Explain How Effective Was The Labour Government Of 1945-1951 In Introducing A Welfare

1227 Words5 Pages

How effective was the Labour Government of 1945-1951 in introducing a Welfare State? During World War 2 the government introduced rationing of food, clothes and fuel and also gave extra meals and milk to children and expectant mothers. This made people more used to state intervention after the war. It was when children from cities were evacuated to the countryside the extent of poverty was shown when they turned up dirty, poorly educated and with very little possessions. During the war the idea of ‘post-war must be better than pre-war’ was introduced. This meant that the soldiers would have something to fight for as well as something to fight against. The Labour Government of 1945-1951 was fairly effective in introducing a welfare state as …show more content…

The NHS was set up in 1948 to provide free health care to the people of Britain. Anybody could go to the doctor, hospital, dentist or optician and, receive an operation or eye tests that were ‘free at the point of use’. This shows that the Labour government were allowing anybody treatment no matter their class or background. In the first year that the NHS was available 8 million dental patients were treated and 5 million pairs of glasses were issued. This evidence shows that the NHS was desperately needed. In the area of disease, the Labour government of 1945-1951 was effective in introducing a welfare state to a great extent. Although the government underestimated the number of people who needed access to the NHS, which made queues for the doctor or dentist not an unusual sight, it provided British people a free health service from the cradle to the grave no matter what their …show more content…

The New Towns Act of 1946 created 14 new towns such as Glenrothes an East Kilbride. The government also introduced council houses, which were well made and properly furnished, to tackle homelessness. This shows that the government realised a step towards better health would be to ensure that people were living proper houses that were pleasant to live it. Therefore in the area of housing the government were partially successful however the plan was to build 200,000 homes a year and the government only managed to build 55,000. The Labour Government were less successful in setting up a welfare state in the area of housing that health as the NHS helped more people than expected, however as not all the houses were built the government helped less people than expected in the area of