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Labour Reforms Revision Notes

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Labour Reforms Revision Notes
THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT 1945 – 51
COMMON QUESTIONS
1
To what extent did the Labour Reforms succeed in creating a modern Welfare State?

How successfully did the Labour Government deal with Britain’s social problems after WW2?

How significant an impact did the welfare reforms of the Labour Government 1945 – 1951 have on the lives of the British people?

KEY FIGURES
1
Clement Attlee (Labour Prime Minister 1945 – 51)

Hugh Dalton (Chancellor of the Exchequer)

Aneurin Bevan (Health & Housing Minister)

KEY EVENTS
1
Beveridge Report published (1942)

White Papers on Education, Health, Employment & Insurance (1943 – 4)

Education Act & family Allowance Act (1944)

Labour Election Victory (1945)

Industrial Injuries, National Insurance & National Assistance Acts (1946)

National Health Service Act (1946)

New Towns Act (1946)

NHS comes into operation (1948)

Labour majority significantly reduced in General election (1950)

Dalton & Bevan Resignations (1951)

Labour defeated by Conservatives in General election (1951)

BACKGROUND
1
The social impact of WW2 – bombing, rationing and evacuation – removed class barriers and increased state dependency

The Beveridge Report (1942) revealed the extent of poverty in Britain and identified the 5 Giant Evils – Want, Disease, Idleness, Squalor and Ignorance

Beveridge envisaged a welfare system that was ‘universal, comprehensive and compulsory’

Both Conservatives and Labour recognised the need for post-war reform but the Labour Manifesto captured the public imagination; Churchill was less enthusiastic about the Beveridge Report

In July 1945, Clement Attlee became Prime Minister: between 1945-51, the Labour government implemented a series of reforms that would provide cover ‘from the cradle to the grave’.

WANT
The National Insurance Act (1946) was inherited from the wartime coalition government. It was far more comprehensive than the previous Act. Workers made regular contributions to the scheme in
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