Summary – Beveridge Report
and the ‘Five Giants’ of Poverty
S5/6 From Cradle to the Grave
4 Headings you must take notes on
1. The importance of William Beveridge
2. The main points of the Beveridge Report and
its importance
3. Progress made towards the Beveridge Report
by 1945
4. The 1944 Education Act and some criticisms of
it
Main Points of Beveridge Report
• The Beveridge Report made several recommendations
of how to overcome poverty.
– A Government Minister to be appointed to control all the benefits
schemes
– A national health service should be set up
– Standard weekly National Insurance Contributions to be made
by people in work
– Unemployed people to have the right to payments for an
indefinite period
– Payments to be made at a standard rate, without a means test
– Benefits to include Old Age Pensions, maternity grants, pensions
for widows and people injured at work
– Family allowances to be introlduced
**Summarise these recommendations in your jotter**
Reaction to Report
• Enthusiastically
received by public,
press and parliament
- 97 Labour and 22 Liberal
and Conservatives voted
for the report to be put into
operation asap.
**Summarise in jotters**
• Criticised by others
- Some did want the
Governments interference.
- Others worried about the
cost of such a plan – extra
funding ?
- Some also believed it did
not cater for everyone
ie.disabled people or single
parent families
So why was the report so
important?
•
For 4 main reasons
1.
2.
3.
4.
Simplified existing benefit schemes and generalised level of
payments
It had ground-breaking ideas – that society could and should
fight the five giants of poverty; people had freedom to do
things and the freedom from things like disease, want etc; the
scheme should be universal ie applied to everyone.
Recognised the belief that people were entitled to benefits as
they had contributed to the state when they were working (this
took away the stigma of state-help)
The scheme that was proposed was the same for everyone.
All working people would pay the same into the scheme and
get the same out of it. This meant everyone got a fair deal.
**Summarise in jotters**
What Progress was made towards
the Beveridge Report before 1945
• The Labour Party is generally credited with putting the
Report into action, but the coalition government did at
least make a start.
– 1943: a ministry to supervise ibnsurance benefits was set up
1943: Ministry for Town and County Planning was set up and
immediately produced proposals for new towns to ease
congestion around London
– 1945: the Family Allowance was passed
– The Government also published a number of proposals for future
action (White Papers) on the national health service and
employment policy. All of these showed that the Coalition
government accepted much of the Report. For the most part
however, action taken by the Coalition government was limited
as Churchill wanted to concentrate on winning the war before
turning his head to domestic matters. The exception was the
area of education.
– The Butler Education Act (1944)
The Butler Education Act (1944)
• Evacuation had shown the
need for universal
improvement in education
• Education was thought to be
an important way to fight
poverty.
• It made for an educated
workforce who could expect
better paid jobs.
– The Education Act created the
job of Minister for Education
– For the first time, three stages
of education were defined:
Primary, Secondary and
Further.
– Fees for local authority
schools were abolished so
there was free education for
all up to school leaving age
(although not at grammar
schools). This was set at 15
from 1945.
Criticisms
• A grammar school pupil could expect to go on to
university and then on to a professional job.
• A secondary modern school pupil would do
practical subjects and then do a skilled or semiskilled trade.
• Some argue that young people from poorer
backgrounds were discriminated against
because they were more likely to go to a
secondary modern.
What happened next? The 1945 General Election
Conservatives
Labour
• At the end of the war Churchill
and the Conservatives fought
the election on the
Individualist idea that people
would look after themselves
and social security would be
there if they needed it. They
believed private enterprise was
still the best way of creating
wealth.
• Clement Atlee and Labour
Party fought on Socialist ideas
of the state looking after the
individual, that social services
were available to all citizens
and that welath should be
shared more equally
The results were 393 seats for Labour and 213 for the Conservatives.
Churchill’s ‘lukewarm’ attitude to the Beveridge Report did not match
how excited the public were about it. Ultimately, it lost him and his
party the election.