2010 includes a small number of respondents who at that time were identifying as supporters of the British National Party (BNP).}

Collectively, those who support the Conservatives or UKIP/Reform have always been somewhat less likely to support an increase in taxation and spending. But in 2010, when there was also relatively little appetite for more spending among the public as a whole, there was only a twelve-point difference between the two blocks of supporters in their level of support for that option. Now, in contrast, there is a 31-point gap between them. Just over half (52%) of Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green supporters favour an increase in spending, compared with little more than one in five (21%) of those who identify with the Conservatives or Reform. 

True, the difference between the two groups in their level of support for more spending was already wider in 2022. However, what our latest survey reveals is that there is now a marked difference between them in the level of support for reducing taxes and spending. Nearly three in ten (29%) of Conservative and Reform supporters back that option, compared with just one in ten (10%) of Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green supporters. Although the debate about the size of the state has always been something of a dividing line in Britain’s politics, it has now become a significant fault line.

Welfare

As noted above, the Labour government has attempted to reduce spending on welfare for those of working age. It has focused in particular on two groups that have grown significantly in size – younger people who are not working because of mental health difficulties, and older people who have exited the labour market before retirement age because of long-term sickness or disability. ^{12 13}  The government’s proposals for addressing the issue have proven controversial, and indeed those in respect of disability were withdrawn in the wake of opposition from Labour MPs. Meanwhile, both the Conservatives and Reform have called for reductions in spending on welfare, not least by limiting further the rights of migrants to claim benefit.

Previous BSA surveys have identified important changes in attitudes towards welfare. This is illustrated by how people have responded when, since 1987, the British Social Attitudes survey has regularly asked respondents whether they agree or disagree that:

The government should spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor, even if it leads to higher taxes.

As Figure 2 shows, support for spending more money on welfare began to fall notably at around the time New Labour came to power in 1997, when the party advocated a policy of ‘welfare to work’ that aimed to use the welfare system to get people back into work rather than living on long-term benefits. ^{14 15}  By 2009, following in the immediate wake of the financial crash, only just over a quarter (27%) agreed that the government should spend more money on welfare, half the proportion in 1987. More people now disagreed than agreed with the proposition.

However, after the Conservative government that was first elected in 2010 reduced the real value of welfare benefits, public opinion began to swing back again. ^{16 17 18}  By 2017, 44% agreed that welfare spending should be increased and support still stood at much the same level (42%) immediately before the pandemic.

Figure 2 ‘The government should spend more money on welfare benefits for the poor, even if it leads to higher taxes’ (1987-2025)

The mood has now changed once again. Following falls in our 2023 and 2024 surveys, the proportion who agree that the government should spend more on welfare has dropped further in our latest survey to equal the all-time low of 27% previously recorded in 2009. Meanwhile, at 42%, the proportion who disagree is only one point below the record high of 43% in 2009. The calls of politicians from across the political divide for a reduction in welfare spending reflects what, by historical standards, is an especially high level of concern about the size of the country’s welfare bill.

Yet for all the focus in the recent policy debate on reducing benefits for people of working age, it is spending on retirement pensions that above all has become relatively less popular in recent years. This is apparent in Table 2, which shows how people have responded since 1983 when asked:

Thinking now only of the government’s spending on social benefits, which, if any of the following would be your highest priority for extra spending?

1. Retirement pensions
2. Child benefit
3. Benefits for the unemployed
4. Benefits for disabled people
5. Benefits for single parents
6. None of these

Twenty years ago, as many as 61% said that retirement pensions were their highest priority for more spending on benefits. But by 2018 that figure had almost halved to just 32% and is still no more than 34% in our latest survey. Although spending on pensions is still relatively popular, it is now barely any more popular than spending on benefits for people with a disability (30%), even though the latter has been the focus of some of the recent calls for a reduction. The reduction in the popularity in more spending on pensions perhaps reflects an awareness that the benefits system has been relatively generous to a group whose living standards have commonly fared better than those of most people over the last couple of decades. ¹⁹

At the same time, at 20% and 9% respectively, the proportions who say that their highest priority for more spending is child benefit or single parents are both also at a record high. In combination, spending more on these two benefits is now also almost as popular as extra money for retirement pensions. While, with the pandemic now long since over, there is once again little support for more spending on benefits for the unemployed, it seems that the focus by both the government and the opposition on reducing working age welfare to the exclusion of any discussion about spending on pensions may not fully reflect how public opinion has evolved in recent years.

Immigration

The UK has experienced relatively high levels of migration during the 21st century. Concern about the issue was a key motivation behind the choice made by Leave voters in the 2016 EU referendum. ²⁰  Meanwhile, despite leaving the EU in 2020, net inward migration reached an unprecedented high in 2022/3, and more broadly has not consistently fallen below the level being experienced before the 2016 referendum. ²¹  At the same time, a record number of asylum seekers have sought entry into the UK via irregular routes such as small-boat crossings. ²²

Opinion polling suggests that concern among the UK public about immigration has increased in the wake of these developments. The topic has become the most commonly mentioned when people are asked which are the most important issues facing the country, a result that is widely interpreted as evidence that people would prefer lower levels of immigration. ^{23 24}   But does this mean that concern about the impact of immigration has reached an unprecedented high?

