Domestic policy Francis (1995) argues there was consensus both in the Labour's national executive committee and at party conferences on a definition of socialism that stressed moral improvement as well as material improvement. The Attlee government was committed to rebuilding British society as an ethical commonwealth, using public ownership and controls to abolish extremes of wealth and poverty. Labour's ideology contrasted sharply with the contemporary Conservative Party's defence of individualism, inherited privileges, and income inequality. On 5 July 1948, Clement Attlee replied to a letter dated 22 June from
James Murray and ten other MPs who raised concerns about West Indians who arrived on board the . As for the prime minister himself, he was not much focused on economic policy, letting others handle the issues.
Nationalisation Attlee's government also carried out their manifesto commitment for
nationalisation of basic industries and public utilities. The
Bank of England and civil aviation were nationalised in 1946.
Coal mining, the
railways, road haulage, canals and
Cable and Wireless were nationalised in 1947, and electricity and gas followed in 1948. The
steel industry was nationalised in 1951. By 1951 about 20 per cent of the British economy had been taken into
public ownership. and improvements in working conditions, especially in regards to safety. As historian Eric Shaw noted of the years following nationalisation, the electricity and gas supply companies became "impressive models of public enterprise" in terms of efficiency, and the
National Coal Board was not only profitable, but working conditions for miners had significantly improved as well. Within a few years of nationalisation, a number of progressive measures had been carried out which did much to improve conditions in the mines, including better pay, a five-day working week, a national safety scheme (with proper standards at all the collieries), a ban on boys under the age of 16 going underground, the introduction of training for newcomers before going down to the coalface, and the making of pithead baths into a standard facility. The newly established National Coal Board offered sick pay and holiday pay to miners. As noted by
Martin Francis: Union leaders saw nationalisation as a means to pursue a more advantageous position within a framework of continued conflict, rather than as an opportunity to replace the old adversarial form of industrial relations. Moreover, most workers in nationalised industries exhibited an essentially instrumentalist attitude, favouring public ownership because it secured job security and improved wages rather than because it promised the creation of a new set of socialist relationships in the workplace.
Health , known as the birthplace of the NHS Attlee's
Health Minister,
Aneurin Bevan, fought hard against the general disapproval of the medical establishment, including the
British Medical Association, by creating the National Health Service in 1948. This was a
publicly funded healthcare system, which offered treatment for all, regardless of income, free of charge at the point of use. Reflecting pent-up demand that had long existed for medical services, the NHS treated some 8.5 million dental patients and dispensed more than 5 million pairs of spectacles during its first year of operation. Consultants benefited from the new system by being paid salaries that provided an acceptable standard of living without the need for them to resort to private practice. The NHS brought major improvements in the health of working-class people, with deaths from diphtheria, pneumonia, and tuberculosis significantly reduced. Although there were often disputes about its organisation and funding, British political parties continued to voice their general support for the NHS in order to remain electable. In the field of health care, funds were allocated to modernisation and extension schemes aimed at improving administrative efficiency. Improvements were made in nursing accommodation in order to recruit more nurses and reduce labour shortages which were keeping 60,000 beds out of use, and efforts were made to reduce the imbalance "between an excess of fever and tuberculosis (TB) beds and a shortage of maternity beds".
BCG vaccinations were introduced for the protection of medical students, midwives, nurses, and contacts of patients with tuberculosis, a pension scheme was set up for employees of the newly established NHS, The National Health Service (Superannuation) Regulations 1947 laid down a number of provisions for beneficiaries including an officer's pension and retiring allowance, an injury allowance, a short service gratuity, a death gratuity, a widow's pension, and supplementary payments in the case of special classes of officers. Provision was also made for the allocation of part of pension or injury allowance to spouse of dependent. The Radioactive Substances Act 1948 set out general provisions to control radioactive substances. Numerous lesser reforms were also introduced, some of which were of great benefit to certain segments of British society, such as the mentally deficient and the blind. Between 1948 and 1951, Attlee's government increased spending on health from £6 billion to £11 billion: an increase of over 80%, and from 2.1% to 3.6% of GDP.
