1. What Did the Labour Government do?

2. Beveridge Report William Beveridge – Economist and Social Reformer.
Famed for writing the Beveridge report
The Beveridge Report was the Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee on Social Insurance and Allied Services chaired by William Beveridge.

3. Recommendations
1. Proposals for the future should not limited by "sectional interests" in learning from experience and that a "revolutionary moment in the world's history is a time for revolutions, not for patching".

4. 2. Social insurance is only one part of a "comprehensive policy of social progress". The five giants on the road to reconstruction were Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness.

5. 3. Policies of social security "must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual", with the state securing the service and contributions. The state " should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family".

8. The British people hoped that “post-war would be better than pre-war”

9. 5 Giants of the Beveridge Report
WANT (poverty)
DISEASE (bad health)
SQUALOR (bad housing)
IGNORANCE (poor education)
IDLENESS (unemployment)

10. Beveridge said
“this is a time for revolution not patching”
Universal welfare plan that should cover the whole population of the country.

11. Acts passed during the War
Education Act 1944
All children over the age of 11 should receive a separate secondary free of charge and that the school-leaving age would be raised to 15 as soon as possible.

12. Family Allowances Act of 1945
Coalition Measure introduced a child allowance of 5 shillings a week (25p) for the second and all subsequent children regardless of family income.

13. Labour Tackling the 5 Giants

14. WANT The main social problem to tackle
1946 National Insurance Act created the structure of the welfare state.
Extended the 1911 National Insurance Act to cover all adults and also put into operation a comprehensive National Health Service.

15. Compulsory contributory scheme for each worker and in return for the weekly contribution from workers, employers and government, an individual was entitled to sickness and unemployment benefit.
Pensions for women at 60
Pensions for men at 65
Widows and Orphans’ pensions
Maternity and Death Grants

16. Quote James Griffiths, Minister of National Insurance
“The best and cheapest insurance policy offered to the British people, of any people anywhere”

17. Problems with Pensions
The Pensions were still not enough to live on.
Value of pensions reduced by inflation
Pensions levels remained below basic subsistence levels.

18. National Assistance Board
Helped people not in work or who had not paid enough contributions to qualify for full benefit.
People in need could apply for further assistance from the national assistance board.
Applicants were means tested but not the same as the draconic means testing of the 1930s
Money provided by Government from central taxation.
Government also required local authorities to provide homes and other welfare services for the Elderly and handicapped.

19. Purpose
To provide a whole new social security structure and really did provide a safety net through which no person should fall into serious poverty.

20. Family Allowance Act Attack household poverty.
Started by the wartime government
Small amount of money paid to all mothers of two or more children.
Money paid to the mothers and not the fathers
Not means tested

21. Industrial Injuries Act 1946
Compensation paid by the government , not individual employers and all workers were covered.

22. Summary of Want
Almost 50 years earlier, Seebohm Rowntree had identified old age, sickness, injury at work and unemployment as the main causes of poverty.
Labour had directly attacked these problems and provided help and assurance to many and in doing so removed the fear of falling into serious long-term poverty.

23. DISEASE
Most people consider the greatest achievement of the post-war Labour Government to be the creation of a National Health Service.

24. 3 Aims UNIVERSAL ACCESS NHS was for everybody
Regardless of Class and income

25. Comprehensive
Meeting all demands
Treating all medical problems

26. Free at the point of use
No patient would be asked to pay for any treatment

27. Funded
The service was and is paid for by the taxation and National Insurance payments made by every worker
ORDINARY WORKER
PAYS TAX
FUNDS NHS

28. Before NHS Healthcare had to be paid for
About ½ the male workforce was entitled to assistance through various insurance schemes
Wives and families did not qualify
Many families had no insurance and had to rely on support from friends, neighbours or local charities.

29. Services Offered Offered free health care at the point of need
Everybody was entitled to
GPs
Specialists
Dentists
Spectacles
False Teeth
Maternity and Child Welfare Services

30. Opposition At first opposition came from Doctors
“Being treated like civil servants”
Would end the Gravy train of private healthcare

31. Aneurin Bevan Minister for Health Responsible for establishing the NHS
Defused the situation with a new payment to doctors

32. Results of the NHS
Even though there was opposition to the NHS, ordinary people celebrated the arrival of the NHS

33. The new NHS was inundated with a backlog of untreated problems.
Doctors, dentists and opticians were flooded with patients

34. Prescriptions rose from 5 million a month before the NHS to 13
Prescriptions rose from 5 million a month before the NHS to 13.5 million in September 1948
In the first year 5,000,000 spectacles were dispensed
8,000,000 dental patients were treated

35. Spiralling Cost Victim of its own success Became an ENORMOUS EXPENSE
National Insurance only contributed 9% of NHS funding in 1949.
The rest coming from general taxation.

