Except for a few obscure political warps caught in the wilderness, the welfare state is no longer taboo and different ideologies acknowledge both its usefulness and success as against the old lore of it being some form of ‘extreme’ doctrine. 

Based upon the principles of equal opportunity, equitable distribution of wealth and public responsibility for citizens unable to avail themselves of the minimal provision for a good life, the welfare state in most modern countries is a reality that works and offers impetus for both economic growth and opportunities.

There were times in most of these countries when the very term raised concern until a party in power, most often from the centre-left, put it on the agenda, with the UK and other Western industrial nations paving the way for newly-independent nations with the gradual end of colonialism.

Like many of these ex-colonies, Malta got her first taste in the aftermath of World War II but, as always, not without a bitter struggle against old-style politics. Having established a platform for social reform in the shadow of the welfare state, however, there was no looking back.

Political forces that had taken opposite sides on the issue later spoke pretty much the same language. Suddenly, the welfare state meant stability, progress and peace of mind for the working classes, finally out of the clasp of a minority of old-time establishment stakeholders.

In our case, the same political pathway was achieved thanks mainly to successive Labour governments, happily later endorsed by other political parties. That said, however, there have been, over the decades, blurred standpoints on social issues that should have found all-round political acceptance.

The New Hope guarantee scheme... is confirmation of how far and how deep into the concept of the welfare state one can go

Fast-forward to Malta in the 2000s and one finds that what had been taken for granted was in fact an incomplete project. Since 2013, we have seen the state going forth with the provision of new rights and responsibilities for minorities that had sadly been left in the lurch.

The issue of divorce may have seemed as the culmination of such sociopolitical events but it was, in fact, the start of better things to come.

The poor families still reeling from the 2006 financial crisis and the resultant austerity policy of the then government, single mothers, small-wage earners, the unemployed, persons with a disability, the LGBTIQ community... all of them, at last, came into the reckoning.

Their insertion into the labour market and the freedoms they gained all helped create the necessary environment for progress and prosperity. Malta gained recognition for these and other achievements that embellished further its model of the welfare state.

The moment one acknowledges this fact, though, is the time when one needs to see what’s left to do and there certainly is no dearth of ideas and propositions.

The recent launching of the €3 million New Hope guarantee scheme, whereby the state will act as guarantor for those persons who, because of a medical condition from which they have recovered or because of a disability, cannot be issued with an insurance policy in order to continue with the bank loan process to purchase a property, is confirmation of how far and how deep into the concept of the welfare state one can go and how rewarding it can be.

This is not some electoral throwaway, as some cynics would be tempted to describe it, but an issue that, for many years, has been a source of serious debate and contention on the part of the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability (CRPD), stakeholders within the sector, government agencies, departments and ministries.

It was no enlightenment on the road to Damascus but actually a scheme that needed to be used as a precision tool in helping the unfortunate among us to join the rest of society in becoming home owners and equal citizens in their own countries.

One’s thoughts automatically go to so many cases in the past when home loans must have been denied on the basis of wrong assessments and absurd assumptions. Like the case of the person who had, sadly, contracted cancer at five years of age and was, later in life, refused the chance to purchase a home where to raise a family even though he’d long happily beaten the malaise. Or the case of the young woman denied a loan on the simple, but horrifying, pretext that she has a disability.

In comes the Labour government with a solution that sows harmony in what was a challenging banking and insurance sector which, it will be shown, can actually only benefit from this wonderful scheme.

New Hope indeed for a good number of Maltese and Gozitan citizens who can, at last, see a future for themselves and their families.