Even with all the work done by the Liberals during their time in power, there were still serious problems, which needed to address. The Welfare legislation of the late 1940’s was helped by William Beveridge identifying that there were 5 great giants that was were stopping the nation from growing into a prosperous place to live. These 5 giants where: -
Want
Idleness
Disease
Ignorance
Squalor
The terminology that is used in common day English today translates to: -
Poverty
Unemployment
Sickness/NHS
Education
Housing
Beveridge stated that we needed to change the ideology based on individualism and replace it to collectivism, this meaning that people needed help to get them selves out of the never ending poverty cycle, and times were changing so we needed help from the government to fund the particular areas which Beveridge had identified as being problem.
During World War 2, there were a lot of changes to the social setup of society; this caused a sea change in attitudes. Women filled jobs that were normally done by the five million men who were called up for national service to fight in the war. Whilst the women were working they needed childcare for the children, so crèches were opened to supply the demand for childcare. After the war the government needed to get these women back into the home and the men back to work, however a problem occurred that the women didn’t want to leave their jobs, they had began to enjoy the freedom that working brought to them, earning their own money which helped them to provide for their families. John Bowlby (1907-1990) was a child psychoanalyst who focused on the relationship between mother and child. He concocted a hypothesis, that stated- “Mother love in infancy and childhood is as important for mental health as are vitamins and proteins for physical health.” (Bowlby, 1953.) According to this hypothesis, breaking the maternal bond with the child during the early years of its life is likely to have serious effects on its intellectual, social, and emotional development. Bowlby also claimed that many of these negative effects of maternal deprivation are permanent and irreversible. He talked about the impacts of depriving infants of maternal time resulting in latch key children that would turn into feral children. So it is understandable that by the 1950’s the majority of women had gone back to the home, as they didn’t want their children to suffer any aspects of maternal deprivation. There were still some women that didn’t go back to the home, they continued to work, and also many of those who had gone back to the home still craved to be out working.
During the war there was 496 days of constant bombing in the London blitz, this caused three million houses to be bombed, causing a shortfall of an estimated 1.25 million houses for all, this matter needed to be addressed quickly, so prefabricated houses where put up. This was done because they could be done quickly and over 500000 prefabricated houses where erected. There was still a shortage of housing and many families were forced to become squatting. The prefab’s where meant to last 10 years giving them time to build new houses, however many of which are still standing with people living in them. The main solution to provide housing was by the councils building decent affordable housing, for all to live in. In April 1946, Attlee set up a housing production executive; the statistics that followed this suggested that this was a successful idea:
Between 1946 and 1950 fourteen new towns where started these where, Stevenage (1946), Harlow, Hemel Hempstead, Crawley (1947), Hatfield, Welwyn (1948), Basildon and Bracknell (1949) was built to take overspill from London. Peterlee was started to take the overspill from Newcastle. East Kilbride and Glenrothes, which were built to relieve Glasgow and Edinburgh these were started in 1947. ‘The New Towns Act’ from 1946, was used to start these new towns. This was the brainchild of Sir Patrick Abercrombie. He wanted to prevent overcrowding of the cities, where the majority of the houses where cramped together leaving insufficient ‘green belts’ for children to play, part of this ideology was taken from 1902, when Ebenezer Howard planned to build ‘Garden cities of tomorrow’, which were designed to give all children access to green land, to play and exercise, also to this stopped them playing in the grimy streets. This was also an idea to encourage people to move out of the cramped cities.
One main problem was people’s health, to tackle this problem the National Health Service (NHS) was introduced. Before this everyone had to pay privately to seek medical advice, this once again disadvantaged the poor and elderly. In 1945 Bevan became the Minister of Health and Housing, he promised to carry out his pledge,
‘Let us face the future, the best health services should be available for all… Money must no longer be the passport for the best treatment’
Bevan 1945
The NHS proposed to provide people with free access to the complete range of medical treatment and advice, which was on offer, to be available for the affluent and the unfortunate. The service would be funded by mainly taxes and a small amount paid from the funds from the National Insurance contributions. During 1946 and 1948, Bevan fought hard to make his dream come true. In 1946 the National Health Act was passed and then in 1948 it came into operation. This was a fundamental victory for Bevan and his party. The public responded eagerly with over 30 million people immediately registering with NHS doctors.
During 1946 to 1947 unemployment officers were appointed and benefit offices were opened. People were entitled to help whilst they were unemployed, but only if they had been unemployed though no fault of their own. The level of benefits were taken from Rowntree’s work of identify what was needed to buy the ‘weekly basket of goods’. He calculated the minimum amount that was required to obtain the ‘basket of goods’ that was essential for a basic standard of living. Only a small amount was allowed for sundries such as soap for washing, also dieticians calculated the minimum calories required for a person. A small amount was taken into account each week for new clothes; this was done by working out the cost of the cheapest hat available then dividing the amount over 2 years. Only the basics of food were allowed in this calculation, no items, which were considered to be of a luxury, were priced into this equation. Now people who were unfit to work were allowed to claim Incapacity benefit, in the past they had been labelled as being idle and were not entitled to anything. The introduction of more benefits helped people to get out of poverty, but they still struggled. In 1947 Rowntree’s study found that now less than 2% of the population were in poverty, compared to 33% before.
Education had a big change in 1945/6. A Tripartite was introduced, 3 new types of schooling. The 11 plus test was set up, the results for individual pupils decided what type of school they would go to. The test was a non-verbal reasoning test, and was taken at age 11 because assumptions were made that by this age children were fully developed. There were a lot of criticisms about this test, the main one being that children from more affluent backgrounds had more ability to manipulate the test, as their language was more suited to how the test was set out. The 3 types of schools which children went to were Secondary Modern, Grammar School and Technical school, they were introduced as the previous schools were said to be wasting talent. However not many Technical schools were available so it was said to be more of a bi- partite.
With all these changes, people’s attitudes had changed; people now adopted the attitude that instead of being the individual looking after them selves that now it was the duty of collectivism, in that the state was responsible for people. Many people didn’t need to struggle anymore, times had changed and the future looked more prosperous, with the government being there to support people instead of criticise them.