36. Charges By 1950 the NHS was costing £358 million a year
The Labour Government were forced to BACKTRACK on the principle of a free Service by introducing charges for spectacles and dental treatment

37. The Government was also constrained (limited) by the economy still recovering from the war.

38. Conclusion of the NHS
Despite criticism, compromises and constraints the NHS was arguably
“The greatest single achievement in the story of the welfare state”

39. Education

40. Beveridge Report
Beveridge made clear his desire for an education system available to all, especially the poor, which would provide opportunities and develop talent.

41. Problems with Education
Before 1939 Education services varied across the country.
The quality of secondary education was variable
Many children received no education past primary stage and poorer parents could not afford the fees that some secondary schools charged.
Scholarship did exist but pressure to leave school and bring in wages was very high.

42. Education Act 1944 Also know as the Butler Act
Main idea was equality of opportunity
Allowing working class children with ability to progress as far as they could without being restricted by the demands to pay expensive fees.
However in reality the Act was rather different from its original aims.

43. Butler believed that the future of Britain’s strength and Wealth lay in
Science Technical

44. Butlers idea Three level education system Technical Grammar
Secondary modern
In Scotland the last two were normally called senior and Junior secondary.

45. Originally each type of school would have equal status.
In reality though it was not the case.

46. Which School All children sat an exam at 11
Called the 11+ exam or Qualy in Scotland
Decided the type of school a child went to.
Those who passed went to a senior secondary school and were expected to leave school after 15, go on to university or get jobs in management and the professions.

47. Fail? Junior secondary Leave school at 15 Enter an unskilled job
By failing the 11+, thousands of children were trapped in a world of low expectations and inferior education.

48. Success or Failure
There was a small increase in the proportion of working class boys at grammar school but the real benefits lay with the middle classes.
Grammar schools and senior secondary's were given far more government spending than junior secondary moderns.

49. 11+ exam was socially divisive and highly contentious selection procedure.
Secondary modern became the ‘inferior’ partner offering little in the way of opportunities to children.
Many children were classified as non-academic as grammar schools could only take about 20% of children.

50. Lack of Understanding
Never really understood the need for a tight control of educational policy.
Some of the leaders such as Attlee, Dalton, Cripps all went to Public School.
Little understanding of state system
Others like Bevin, Morrison and Shinwell had little formal education.
Tomlinson who became Minister of Education in 1947 left school at 12.

51. Compared to the equality of opportunity and provision being enacted in the fields of social security and health, the Labour Government did little for the educational welfare of the working class.

52. Housing

53. Serious Problem
The chronic housing shortage at the end of the war was the most pressing problem facing the government.
Already a serious shortage before the War
Made worse by the destruction of 700,000 houses by Hitler’s bombers.
In 1945, 1/3 of all British houses were in need of repair and renovation.

54. As peace broke out a huge rebuilding programme was needed.
Labour Manifesto
“Labour’s pledge is firm and direct – it will proceed with a housing programme with the maximum practical speed until every family in this island has a good standard of accommodation”

55. Aims and Reality The aim was too build 200,000 houses each year.
Economic conditions did not help
Raw materials were in short supply and expensive
Lack of building workers.
Timber had to be imported from Sweden and America.

56. The responsibility for Britain’s housing problems fell to Bevan at the Health Ministry
Bevan’s policy was to help those most in need i.e. working class.
Most of the scarce building materials were allocated to the local authorities to build council houses for rent.

57. Between 1945-51 4 council houses were built to every private house.

58. Council House

59. As a short term solution the government built prefabricated houses known as “prefabs”

60. 1946 saw the completion of 55,600 new homes; this rose to 139,600 in 1947, and 227,600 in While this was not an insignificant achievement, Bevan's rate of house building was seen as less of an achievement than that of his Conservative (indirect) successor, Harold Macmillan, who was able to complete some 300,000 a year as Minister for Housing in the 1950s. Macmillan was able to concentrate full-time on Housing
However critics said that the cheaper housing built by Macmillan was exactly the poor standard of housing that Bevan was aiming to replace

61. However despite all this, the shortage was still chronic and many families were forced to take residence in disused army camps.
After the War there was
Increase in marriages
Rapid increase in birth-rate
Reluctance of families to continue living as an extended family.

62. All this meant that houses were swallowed up as fast as they were built.
In spite of labours undoubted achievement, given the difficult economic situation, there was still a serious housing shortage in 1951 and long waiting lists for council housing.

