Labour Reforms Flashcards
1946 industrial injuries act
Weekly benefit paid by national insurance scheme to workers who could not work because of an injury they had received at work
1946 national insurance act
Covered all workers and was nationwide
- unemployment benefit
- sickness benefit
- widow and orphans benefit
- old age pension
- maternity grant
- death grant
- family allowance
1948 national assistance act
Some people were not covered by the national insurance act because they were already retired when it started or they had not worked long enough to pay contributions to qualify. They received payments at a lower rate of they could prove that they needed them. Safety net for those not covered by national insurance
Was the poverty reforms successful?
✅
-main causes of poverty removed from everyone in Britain
-no one was without the basic necessities in life
-everyone entitled to payments
❌
-level of payments very low so had to get help from national insurance and national assistance
-needed a lot of civil servants to run
1946 national health service act
- universal: everyone from each class even if you didn’t pay for NI
- comprehensive: treated all medical problems
- free: no patient to pay for treatment (NHS was paid for by NI payments and general taxation)
Was the disease reforms successful?
✅ -made a massive difference to the lives of British people, if you became ill you could afford to go to get tested ❌ -hugely expensive -hospitals over crowded and old -10% of doctors refused to work for NHS
These do not detract from the massive benefit
Government action
-House building: ‘big house building programme’ priority was given to good quality council houses. 20% of houses were for private ownerships. House building hampered by lack of skilled workers and lack of materials from war
-legislation: 1946 new towns act: long term plans for 16 new towns to cause less overcrowded cities, 14 new towns in 1951
1949 housing act: easier for councils to buy up old houses to modernise them
Was bad housing reform successful?
✅
-I’m 1951 over a million new houses built
-did a good job for the lack of materials and workers available
❌
-in Scotland 3/4 of a million families still waiting to be rehoused
-homelessness in Britain the same from 1951-1931
1944 Butlers education act
- raised leaving age of school to 15
- free secondary education
- different styles teaching based on ability
School building programme
- 1950 built 900 primary schools and 250 secondary schools
- one year emergency training courses trained 35,000 new teachers
Was bad education act successful?
✅
-new schools, teachers, higher education level of the nation
❌
-middle class did better than working class
-no equality of opportunity in education by 1951
-not a secondary school on every area