Beveridge Report
Encyclopedia
Welfare State
The Welfare State is a commitment to health, education, employment and social security in the United Kingdom.-Background:The United Kingdom, as a welfare state, was prefigured in the William Beveridge Report in 1942, which identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness...
in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. It was chaired by William Beveridge
William Beveridge
William Henry Beveridge, 1st Baron Beveridge KCB was a British economist and social reformer. He is best known for his 1942 report Social Insurance and Allied Services which served as the basis for the post-World War II welfare state put in place by the Labour government elected in 1945.Lord...
, an economist, who identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease, and went on to propose widespread reform to the system of social welfare to address these. Highly popular with the public, the report formed the basis for the post-war reforms known as the Welfare State, which include the expansion of National Insurance
National Insurance
National Insurance in the United Kingdom was initially a contributory system of insurance against illness and unemployment, and later also provided retirement pensions and other benefits...
and the creation of the National Health Service
National Health Service
The National Health Service is the shared name of three of the four publicly funded healthcare systems in the United Kingdom. They provide a comprehensive range of health services, the vast majority of which are free at the point of use to residents of the United Kingdom...
.
Background
In 1940, during Second World War, the Labour PartyLabour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
had entered into a coalition with the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
. On 10 June, 1941 Arthur Greenwood
Arthur Greenwood
Arthur Greenwood CH was a prominent member of the Labour Party from the 1920s until the late 1940s. He rose to prominence within the party as secretary of its research department from 1920 and served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health in the short-lived Labour government of 1924...
, the Labour MP and Minister without Portfolio
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...
, had announced the creation of an inter-departmental committee which would carry out a survey of Britain's social insurance and allied services. Its terms of reference were:
To undertake, with special reference to the inter-relation of the schemes, a survey of the existing national schemes of social insurance and allied services, including workmen's compensation, and to make recommendations.
Its members were civil servants from the Home Office
Home Office
The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...
, Ministry of Labour and National Service, Ministry of Pensions, Government Actuary, Ministry of Health
Department of Health (United Kingdom)
The Department of Health is a department of the United Kingdom government with responsibility for government policy for health and social care matters and for the National Health Service in England along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish,...
, HM Treasury
HM Treasury
HM Treasury, in full Her Majesty's Treasury, informally The Treasury, is the United Kingdom government department responsible for developing and executing the British government's public finance policy and economic policy...
, Reconstruction Secretariat, Board of Customs and Excise, Assistance Board, Department of Health for Scotland, Registry of Friendly Societies and Office of the Industrial Assurance Commissioner.
The Report
The Report offered three guiding principles to its recommendations:- Proposals for the future should not be 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".
- 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.
- 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".
Beveridge was opposed to "means-tested" benefits. His proposal was for a flat rate contribution rate for everyone and a flat rate benefit for everyone. Means-testing was intended to play a tiny part, because it created high marginal tax rates for the poor (the "poverty trap
Poverty trap
A poverty trap is "any self-reinforcing mechanism which causes poverty to persist." If it persists from generation to generation, the trap begins to reinforce itself if steps are not taken to break the cycle.-Developing world:...
").
Reaction
Inside the Cabinet there was debate, instigated by Brendan Bracken, on 16 November 1942 over whether to publish the Report as a White PaperWhite paper
A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that helps solve a problem. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions, and are often requested and used in politics, policy, business, and technical fields. In commercial use, the term has also come to refer to...
at that time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer
Chancellor of the Exchequer
The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the title held by the British Cabinet minister who is responsible for all economic and financial matters. Often simply called the Chancellor, the office-holder controls HM Treasury and plays a role akin to the posts of Minister of Finance or Secretary of the...
, Sir Kingsley Wood
Kingsley Wood
Sir Howard Kingsley Wood was an English Conservative politician. The son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he qualified as a solicitor, and successfully specialised in industrial insurance...
, believed the Report to be "ambitious and involv[ing] an impracticable financial commitment" and therefore publication should be postponed. However the Cabinet decided on 26 November to publish it on 2 December.
The Ministry of Information
Ministry of Information
The term Ministry of Information may refer to the following:* Ministry of Information , part of the Cabinet of Egypt* Ministry of Information , part of the Cabinet of Equatorial Guinea...
Home Intelligence found that the Report had been "welcomed with almost universal approval by people of all shades of opinion and by all sections of the community" and seen as "the first real attempt to put into practice the talk about a new world". In a sample taken in the fortnight after the Report's publication, the British Institute of Public Opinion found that 95% of the public had heard of the Report and that there was "great interest in it" but criticism that old age pensions were not high enough. They also found that "there was overwhelming agreement that the plan should be put into effect".
The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
said of the Report: "a momentous document which should and must exercise a profound and immediate influence on the direction of social change in Britain". The Manchester Guardian called it "a big and fine thing". The Daily Telegraph said it was a consummation of the revolution begun by David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor OM, PC was a British Liberal politician and statesman...
in 1911. The Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
, William Temple, said it was "the first time anyone had set out to embody the whole spirit of the Christian ethic in an Act of Parliament".
