Preview

Labour Reforms Revision Notes

Better Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1066 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
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
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    How Successful Were the National Governments in Bringing Economic Recovery in Britain in the Years 1931-1939?
    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages

    How Successful Were the National Governments in Bringing Economic Recovery in Britain in the Years 1931-1939?

    How successful were the national governments in bringing economic recovery in Britain in the years 1931-1939?…

    • 710 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    What Were the Key Changes in Welfare Provision Under Margaret Thatcher (1979 – 1990) and What Political Ideas Influenced These Changes? Give Examples from Specific Social Policy Areas.
    • 2160 Words
    • 9 Pages

    What Were the Key Changes in Welfare Provision Under Margaret Thatcher (1979 – 1990) and What Political Ideas Influenced These Changes? Give Examples from Specific Social Policy Areas.

    What were the key changes in welfare provision under Margaret Thatcher (1979 – 1990) and what political ideas influenced these changes? Give examples from specific social policy areas.…

    • 2160 Words
    • 9 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Why Did Labour Lose The 1924 Election
    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Why Did Labour Lose The 1924 Election

    While the 1924 Labour government was undoubtedly one of the most important developments in party politics, there were other factors that contributed to the change from Liberal vs Conservatives in the 1880 to Labour vs conservative with Liberal's downfall by 1951. The 1924 Labour government was arguably a significant development as it was the first time Labour won an election, proving they had progressed from a small independent party to a real opponent of the Conservatives. This was significant as it showed that Labour had finally gotten their foot in the door and how Conservatives had not fully recovered from their decline in the previous 2 decades. The win was a huge shock to the Conservatives, but they won in a weak position and only lasted 10 months.…

    • 944 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Explain How Has The Government Changed Since The Second World War
    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Explain How Has The Government Changed Since The Second World War

    How has the role of the Government changed since the Second World War? Immediately after the Second World War, the British Government fully implemented the Beveridge report to create the Welfare State that we are familiar with today. This was necessary to ensure the country as a whole recovered successfully from a devastating conflict in Europe. 1945 saw the introduction of family allowances and 1946 brought an expansion of National Insurance and then the National Health Service.…

    • 667 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Assess The Significance Of The Beveridge Report To The Labour Party
    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Assess The Significance Of The Beveridge Report To The Labour Party

    Want' aimed to provide cash benefits to the people who needed them; 'Disease' aimed to provide the National Health Service; Ignorance aimed to provide free compulsory education; Squalor aimed to help people who were homeless due to the war by providing more houses; Idleness aimed to provide full employment. These were all major issues during wartime Britain and the Labour Party's support in their cleansing was a huge factor in their victory at the 1945 general…

    • 685 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    How far did the Liberals improve the lives of the British people?
    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages

    How far did the Liberals improve the lives of the British people?

    The Liberals made many social reforms which were not necessarily directly helpful to the individual issues at hand but they did create grounds for the welfare estate to be built upon and highlighted the areas which needed attention for a better minimum quality of life. Areas focused on were free meals and health checks at schools, pensions and insurances. For example, the 1906 School Meals Act allowed children to have a free daily meal. This was effective in 1914 as by then, 14 million were receiving the free meals which duly led to a better economy however the negatives outweighed the positives as the issue with having the act voluntary until 1912 meant that over half of the authorities didn’t provide meals. Furthermore, proving eligibility was very difficult so there were many errors which occurred with the system. Rather similarly, Old Aged Pensioners couldn’t receive their money due to identity proofing issues. Household issues were ignored which was one of the Liberal’s negatives however, this is without taking into account that only so many areas could have been focused on. Although the Liberals never catered for the needs of all people, their reforms managed to always bring some improvement into areas of health, education and the future of citizens, no matter how poor in places they were. The Liberal Social Reforms did improve the lives of the British citizens to some extent, the main achievement being that the existence of the reforms themselves allowed to building of the welfare estate which is a factor that makes Britain as strong as it is today.…

    • 932 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Has Welfare Reform in the Uk Since 1997, Been Determined More by Ideology or Pragmatism?
    • 3395 Words
    • 14 Pages

    Has Welfare Reform in the Uk Since 1997, Been Determined More by Ideology or Pragmatism?

    The purpose of this essay is to determine whether welfare reform since 1997 has been determined more by ideology or pragmatism. This essay offers a summary of public pronouncements made by some of New Labour’s leading thinkers in the years before they took office in order to then delve into the motivations behind them. While the focus on welfare reforms undertaken since 1997 rests with the Labour government’s policy toward the NHS, the essay establishes that there is a great deal of evidence to support the view that Labour have acted out of pragmatic considerations. Nevertheless, it is argued that policy toward reforming one of the key elements of welfare in Britain, the National health Service, in the main, has been driven by ideology.…

    • 3395 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Was Attlee a truly revolutionary MP?
    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Was Attlee a truly revolutionary MP?

