With all of these reasons, the Liberals needed to gain support and so created a number of reforms, to help put the middle and upper classes on their side. As I mentioned, the reforms benefited the young, the old, the unemployed, the workers and the sick. The majority of the reforms benefited the workers in 1909, and so the majority of them benefited them. The acts that benefited the workers were all very important, some more than others, and some were more successful than others. Probably the most important for them were the payment of MP’s act, the national insurance act for health and the national insurance act for unemployment. The payment of MP’s act was introduced in 1911. It meant that men, no matter what class, could now enter parliament, as MP’s were now starting to get paid. Before, the rich could only afford to be MP’s as it was an unpaid job, as they could manage to support themselves but now the lower classes could get involved. The act was however opposed by the conservatives, who feared that many would stand for personal gain. The two parts of the national insurance act, health and unemployment, were also quite important. the health act was created by David Lloyd George, and used the slogan ‘9d for 4d’ in order to promote it. This act provided a fund for when workers, employers and government members were off sick , they received 10 shillings a week, and then after 20 weeks, it was dropped to 5 shillings a week. This was a very important act because nothing like it had ever before existed. The conservatives yet again opposed the act because they didn’t like the idea of workers, especially rich people, having to contribute from their wages in order to pay for the act. This act for quite good because when people were ill, they could continue to afford to live, however it wasn’t good as it didn’t apply to the workers wives and their children. The second part of the national insurance act for unemployment was partially similar, as it was a fund which people contributed to and people who became unemployed, received 7 shillings, for a maximum of 15 weeks. After the 15 weeks were up, nothing at all was given to them. This act was also bad in that it only covered certain trades. Other acts which benefited workers were the coal mines act, as it introduced an 8 hour working day for miners, the merchant shipping act, which provided strict regulations on the standards of food and accommodation for all British crew members on registered ships, and the workers compensation act, which provided compensation for all workers whose health had been damaged by jobs, although many took advantage of the act and it also was very expensive. Some of the workers acts were not as good compared to the ones I have just explained, and weren’t really that successful or didn’t benefit a lot of people. The Shops Act was one of these, which gave shop assistants half a day off each week, but this time had to be made up somewhere. The trade boards act provided a minimum wage for some jobs, although the jobs that it did provide for were rare ones and as they were rare, it affected too few of the workforce. The last one which benefited the workers was the trade disputes act, which allowed trade unions to strike without being sued, which reversed the Taff Vale Judgement, but this gave too much power to the trade unions.
A number of the acts benefited the young as well. The most successful reform which covered the young would be the free school places act. This meant that secondary schools had to reserve a quarter of their places free of charge for children from elementary schools. The reform acts covered free school meals too, which meant that needy children were given free school meals by local authorities, but this act was not made permanent till 1914, after being introduced in 1906, and only half the authorities introduced them. Compulsory medical checks were also given in 1907. These were done at schools and free medical treatment was to be provided by local education authorities. This act was good but little medical treatment was given. The child offenders act was also created which meant that offenders were to be tried and sent to corrective schools.
The old benefited greatly due to the act, even though they only came under one reform. This was the old age pensions act. This was introduced in 1908, but was in full power from 1st January 1909. It was available to all people over 70, and was paid for by the rich upper classes. Although it was good that the old were getting some money, it was a very small amount that they were given. You could also not receive it if you earned more than £21 a year. Another disadvantage of the act is that most people didn’t reach 70 and so the act was introduced too late.
The unemployed benefited from an act known as the labour exchange act. This meant that employers with vacancies were to inform Labour exchanges so that the unemployed could easily find work. This proved to be fairly successful. They also benefited from the National Insurance act, covering unemployment.
The sick were the last group of people to benefit from the reform. They benefited also from the National Insurance act, which covered health.
Many of the Liberal reform acts didn’t go far enough in order to make a real change, although they did make some to improve the qualities of people’s lives. Although changes were made, they weren’t developed enough to make a great impact or a dramatic change. The reforms must have had some impact on the middle class because the majority of working and middle class people voted for them, although the Liberals lost votes from the wealthy people. A problem with the reforms is that not everyone was covered in the act such as women, and so at that time, they would have been left out. I think the Liberals ignored them because at that time, women couldn’t vote, and so their opinion wouldn’t have mattered to the Liberal government.
Today in Britain, we live in a welfare state. This means that residents of our country pay tax which goes towards things in order to make things in that country better e.g. health care, education etc. The Liberals did introduce some reforms but didn’t introduce a welfare state because it would have been a very big jump from what they were used to (‘Laissez-Faire’), to a welfare state. To the people at this time, it would have been a great improvement, as before, they had never experience anything like these reforms.
The Liberal government introduced reforms to their people because they knew things had to be changed, to make Britain a better place to live. They felt that they could best achieve these changes through introducing reforms. The reforms introduced by the Liberal government were a big improvement for the people. It is evident that they did improve the majority of lives of the country in some way. Although the reforms weren’t perfect and had many faults, they also did have there good points. As you can see the reforms created a better standard of life, but a welfare state was not created, yet it was an improvement from ‘Laissez-Faire’. I can therefore say that in some ways, the Liberal reforms started to make the foundations for a welfare state system, which is in use today.