Labour’s Achievements/Bad Policies By 1951

Question 1

What didd the 1944 Education act do?

Answer 1

• The Butler 1944 Education Act introduced by raising the school leaving aged to 15.
• It also made children sit an exam age 11 to determine who would pass onto secondary school and who would pass to a technical school, which focused demoted on trades.

Question 2

What was the rate of unemployment in 1946?

Answer 2

• The rate of unemployment was 2.5%, showing that they had successfully tackled ignorance.

Question 3

What was the Family Allowances Act?

Answer 3

• The 1946 Family Allowances Act allowed mothers with 2 ore more children to receive weekly payments of 5 shillings for each child, except from the oldest.

Question 4

What did Atlee’s Government do?

Answer 4

• Attlee’s government introduced the recommendations of the Beveridge Report into society which then created the welfare state, which provided care of all ‘from the cradle to the grave.’

Question 5

What happened once the NHS was introduced?

Answer 5

• In the first year, 13.5 million prescriptions were provided per month, 8 million dental patients were treated and 5 million spectacles were issued.
• This shows how necessary and how people badly-needed this service.

Question 6

What did Hugh Dalton say?

Answer 6

• Hugh Dalton, Chancellor of Exchequer said that full employment was, ‘the greatest revolution brought about by the Labour Government.’

Question 7

How was the Butler Education Act negative?

Answer 7

• However, the Butler Education Act created social division systems as more working-class could not access secondary schools as most children who left after 1947 had little qualifications. Therefore, the act was more redundant towards the working-class.

Question 8

What was a problem with the NHS?

Answer 8

• The NHS did not eliminate private medical-care as 10% of doctors were not still on board, therefore charges for prescriptions and other services had to be instated.

Question 9

What is a problem with the social reforms?

Answer 9

• Labour ministers may have introduced long-overdue social reforms, but they failed to redistribute wealth or to break down rigid class barriers; 1% to the population still owned 50% of all private capital.

Question 10

What happened to the NHS’s budget?

Answer 10

• the NHS was budgeted £140 million, but it went way over these costs with £358m in 1950, meaning that taxation had to rise to pay for it.

Question 11

What does Kenneth Morgan argue?

Answer 11

• Labour’s achievements may not have changed society as much as they would have liked, but their achievements
• ‘acted as a platform for successive governments to effect much change.’

Question 12

What does David Vincent argue?

Answer 12

• The middle and upper classes benefited much more from the Welfare state than the working-class.

Question 13

What does Corelli Barnett argue?

Answer 13

• Contends that the country was seduced by dreams and illusions of a New Jerusalem which it could not afford and ultimately ruinous to the country’s fortunes.