Liberals; Social reform Flashcards
Outline the timeline of key events of Liberal social reforms
1906- Liberals win General election+ Education act (meals)
1906-8 Legislation to help children from poorer families
1907 Education act
1908 Children’s act + Old age pensions act
1909 Introduction of old age pensions
Peoples budget introduced (Increased taxes wealthy)
Labour Exchanges act
1911 National Insurance act
1912 National Insurance act (part 2)
School clinics
Which groups were the Liberal reforms targeting?
Lower classes : condition of children of poorest families, elderly people with no independent support, problem of poverty resulting from sickness and unemployment
Outline the Education act ( provisions of meals )
First move to ease the suffering of deprived children. The problem was that children who were too hungry and physically weak couldn’t benefit properly from education. This act enabled LEA’s to provide free school meals for children from the poorest families. These meals were paid for by the local rates.
What was the extent of benefit by the Education act (meals)?
Benefit - By 1914, a total of 14 million free school meals a year were being provided by LEA’s
Limitation- It wasn’t compulsory- not all LEA’s used this power before 1914- in 1913 only half of LEA’s were providing free meals
Outline the Education act ( School medical inspections)
Doctors and nurses went into schools to give pupils compulsory medical checks and recommend treatment they thought was necessary. The checks were free, but until 1912, parents had to pay for any required treatment
What was the extent of benefit by the Education act (school medical inspection) ?
Benefit- 1914 - 3/4 of LEA’s providing free medical inspections and 2/3 had some form of free medical treatment
Limitation - provided a basic check and not always treatment. Poor couldn’t afford treatment sometimes
Outline the children’s act
- protected persons - parent prosecution for cruelty
- Poor law authorities -> responsible for visiting/supervising children who had suffered neglect, cruelty
- children’s home registered + inspected
- t sell cigs to children under 16
Outline the set up of school clinics
Network school clinics set up provided for free med treatment for children
necessary b/c some couldn’t afford the treatment that docs wanted to give children from med inspections
Outline the labour exchanges act
Unemployed workers could go to a labour exchange to look for a job instead of having to tramp from workplace to workplace to find job. -> more efficient for both lookers + offerers of jobs
What was the extent of benefit of the labour exchanges act?
Benefit - 2 million workers registered by 1914 and 430 exchanges were finding 3000 jobs a day
Limitations - For every worker that found a job 3 didn’t
Outline the National Insurance act
- insurance scheme that aimed to prevent poverty resulting from illness
- workers insure themselves against sickness + draw money from scheme if they fell ill and couldn’t work
- all manual workers + people in low-paid white collar jobs had to join
- workers paid 4d for insurance stamps which they stuck on a special card
- Employers contributed 3d for each worker in the scheme
- if a worker in the scheme fell ill, they sot sick pay of 10 shillings
Outline the National Insurance act part 2
- aimed to prevent poverty resulting form unemployment by insuring workers against periods when they were out of work
- open at the start to people who worked in trades like shipbuilding + engineering where there was a great deal of seasonal unemployment
- workers, employers + gov each paid 2d a week for insurance stamps (every worker in scheme)
- unemployed workers could be paid 7 s 6d a week for up to 15 weeks in any one year
- workers in scheme could get free med treatment + maternity care
- in beginning around 10 mill men + 4 mill women were covered by national insurance
Outline the Old Age Pension act
Provided a pension of 5s a week of single persons and 7s and 6d for a married couple
What was the extent of benefit of the Old Age Pension act
Benefit - 1915 - 1 million pensioners with more women than men qualifying
Limitations- Only paid to elderly poor i.e.. those over 70 on low income ( most ppl died b4 getting benefits)
What did Lloyd George propose with the People’s Budget 1909?
- Raide income tax on over 3k pounds per annum to 1s2d from standard rate of 9d and bring in an additional tax of 6d in the pound on incomes over 5k per annum
- increased duties on spirits, tobacco, liquor licences and stamp duties
- Increased death duties on estates valued between 5k and 1 mill pounds
- Introduce land taxes on
- increased value of land when it changed hands (20%)
- annual value of land
- annual value of land leased to mining companies - Set up road fund for building and painting roads by putting taxes on petrol + introducing licences for motor vehicles
- introduce child allowances -> £10/ year each child