Since 2011, BSA has regularly asked two questions about the impact of migration into Britain. One asks them to consider the effect that it has on the economy and the other its impact on Britain’s cultural life:

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is extremely bad and 10 is extremely good, would you say it is generally bad or good for Britain's economy that migrants come to Britain from other countries?

And on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is undermined and 10 is enriched, would you say that Britain's cultural life is generally undermined or enriched by migrants coming to live here from other countries?

Those who give a score of between 0 and 3 can be regarded as feeling that migration is bad for the economy and that it undermines Britain’s cultural life. In contrast, those who proffer a score between 7 and 10 can be regarded as taking the view that migration is good for the economy and that it enriches the country’s cultural life. Those with a score of between 4 and 6 can be thought of as having views in between. In Table 3, we show the pattern of response to the two questions from 2011 to 2025 after people’s scores have been collapsed in this way.

The public have clearly become more sceptical about the impact of migrants in the wake of the recent record levels of regular and irregular migration. In 2022, as many as 50% thought migrants were good for Britain’s economy, while the same proportion felt they enriched the country’s cultural life. But after falling markedly in 2023 and then somewhat further in 2024, in both cases, the equivalent figure now is just 32%. Indeed, slightly more people now believe that migrants are bad for the economy than feel they are beneficial, while the balance of opinion is now also tilted slightly towards the view that migrants undermine rather than enrich Britain’s cultural life.

However, this does not mean that concern about the impact of migration is now especially widespread. As Table 3 also shows, in 2011 only 21% thought that migrants were good for the economy, while twice as many (42%) believed they were bad. Similarly, just 26% believed that migrants enriched the country’s cultural life, while as many as 40% were of the opposite view. 

One of the ironies of the debate about immigration during the EU referendum campaign was that it occurred at a time when the balance of opinion about the impact of migration was already seemingly becoming more favourable. In any event, the vote to Leave the EU was certainly followed by consistently more favourable perceptions. Thus, although more recent experience of high levels of migration has been accompanied by a reversal of this relatively favourable mood, people’s perceptions of the impact of migration are still noticeably less unfavourable than they were a decade and a half ago.

That said, attitudes towards migration are now politically much more polarised than they were in 2011. This is shown in Table 4, which, for each of 2011, 2022, and 2025, compares the balance of opinion on the economic and cultural impact of migration among those who support one of the Conservatives, Reform, or the UK Independence Party (Ukip) with that among Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green identifiers combined. 

^{The figure for Conservative/UKIP/Reform in 2011 includes a small number of respondents who at that time were identifying as supporters of the British National Party (BNP). Those who identified as Green were not separately coded in 2011.}

The table shows that while Conservative and Reform supporters are heavily of the view that migration is bad for the economy and undermines the country’s cultural life, over half of Labour, Liberal Democrat, and Green identifiers take the opposite view. In contrast, while in 2011 nearly half of Conservative and UKIP supporters took a negative view of the economic and cultural impact of migrants, so also did around a third of Labour and Liberal Democrat identifiers. And while in 2022, around two-thirds of Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters took a positive view of the impact of migration, Conservative and Reform supporters were divided in their outlook rather than taking a predominantly negative view, as they do in our latest survey. Immigration has evidently become a much more politically contentious issue in Britain’s politics. 

Electoral reform

The 2024 general election produced the most disproportional outcome in British electoral history. ²⁵  The Labour Party won 63% of the seats despite winning just 34% of the vote across the UK as a whole. Although the Liberal Democrats’ tally of 12% was almost translated into the same proportion (11%) of the seats, Reform, on 14%, were rewarded with just 1% of MPs. Both the Conservatives and the Greens lost out too. Inevitably, these divergences, together with the further fragmentation of party support in opinion polls since the 2024 election, has breathed new life into the debate about electoral reform.

Parties that benefit from an electoral system tend to favour its retention, while those that lose out often back change. Historically the most successful party in Britain, the Conservatives, have consistently been opposed to change. The other principal party of government, Labour, has mostly taken the same view. In contrast, as the third party that has often struggled to turn votes into seats, the Liberal Democrats (and before them, the Liberal Party) have long been in favour of a switch to a proportional system. However, perhaps the outcome of the 2024 election, together with the rise of Reform in subsequent opinion polls, has persuaded some parties’ supporters to re-evaluate their attitude towards electoral reform?

To gauge attitudes towards the topic, British Social Attitudes has regularly asked respondents the following question:

“Some people say we should change the voting system for general elections to the UK House of Commons to allow smaller political parties to get a fairer share of MPs. Others say that we should keep the voting system for the House of Commons as it is to produce effective government. Which view comes closer to your own?”

As Figure 3 shows, up to and including 2017 the level of support for keeping the existing first-past-the-post system was never much less than 50%, while, until 2015 at least, backing for a switch to a more proportional system hardly ever exceeded 40%. Asked about in this way at least, electoral reform never looked like a popular cause. And as we would anticipate, although Liberal Democrat identifiers were on balance usually in favour of change, Conservative and Labour supporters consistently took the opposite view. 

Figure 3 Attitudes towards the electoral system for the House of Commons, 1986 – 2025

Appendix