Describe The Key Features Of Welfare State From 1945-1970

Describe the key features of the Welfare State from 1945 to 1970 and discuss how effective they were in combating the ‘five giants’.

After the Second World War, the attitude of the people was very much that previous governments had not fulfilled their promises, they had had to put up with an unprecedented amount of government interference in everyday life and felt that this required a certain level of responsibility from the government (K Jones, 2000). Sir William Beveridge, Master of the University college, Oxford, along with others took up this responsibility (K Jones,1991). He saw five “Giant” evils of society. These five giants were Squalor, Ignorance, Want, Idleness, Disease. These he pointed out in his report. In layman’s terms squalor

This lead to the majority of children left uneducated with only 7% of children going to day school in 1818 (N Timmins, 1995). Attitudes changed with the industrial revolution when the work required more educated workers; however government was still late to respond. Many in the ruling class worried that too much education may lead to discontent. Others from their privilege did not even understanding the need for education. The Whig prime minister, Lord Melbourne “I do not understand why there is all this fuss about education. None of the Pagets (the Marquis of Anglesey’s family) can read or write and they do very well” (N Timmins, 1995). But even up to the more recent 1930’s we were still vastly behind our European counterparts, with only 1 university student for every 1000 people, almost double Germanys and more than double Frances (N Timmins, 1995) and only 11.8 students per 1000 were in grant aided secondary schools (W Spens, 1938). In 1941, Richard Butler was appointed President of the Board of Education, by this point massive changes were already being made to the education system. However Butler, a Conservative was the first to act to tackle the five giants by putting forward the 1944 Education act aka the Butler Act. Butler put forward to

In 1938 a housing legislation act was put into place to improve the housing in cities () although this didn’t fully solve the issue. The war brought many new housing issues. With no new houses built, nearly half a million houses had been destroyed during the war and a population boom after the war meant the call for housing was indismissable (K Jones, 2000) “For it is to be noted that the majority of these houses are old, fifty or sixty years old at least, and great numbers of them are by any ordinary standard not fit for human habitation. They go on being tenanted simply because there are no others to be had”(G Orwell, 1937, 72). Aneurin Bevan was responsible for housing during this time and the “homes for heroes” promises of Lloyd George put serious pressure on him to achieve his promises. 1.5 million slums were cleared which equated to almost a quarter of the population (S Lowe,