How Did Beveridge Respond To Britain's Welfare

These four pieces of legislation created a welfare state which brought about a major change for people in Britain. After the war it was more noticeable how many people were poor and deprived in Britain. William Beveridge who was a liberal politician identified five issues that needed to be tackled to make Britain better. To achieve this Beveridge proposed the introduction of the welfare state. He came up with five giants that needed to be addressed to help poverty. The five giants were want, disease, ignorance, squalor and idleness. Beveridge proposed a system of social insurance which was seen as covering people from cradle to the grave. Beveridge thought that poverty was to do with want to stop this want he introduced a number of acts. In
The national assistance act helped reduce poverty because it gave anybody in need benefits, this was the last defence for extreme poverty. For disease the national health service was introduced. This was to improve health care in Britain. In 1948 despite opposition of some health care professionals, that insisted on working privately still, Aneurin Bevan brought in the NHS. This made doctors, hospitals, dentists, opticians, ambulances, midwives and health visitors available and free to anybody. This improved poverty a lot especially in children because children were more likely to get diseases due to having a weak immune system. The NHS meant that children and families could accesses health care services that they earlier would not have been able to afford. Ignorance was another gaint which was mostly about education, the education act was introduced. This act set the leaving school age to 15 which was set up by rab butler. The act also introduced free secondary schools. Pupils took the '11 plus' IQ test that determined whether they would go to a grammar school, modern school or technical
The new towns act also help housing and squalor because it authourised the building of new towns in Stevenage, Basildon, Newtown Aycliffe and Peterlee. This gave families more places to live so that large families were not cramped in one room. The children's act required councils to provide good housing and care for all children deprived from a normal home life. This meant that the council would take care of the houses the children lived in which reduced poverty as there would be no damp houses. The final giant which was idleness was tackled by the Marshall Aid which got the industry going. The government nationalised the road haulage, railways, coal and steel industries. The government learnt how to keep the economy viberant by increasing public spending. The spending would the be given to the government and then back to the public. This reduced povery as money was not going to private businesses but to the government who spent it on improving the publics lives. After the creation of the Welfare State Poverty declined and remained steady until the 1970’s. The popularity of the Welfare State caused the issue of poverty to be off the political