Labour needs to write a new Beveridge Report for tomorrow’s world
We are living in very uncertain times. And at times like this it pays to look back in history to see what we can learn from those who trod similar paths.
July 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of Labour’s landslide 1945 General Election victory. The road to that victory started much earlier, arguably three years earlier, in late 1942.
Victory at El Alamein and the publication of the Beveridge report in December 1942 signalled a turning point in Britain’s wartime efforts. It was a time when the population could look forward with more confidence to the postwar future.
The Coalition Cabinet was deeply divided on the Beveridge Report and other aspects of postwar planning. For Labour, it was a priority. Not so, for Churchill. Attlee later recalled: “Whenever we got on to the subject of planning for postwar Britain, Winston was ill at ease. Whenever a Cabinet Committee put up a paper to him on anything not military or naval, he was inclined to suspect a Socialist plot. Even wartime schemes for controls and rationing used to irritate him”.
Beveridge’s report was discussed by the Cabinet on 26th November 1942, with Sir Kingsley Wood, Chancellor of the Exchequer, arguing that it involved "an impracticable financial commitment"and should not yet be published. But, under pressure from Labour, particularly from Herbert Morrison, the Cabinet decided to publish it on 1st December.
The day before publication, Labour’s Arthur Greenwood, who was now Leader of the Opposition after being dropped from the Coalition War Cabinet in February 1942, told the House of Commons that “There are two words graven on the hearts of the overwhelming mass of men and women, ‘Never again’…. never again will they submit to the social and economic events of the past”.
Beveridge’s ‘cradle to the grave’ concept was designed to provide a comprehensive welfare system based on three ‘assumptions’ – a free national health service, child allowances and full employment. It unified all the existing schemes and included everyone. In return for a single weekly flat-rate contribution, every contributor would receive benefits calculated to provide a minimum standard of living whenever his or her earnings were interrupted.
Over 100,000 copies of the Beveridge Report were sold in the first month of publication, rising to a total of 635,000 and a special edition was produced for the forces (although later withdrawn from circulation on Churchill’s orders).
A Mass Observation contributor observed, “It’s extraordinary the interest people are taking in it. When I went down to the Stationery Office to get it there were queues of people buying it; and [when] I was looking at it on the bus the conductor said ‘I suppose you haven’t got a spare copy of that?”. In her column for the ‘New Yorker’, the diarist, Mollie Panter-Downes, wrote that people had happily queued for hours to get their hands on“a two-shilling slab of involved economics”.
Public opinion reflected its impact. A Gallup survey in 1943 showed 19 people out every 20 knowing about the Beveridge Report. A survey undertaken at the time by the British Institute for Public Opinion revealed 86 per cent in favour, with 88 per cent in support of a free health service.
The Beveridge report focused people’s minds on what was wrong and what had to be put right by the next Government. It had a powerful influence on public opinion and crystallised ‘what we are fighting for’. Aneurin Bevan called the report“the most sensational political document of modern times”. His wife, Jennie Lee, standing as an Independent Labour candidate at a by-election in Bristol, said “I stand for every word, everyletter and comma in the Beveridge Report”. Herbert Morrison used the report as a platform for a series of speeches on Labour’s vision for postwar Britain.
We can learn a lot from this seminal point in our country’s history.In 1945 the past had a huge bearing on the future. Despite Churchill’s record as an outstanding war leader (in May 1945, Churchill's personal approval ratings stood at 83 per cent), the post 1918 broken promises and economic failures of the 1930s cast a long shadow. The Conservatives were fighting their own pre-war record of economic slump and appeasement, as well as Labour’s positive manifesto pledges.
‘No going back to the 1930s dole queues’ was a powerful call to action for the British people in 1945. As the current Covid-19 pandemic continues, the true enormity of the impact of the past decade of austerity is being revealed. The people’s reaction may be equally powerful.
The Conservative Government failed to respond to the Cygnus findings, so resources were notprepared for an epidemic. Middle-class people are suddenly discovering how low Universal Credit and other benefits actually are. Even though the Department of Health was renamed the Department of Health and Social Care in 2018, the Social Care sector remains a ‘second class’ service. Many people are struggling with lockdown in overcrowded housing. Those in the gig economy and on zero hours are highly vulnerable. All these facts may now become more significant for a wider cross-section of voters.
By 2024, the Conservatives will have been in government for 14 years. The years of austerity will have taken their toll on jobs, communities and public services. The Conservatives’ grim legacy needs to be articulated at every opportunity, together with Labour’s prescription for the future. ‘Never again’ was the folk memory in 1945: something similar needs to be in voters’ minds as they enter the polling booths in 2024.
The challenge for today is to start the search for an alternative approach and alternative solutions that will tackle the evident and striking problems we face as a society. Returning to a ‘business as usual’ Britain may be a very difficult task, both in practical and political aspects. In 2020, the task for Labour is to write a ‘Beveridge Report for the 2020s and beyond’ to steer the path for a new post-Covid-19 Britain.
Perhaps Labour’s ‘Beveridge Report for the 2020s’ could start by considering five modern ‘giants’:
- What does the NHS and Social Care system need to look like in the future and what is the investment needed to sustain it? Crucially, this willrequire serious public debate about how these vital services should be funded.
- How do we build the millions of low-cost homes needed to house those currently living in inadequate and overcrowded conditions?
- How do we shape our economic policies to combat the climate emergency and the post-Brexit world?
- What is the best way to ‘rebalance the economy’ to enable the North and Midlands to make a much bigger contribution to the country’s economic prosperity?
- How does our local government system need to be strengthened and financed to give local communities more control over their destinies?
As with Beveridge’s report in 1942, the agenda for the future needs to provoke widespread public debate and Labour should be leading that debate. And we need to translate the fruits of that debateinto meeting the everyday concerns and aspirations of the British people. Labour’s offer needs to be practical, well-researched, and relevant to a wide range of voters, and to reflect the needs of the country as a whole. Just as in 1945, at the next election the British people will take a very practical view of the future. In 1945, they wanted a decent home, a job and not to have to worry when they became ill or fell on hard times. In short, they wanted a better life and saw Labour as the vehicle through which these aspirations could be achieved. To win in 2024, Labour’s appeal needs to be based fairly and squarely on understanding the mind of the country and offering a practical and relevant set of solutions.
Paul Dimoldenberg’s new book, ‘Cheer Churchill. Vote Labour’ – The Story of the 1945 General Election’ is available in e-book and paperback format athttps://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B08975HFS7/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1590583600&sr=1-3
All proceeds from the sale of the book will be donated to Foodbanks in Westminster.
Paul Dimoldenberg was first elected to Westminster City Council in 1982. He was Leader of the Labour Opposition Group from 1987-1990 and from 2004-2015. He is the author of ‘The Westminster Whistleblowers’, published by Politicos in 2006, which tells the story of the Westminster ‘Homes for Votes’ scandal of the 1980s and 1990s.