Welfare The government set about implementing the Wartime plans of
William Beveridge's plans for the creation of a 'cradle to grave'
welfare state, and set in place an entirely new system of
social security. Among the most important pieces of legislation was the
National Insurance Act 1946, in which people in work paid a flat rate of
national insurance. In return, they (and the wives of male contributors) were eligible for flat-rate pensions, sickness benefit, unemployment benefit, and funeral benefit. Various provisions were included in the
National Insurance Act 1946 including unemployment and sickness benefit, maternity grant and attendance allowance, maternity allowance, widow's benefit, widow's pensions in special cases, guardian's allowance, retirement pension, and death grant. Various other pieces of legislation provided for
child benefit and support for people with no other source of income. A block grant introduced in 1948 helped the social services provided by local authorities. Personal Social Services or welfare services were developed in 1948 for individual and families in general, particularly special groups such as the mentally disordered, deprived children, the elderly, and the handicapped. The Attlee Government increased pensions and other benefits, with pensions raised to become more of a living income than they had ever been. War pensions and allowances (for both World Wars) were increased by the
Pensions (Increase) Act 1947, which gave the wounded man with an allowance for his wife and children if he married after he had been wounded, thereby removing a grievance of more than twenty years standing. Other improvements were made in war pensions during Attlee's tenure as prime minister. A Constant Attendance Allowance was tripled, an Unemployability Allowance was tripled from 10s to 30s a week, and a special hardship allowance of up to £1 a week was introduced. In addition, the 1951 Budget made further improvements in the supplementary allowances for many war pensioners. From 1945 onwards, three out of every four pension claims had been successful, whilst after the First World War only one pension claim in three was allowed. Under the Superannuation (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 1948, employees of a body representative of local authorities or of the officers of local authorities could be admitted "on suitable terms to the superannuation fund of a local authority". In 1951, a comforts allowance was introduced that was automatically paid to war pensioners "receiving unemployability supplement and constant attendance allowance". The Personal injuries (Civilians) Scheme of 1947 included various benefits such as an exceptional maximum rate of constant attendance allowance of 40s a week, and an allowance for wear and tear of clothing caused by the use of artificial limbs and appliances. In addition, allowances payable while a pensioner underwent inpatient treatment "are normally no longer subject to a deduction in respect of decreased home expenditure". Various changes were also made in respect of gainfully employed persons who sustained war injuries and civil defence volunteers who war service injuries. These included the provision of allowances for the wife and children for injured persons receiving injury allowance or disablement pension, amendments to the provisions for an allowance to a pensioner deemed unemployable by reason of his pensioned disablement "to secure that he receives in the aggregate by way of unemployability allowance and any social service benefits for which he is eligible at least 20s. a week in addition to his pension", increases in the allowance payable for a wife of a person receiving treatment allowance, unemployability allowance or injury allowance under certain conditions and "if no allowance is payable for a wife, an allowance may be granted for a dependant adult", and a social hardship allowance for partially disabled men "who, though not unemployable, is prevented by his pensioned disablement from resuming his former occupation or taking up one of equivalent standard". Also, "Where a man dies as the direct result of a qualifying injury his widow may be awarded a pension (with allowances for his children) without regard to the date of marriage." A more extensive system of social welfare benefits had been established by the Attlee Government, which did much to reduce acute social deprivation. The cumulative impact of the Attlee's Government's health and welfare policies was such that all the indices of health (such as statistics of school medical or dental officers, or of medical officers of health) showed signs of improvement, with continual improvements in survival rates for infants and increased life expectancy for the elderly. Overseas investments had been used up to pay for the war. The transition to a peacetime economy, and the maintaining of strategic military commitments abroad led to continuous and severe problems with the
balance of trade. This resulted in strict
rationing of food and other essential goods continuing in the post war period to force a reduction in consumption in an effort to limit imports, boost exports, and stabilise the Pound Sterling so that Britain could trade its way out of its financial state. The abrupt end of the American
Lend-Lease programme in August 1945 almost caused a crisis. Some relief was provided by the
Anglo-American loan, negotiated in December 1945. The conditions attached to the loan included making the
pound fully
convertible to the US dollar. When this was introduced in July 1947, it led to a
currency crisis and convertibility had to be suspended after just five weeks. The government was less successful in housing, which was the responsibility of
Aneurin Bevan. The government had a target to build 400,000 new houses a year to replace those which had been destroyed in the war, but shortages of materials and manpower meant that less than half this number were built. Nevertheless, millions of people were rehoused as a result of the Attlee government's housing policies. Between August 1945 and December 1951, 1,016,349 new homes were completed in England, Scotland, and Wales. When the Attlee government was voted out of office in 1951, the economy had been improved compared to 1945. The period from 1946 to 1951 saw continuous full employment and steadily rising living standards, which increased by about 10 per cent each year. During that same period, the economy grew by 3 per cent a year, and by 1951 the UK had "the best economic performance in Europe, while output per person was increasing faster than in the United States". Careful planning after 1945 also ensured that demobilisation was carried out without having a negative impact upon economic recovery, and that unemployment stayed at very low levels. In addition, the number of motor cars on the roads rose from 3 million to 5 million from 1945 to 1951, and seaside holidays were taken by far more people than ever before. A Monopolies and Restrictive Practices (Inquiry and Control) Act was passed in 1948, which allowed for investigations of restrictive practices and monopolies.