There was a planned debate in Parliament on the Report for February 1943 so the Cabinet appointed the Lord President of the Council
Lord President of the Council
The Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking beneath the Lord High Treasurer and above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends each meeting of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch's approval...
, Sir John Anderson
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley
John Anderson, 1st Viscount Waverley, GCB, OM, GCSI, GCIE, PC, PC was a British civil servant then politician who served as a minister under Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill as Home Secretary, Lord President of the Council and Chancellor of the Exchequer...
, to chair a committee to consider the Report and to set out the government's line in the Commons debate. In the Commons debate the government announced they would not implement the Report immediately. The Tory Reform Committee, consisting of 45 Conservative MPs, demanded the founding of a Ministry of Social Security immediately. At the division at the end of the debate, 97 Labour MPs, 11 Independents, 9 Liberals, 3 Independent Labour Party
Independent Labour Party
The Independent Labour Party was a socialist political party in Britain established in 1893. The ILP was affiliated to the Labour Party from 1906 to 1932, when it voted to leave...
MPs and 1 Communist voted against the government. A Ministry of Information Home Intelligence report found that after the debate the left-wing section of the public were disappointed but that "an approving minority" thought that the government was correct in waiting until the post-war financial situation were known before making a decision. An opinion poll by the British Institute of Public Opinion found that 29% were satisfied with the government's attitude to the Report; 47% were dissatisfied and 24% "don't knows".
Churchill gave a broadcast on 21 March, 1943 titled "After the War" where he warned the public not to impose "great new expenditure on the State without any relation to the circumstances which might prevail at the time" and said there would be "a four-year plan" of post-war reconstruction "to cover five or six large measures of a practical character" which would be put to the electorate after the war and implemented by a new government. These measures were "national compulsory insurance for all classes for all purposes from the cradle to the grave"; the abolition of unemployment by government policies which would "exercise a balancing influence upon development which can be turned on or off as circumstances require"; "a broadening field for State ownership and enterprise"; new housing; major reforms to education; largely expanded health and welfare services.
While the Liberal Party and the Conservative party quickly adopted Beveridge's proposals, the Labour Party was slow to follow. Labour leaders opposed Beveridge's idea of a National Health Service run through local health centres and regional hospital administrations, preferring a state-run body. Beveridge complained about the opposition of Labour leaders, including that of Ernest Bevin: "For Ernest Bevin, with his trade-union background of unskilled workers... social insurance was less important than bargaining about wages." Bevin derided the Beveridge Report as a "Social Ambulance Scheme" and followed the Coalition Government's view that it should not be implemented until the end of the war (he was furious in February 1943 when a large number of Labour back-benchers ignored their leaders and voted against delay in implementing Beveridge).
Implementation
The Labour Party did eventually also adopt the Beveridge proposals, and after their victory in the 1945 general electionUnited Kingdom general election, 1945
The United Kingdom general election of 1945 was a general election held on 5 July 1945, with polls in some constituencies delayed until 12 July and in Nelson and Colne until 19 July, due to local wakes weeks. The results were counted and declared on 26 July, due in part to the time it took to...
, they proceeded to implement many social policies, which became known as the Welfare State
Welfare State
The Welfare State is a commitment to health, education, employment and social security in the United Kingdom.-Background:The United Kingdom, as a welfare state, was prefigured in the William Beveridge Report in 1942, which identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness...
. These included the Family Allowances Act 1945
Family Allowances Act 1945
The Family Allowances Act 1945 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom. It came into operation from August 6, 1946, and was the first law to provide child benefit in the United Kingdom....
, National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946
National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946
The National Insurance Act 1946 was a British Act of Parliament which provided compensation paid by the Ministry of National Insurance to workers who were left injured or disabled as a result of work-related accidents....
, National Insurance Act 1946
National Insurance Act 1946
The National Insurance Act 1946 was a British Act of Parliament which established a comprehensive system of social security throughout the United Kingdom...
, National Health Service Act 1946
National Health Service Act 1946
The National Health Service Act 1946 came into effect on 5 July 1948 and created the National Health Service in England and Wales. Though the title 'National Health Service' implies one health service for the United Kingdom, in reality a separate NHS was created for England and Wales accountable to...
, Pensions (Increase) Act 1947
Pensions (Increase) Act 1947
The Pensions Act 1947 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It was passed during the Labour government of Clement Attlee. It substantially raised the benefit rates for pensioners....
, Landlord and Tenant (Rent Control) Act 1949
Landlord and Tenant (Rent Control) Act 1949
The Landlord and Tenant Act 1949 was an Act of Parliament in the United Kingdom, intended to control excessive rents being charged by landlords...
, National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1948, National Insurance Act 1949.
Further reading
- Paul Addison, The Road to 1945 (Jonathan Cape, 1975).
- Janet Beveridge, Beveridge and His Plan (Hodder & Stoughton, 1954).
- Jose Harris, William Beveridge. A Biography (Clarendon Press, 1997).
- Nicholas Timmins, The Five Giants: A Biography of the Welfare State (HarperCollins, New Edition, 2001)