Labour Reforms Essay - Pupil Draft PDF

In 1945, the Labour Party came into power and promised welfare reforms to improve people’s lives after World War 2. These reforms were based on the Beveridge report, which was published in 1942 and identified five key areas which a future government should try to improve. This essay will focus on fo...

In 1945, the Labour Party came into power and promised welfare reforms to improve people’s lives after World War 2. These reforms were based on the Beveridge report, which was published in 1942 and identified five key areas which a future government should try to improve. This essay will focus on four areas: health, education, housing and unemployment. This essay will argue that yes, the Labour reforms did meet the needs of the British people. One of the key reforms which the Labour Party implemented was towards health. Before 1948, there was no free healthcare in Britain, and the poor struggled to access medical help, as it was too costly for them. In July 1948, the Labour government introduced the NHS, which provided everyone in Britain with free healthcare, regardless of who they were or how much money they had. This met the needs of the British public because it provided a completely free healthcare system which was particularly beneficial to poorer people who could now get free treatment for their ailments. However, the NHS did not meet the needs of all people because, by 1951, the budget for the NHS had risen dramatically by 166%, so people had to start paying 50% of the cost of glasses and false teeth. Most poor people could not afford to pay this fee, so their needs were not met. Upon evaluation, the reforms to health did meet the needs of the British people because many millions of people accessed the service from the first day. This is evident by the fact that by 1951, the number of prescriptions handed out increased from 7 million to over 13 million, showing people were using the service. Another way the Labour government tried to meet the needs of the British people was through improving education. Schooling before 1945 was quite poor as secondary education was not paid for by the state, so parents would have to pay for it themselves, which many working-class parents couldn’t afford, so their children left schooling at 11 years old. Labour implemented the Butler Education Act in 1944, bringing in a new 3-tier secondary education system, where children could get a targeted education and leave school at 15. Every child would sit the 11-plus exam in primary school, and this determined what type of school they would later attend. These changes to education met the needs of British children because they created a tailored education for nearly every child, and education became more accessible, especially for poorer children.In spite of this, the needs of children were not always met, as there were problems with these changes to education. One problem was the divide between schools. Secondary Schools were seen as the “best” schools, whereas Technical Schools and Grammar Schools were regarded as being for less able pupils, leading to the pupils attending less well-regarded schools being viewed as unintelligent. Upon evaluation, the education reforms did not improve the needs of the British people because hundreds of children were discriminated against by the system. This is evident by the fact that children who got into Secondary Schools were expected to go to university and get professional qualifications, whereas kids in Grammar and Technical Schools were expected to leave school at 15 and go into less skilled jobs. These children were often stuck in poverty. A third aspect of the UK that Labour tried to reform to meet the needs of the British people was housing. Many people in the UK after 1945 lived in slum housing, built before the war, with unlivable premises. Alongside this, many peoples houses were destroyed during German bombing raids, leaving them homeless. These reasons were why Labour promised to build 200,000 new homes in Britain. At first they began building prefabricated houses, or prefabs for short, which was factory made housing. By 1946, the government had focused on building council houses. Both types of housing were well liked, as they were clean and modern. These changes met the British public’s needs as, by 1951, over 1 million new houses had been built, meaning that many people all across Britain now lived in modern, habitable housing, improving many lives. However, Labour did not have enough money to completely fix the housing problem in the UK. By 1951, there was still a serious shortage of houses and long waiting lists for new homes, with many still homeless or living in slums. Overall, Labour were short of thousands of homes, but the homes that they did provide were well equipped to house people, and greatly improve their living conditions. Also, in 1946 they introduced the News Town Act and developed 12 brand new towns across Britain, including East Kilbride. These new towns gave people a new modern community to live in instead of a slum. The final reforms that Labour made to try to meet the needs of the British people were relating to unemployment. Before World War 2, unemployment was at very serious levels, with around 25% of all Brits not in jobs. Labour’s aim between 1945-51 was to create jobs and reduce unemployment to 8%. To do this Labour nationalised many key industries (railways, coal mines, steel,etc.). Labour would then reinvest profits from these industries to improve them and create new jobs, instead of further lining the pockets of private business owners. These changes met the British public’s needs as unemployment dropped even more drastically than Labour had hoped for, specifically to 2.5%. The government had successfully created jobs for many people, and kept them out of poverty, improving their life and meeting their needs. Despite this, the problem wasn’t completely solved, as some areas of Britain still experienced higher unemployment rates compared to others, for example, Glasgow, where shipbuilding was a large employer, continued to experience high levels of unemployment. These people’s lives were not improved by Labour’s reforms. In conclusion, the Labour government did improve the lives of British people. Despite some problems with the NHS, such as the abandonment of some free treatments, it could be argued that the NHS did overall improve people’s lives because every single person had access to free healthcare, even working-class people. There were also some problems with unemployment, like some areas having a higher unemployment rate than others, but overall, Britain’s unemployment rate greatly decreased, to 2.5% nationwide. Finally, there were some problems with housing, such as not having enough money to completely fix the housing problem, they did build over 1 million houses around the UK for families to live in, improving many people’s lives. Therefore, it is clear that the Labour reforms did improve the lives of the British public.