How successful was the Labour Government (1945-51) in dealing with Beveridge's "five giants on the road to social progress"?

      They also did very well in dealing with the great problems of unemployment. A main way in which they dealt with this was nationalising businesses. This was a good idea as it helped in creating jobs and getting Britain’s main industries back up and running i.e. the export trade. The government poured money into these businesses for modernisation which created jobs and helped with unemployment. The main industry nationalised was coal; but other industries which were nationalised include railways, electricity, gas and the aeroplanes. Labour also used Keynesian idea’s such as managing the economy including deficit financing meaning that the Government didn’t need to make sure that the books balanced and changing interest rates and taxes to make sure a boom slump cycle into a smoother curve and also to make sure that when a slump appears to be starting up interest rates and taxes so that they have a bit of money saved up to stop the slump. They did very well and by 1950 unemployment had been brought down to an all-time low.

     The welfare state was also a Labour success but it did have some faults. The welfare state was brought in to protect the people “from the cradle to the grave.” The national insurance act was passed in 1946. This helped towards social security by giving unemployment benefits, family allowances and old age pensions. A major difference between this welfare state and the one which had passed before it was that the Labour one had no means test; the Labour welfare state was successful as people paid in they would get back when they were older and need it. There was also a national assistance act which dealt with people who didn’t meet the criteria for the national insurance act i.e. they were beyond the working age so they couldn’t pay in and therefore wouldn’t get anything out. This scheme was means tested. There was also a national insurance of industrial injuries act. This helped people who had been injured at work and could claim compensation from the employer. They also brought in family allowance although this had already been designed by the coalition during the war. This gave families of 2 children or more benefits to help bring them up. This was successful as it gave a good sense of social security and helped the two main genres of people who suffer from poverty: the old and large families. However, it wasn’t full proof as for 2 years the people who were just too old for the national insurance act didn’t receive any benefits. Also the family allowances didn’t help families who only had 1 child or if they had to struggle through poverty and then their children had just gone to work.

     They dealt inadequately with homelessness but they did a good job when consideration as to the economic state of the country and also the damage to housing during the war. They mainly dealt with this at first by putting up pre-fabricated houses. But Bevan wanted solidly built houses of a premium quality. This was a poor decision as he was spending money which the government simply didn’t have. They also couldn’t produce as many houses as were actually needed to deal with homelessness. They were producing over 200,000 but they need at least 3 times that amount to be doing anything. It got so bad that the government were allowing people to squat in derelict houses; this was the first time which a British government had made squatting legal ever. They did however do well as they made new towns and cities to put these houses into as to help release congestion in London and other big cities; these were designed by Abercrombie an architect working at University College, London. They also did well in making sure the green belt initiative was kept so that cities couldn’t grow into the countryside.

     They dealt worst with schooling for many reasons. Firstly the 11 plus was brought in; this was an examination brought in by the minister of education Richard Butler which decided where children would go for secondary school. The top 20% would go to a grammar school and the rest would be sorted into secondary modern and technical school. This was a poor decision as it is hard to decide a child’s academic ability at 11 and it especially didn’t help the late developers. Also very few technology schools were ever made so most people went to secondary moderns anyway. They did make some good decisions however by raising the school leaving age to 15 but they were meant to up it to 16 as soon as possible but it took much longer for this to happen which is a major fault on their part.

      With the great economic problems and also the destruction after the war Labour did an absolutely astounding job in dealing with the problems that were left after the war. Also the Beveridge report represented an ideal world and to create that idyllic world would take much longer than 6 years and what Labour did in their 6 years gave either themselves or other governments after them a brilliant start from which they could finish the job off. Without the thoughts of economic problems and war damage it doesn’t look like they did very well but with all factors considered they did a very good job and were very successful in creating the welfare state.