63. New Towns Act 1946
Gave the government the power to decide where new towns should be build.
The aim was to create town that were healthy and pleasant to live in unlike the random uncontrolled growth of Britain’s 19th century industrial towns.
14 New Towns were established before the end of the labour government in 1951 including Glenrothes and East Kilbride

64. Success or Failure?
Historians
1951 Voters

65. Idleness

66. Unemployment
Need to avoid a return to the problems of the late s.
Mass Unemployment etc

67. In 1944 a White Paper (government proposals for discussion) seemed to accept the need for full employment.

68. Nationalisation
One answer to the problem of unemployment was nationalisation
Meant that, in theory, the government would take over major industries and run them for the benefit of the country rather than private owners
Labour believed that they could control and manage the economy more effectively and maintain full employment.

69. Beveridge believed that unemployment could not be brought down below 3%
By 1946, the unemployment figure was 2.5%
Dalton, the 1st post war chancellor of the exchequer, claimed that full employment was
“The greatest revolution brought about by the Labour Government”

70. Why did this occur? Marshall Aid? Governments economic policies?
Post-war boom?
Mixture of all of these?

71. Unemployment levels
1931
2,630
1938
1,791
1945
137
1932
2,745
1939
1,514
1946
374
1933
2,521
1940
963
1947
480
1934
2,159
1941
350
1948
310
1935
2,036
1942
123
1949
308
1936
1,755
1943 82
1950
314
1937
1,484
1944 75
1951
253
(thousands)

72. How do you achieve Full employment?
Keeping interest down
This encouraged private investment and local authority spending
The Government controlling inflation (price controls & rationing)

73. Reality
De-mobilisation was carried out without upsetting economic recovery
There was no return to high levels of unemployment in the pre-war depressed areas of northern and western Britain.
North-east coastal area of England had unemployment rates of 38% in 1938
1951 the figure stood at just 1.5%

74. Britain faced massive problems between 1945 and 1951:
bread and potato rationing
severe shortage of raw materials
fuel shortages during the winter of 1947
a 30% devaluation of the pound
inflation
balance of payments problems
losses of overseas assets and markets during WW2
loss of one-quarter of its national wealth during WW2

75. Devaluation of the Pound
Helped the exports industry
E.g. A British car was now 30% cheaper
Therefore world demand for British exports grew.

76. Positive Evaluation
Economic historians tend to conclude that it was difficult to see how Labour’s performance could have been improved upon.
Britain’s growth rates were better than America’s. The wartime slogan ‘Britain can take it’ had changed to ‘Britain can make it’. (Pearce)
‘The single most important domestic achievement of the Labour government was the maintenance of full employment after the war.’ (Brooke)
This was made more impressive by a climate of crisis and diminished resources. Between 1945 and 1951, unemployment averaged 310,000 a year, compared to 1,716,000 for the period

77. Positive Evaluation
Labour’s achievement of full employment by 1950 led to a belief that further, more radical social reforms were not needed and that ‘a growing economy would take care of remaining social problems.’ (Thane)
The average real wage in 1949 was 20% higher than in People were better off.

78. Criticism
There is very little to criticise about the unemployment record during the period
Only once, during the fuel crisis of 1947 (sparked by the exceptionally harsh and prolonged winter), did unemployment briefly approach the one million mark
The raising of the school leaving age from 14 to 15 in 1947 helped keep the unemployment figures down.
Some historians argue that Labour can take little credit for full employment. Most of the factors affecting employment were outwith government control e.g.
world demand was growing
Britain could sell all its exports
all countries needed to re-stock due to the damage and interruptions of the war
therefore the government did not have to create jobs itself

79. IDLENESS
success

80. Overall Judgement
The Labour Government focused on their attempts to build a fair society in Britain where help was available to all.
“New Jerusalem”

81. Pro’s
5 Giants were under severe attack
State now provided a safety net
Cradle to the Grave
Rowntree’s investigation of York in 1950 found that primary poverty had gone down to 2% from 36% in 1936.
Poverty had been reduced but not eliminated
Still much to do
Adequate schools, hospitals and houses were in short supply.
Cons
Labour only built on the work done by the Liberal and Coalition Government of
Only completed the Welfare State originated by others
Lack of experience in government and restricted by serious economic problems
Some critics argued that the government was either doing too much for the people. Nanny State.

82. Apart from a disappointing record on housing, Labour carried out its manifesto promises.
By 1951, Britain had a comprehensive system of social security, unified health and education services and full employment.
Many doubt whether the conservatives would have completed the social welfare system had they won the election.
Attlee wanted his reforms to last, and although criticised for not being radical enough, and he was successful in this as the conservatives largely accepted the welfare state.

83. OVERALL!
SUCCESS!