    Perhaps, the most ‘revolutionary’ reform that Labour introduced was the NHS. Although there was liberal influence and consensus between the parties over welfare, the clear historical fact remains that Atlee’s Labour party introduced this. The public were in dire need of better healthcare – especially those who couldn’t afford it. Unfortunately, the majority of the population after the war were still living on a very small income and not many people in society could afford health services.…

    • 566 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Liberal Reforms between 1906 and 1914 in Britain
    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Liberal Reforms between 1906 and 1914 in Britain

    The extent of poverty in Britain was brought to light through the surveys of Booth and Rowntree. Booth conducted his survey first, he was told 25% of people living in east London were living in poverty; he believed this to be untrue and wanted to prove it wrong. He discovered it was actually over a third of the population in east London that were living in poverty. Booth then expanded his investigation to the whole of London, it took 12 years and he discovered a third of all people in London were in poverty. Rowntree saw this data and decided to conduct his own survey and also found that in York a third of the population was in poverty. People then realised that if in York, which was seen as a typical English city, they had these problems too that it must be a nation-wide problem. This data proved how many people were actually living in poverty and that the circumstances around why they were poor weren’t always caused by the poor. Rowntree, in his research, looked at poverty very closely; he defined it in two parts, either ‘primary’ or ‘secondary’ poverty. People were starting to accept that poverty wasn’t always caused by an individual and…

    • 903 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Labour Reforms 1945-1951
    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Labour Reforms 1945-1951

    How far did the post-war Labour Government meet the welfare needs of the British people between 1945-1951?…

    • 1061 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    “Constitutional Reform Since 1997 Has Not Gone Far Enough” Discuss
    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages

    “Constitutional Reform Since 1997 Has Not Gone Far Enough” Discuss

    Another one of Labour’s reforms to the UK was the devolution act. In Labour’s manifesto they said that they would address the issues of devolution and making the country more democratic. When Labour got into office they did…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Assess The Causes Of Poverty In The 19th Century
    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Assess The Causes Of Poverty In The 19th Century

    Charles Booth found out that over 35% of the population of the city of London were living in poverty. Also, he published ‘’Labour and Life of the People’’ in which he argued, that poverty was such a big problem that only government could really help. Whereas Seebohm Rowntree found out that 30% of people from York live in poverty and they needed 21 shillings to stay out of poverty. This was important because their surveys identified the percentage of people that were living below the poverty line, mainly due to illness or unemployment. However, some MP’s still challenged their surveys and argued that poor people wasted their money on insufficient items such as alcohol so they did not do much change.…

    • 1185 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Liberal Reforms and its Impact on the Lives of the People
    • 1436 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Liberal Reforms and its Impact on the Lives of the People

    The Liberal government introduced a series of reforms aimed at moving away from the Laissez-faire ideology and toward a more self help scheme aiming to move people away from poverty and to make Britain a better country both in health and prosperity; Churchill said “If we see a drowning man we do not drag him to the shore, instead we provide help to allow him to swim ashore”. To do this the Liberals aimed at giving aid to the young, the old, the sick, the unemployed and the workers; these groups will be discussed throughout the essay. These reforms were later regarded as the foundations for the welfare state.…

    • 1436 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Success Of The Liberal Social Reforms

    • 1369 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Success Of The Liberal Social Reforms

    After two unsuccessful electoral campaigns in the late 19th century and early 20th century, numerous splits in the party after William Gladstone's retirement, and the growing awareness of the issue of poverty within the UK, key figures within the Liberal party realised a change in the direction of Liberalism was required. They pushed for 'New Liberalism', a more modern form of Liberalism that stressed numerous key fundamental values, one of which was that intervention by the state was key in establishing a minimum quality of life for people within the country. Thus from their electoral triumph in 1906, and especially from 1908 onwards, the Liberal government passed a series of social and welfare reforms in an attempt to raise the quality of living standards within the UK. The Liberals based these reforms on three main groups within society, the elderly, the young, and the unemployed. This essay will explore several of the reforms the Liberal government introduced including the National Insurance act, the old age pensions act, a selection of educational acts, as well as acts regarding employment issues; assessing the aims of the acts and arguing how successful they actually proved to be in reducing the issue of poverty in the UK.…

    • 1369 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Was Attlee Truly Effective
    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Was Attlee Truly Effective

    After World War II in 1945, the Labour Party got elected and as leader, Clement Attlee (1945-55) was voted Prime Minister. After the hard times during the war, people did not think Winston Churchill was able to run a safe, stable and peaceful government. This led to the public voting for Attlee, a more peaceful person for a more peaceful time. However, this inevitably led everyone to judge his ability as leader and how effective he was at running a country in a post world war climate.…

    • 841 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More

Related Topics