Energy 1947 proved a particularly difficult year for the government; an
exceptionally cold winter that year caused coal mines to freeze and cease production, creating widespread
power cuts and food shortages. The
Minister of Fuel and Power,
Emanuel Shinwell was widely blamed for failing to ensure adequate coal stocks, and soon resigned from his post. The Conservatives capitalised on the crisis with the slogan 'Starve with Strachey and shiver with Shinwell' (referring to the Minister of Food
John Strachey). The crisis led to an unsuccessful plot by
Hugh Dalton to replace Attlee as prime minister with
Ernest Bevin. Later that year
Stafford Cripps tried to persuade Attlee to stand aside for Bevin. These plots petered out after Bevin refused to cooperate. Later that year, Dalton resigned as Chancellor after inadvertently leaking details of the budget to a journalist. He was replaced by Cripps.
Foreign policy In foreign affairs, the Attlee government was concerned with four main issues: post-war Europe, the onset of the Cold War, the establishment of the United Nations, and decolonisation. The first two were closely related, and Attlee was assisted by
Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin. Attlee also attended the later stages of the
Potsdam Conference, where he negotiated with President
Harry S. Truman and
Joseph Stalin. upon his arrival at National Airport in Washington, 1945 and
Joseph Stalin at the
Potsdam Conference, 1945In the immediate aftermath of the war, the Government faced the challenge of managing relations with Britain's former war-time ally, Stalin and the
Soviet Union. Ernest Bevin was a passionate
anti-communist, based largely on his experience of fighting communist influence in the trade union movement. Bevin's initial approach to the USSR as foreign secretary was "wary and suspicious, but not automatically hostile". Attlee himself sought warm relations with Stalin. He put his trust in the United Nations, rejected notions that the Soviet Union was bent on world conquest, and warned that treating Moscow as an enemy would turn it into one. This put Attlee at sword's point with his foreign minister, the Foreign Office, and the military who all saw the Soviets as a growing threat to Britain's role in the Middle East. Suddenly in January 1947, Attlee reversed his position and agreed with Bevin on a hardline anti-Soviet policy. In an early "good-will" gesture that was later heavily criticised, the Attlee government allowed the Soviets to purchase, under the terms of a 1946 UK-USSR
Trade agreement, a total of 25
Rolls-Royce Nene jet engines in September 1947 and March 1948. The agreement included an agreement not to use them for military purposes. The price was fixed under a commercial contract; a total of 55 jet engines were sold to the USSR in 1947. However, the
Cold War intensified during this period and the Soviets, who at the time were well behind the West in jet technology,
reverse-engineered the Nene and installed their own version in the
MiG-15 interceptor. This was used to good effect against US-UK forces in the subsequent
Korean War, as well as in several later MiG models. After Stalin took political control of most of Eastern Europe, and began to subvert other governments in the Balkans, Attlee's and Bevin's worst fears of Soviet intentions were realised. The Attlee government then became instrumental in the creation of the successful
NATO defence alliance to protect Western Europe against any Soviet expansion. In a crucial contribution to the economic stability of post-war Europe, Attlee's Cabinet was instrumental in promoting the American
Marshall Plan for the economic recovery of Europe. He called it one of the "most bold, enlightened and good-natured acts in the history of nations". A group of Labour MPs, organised under the banner of "
Keep Left", urged the government to steer a middle way between the two emerging superpowers, and advocated the creation of a "third force" of European powers to stand between the US and USSR. However, deteriorating relations between Britain and the USSR, as well as Britain's economic reliance on America following the Marshall Plan, steered policy towards supporting the US. (left) with Attlee in 1945
Decolonisation Decolonisation was never a major election issue, but Attlee gave the matter a great deal of attention and was the chief leader in beginning the process of
decolonisation of the
British Empire.
East Asia In August 1948, the Chinese Communists' victories caused Attlee to begin preparing for a Communist takeover of China. It kept open consulates in Communist-controlled areas and rejected the Chinese Nationalists' requests that British citizens assist in the defence of Shanghai. By December, the government concluded that although British property in China would likely be nationalised, British traders would benefit in the long run from a stable, industrialising Communist China. Retaining Hong Kong was especially important to him; although the Chinese Communists promised to not interfere with its rule, Britain reinforced the
Hong Kong Garrison during 1949. When the victorious Chinese Communists government declared on 1 October 1949 that it would exchange diplomats with any country that ended relations with the Chinese Nationalists, Britain became the first western country to formally recognise the People's Republic of China in January 1950. In 1954, a Labour Party delegation including Attlee visited China at the invitation of then Foreign Minister
Zhou Enlai. Attlee became the first high-ranking western politician to meet
Mao Zedong.
South Asia Attlee orchestrated
the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947. Attlee in 1928–1934 had been a member of the
Indian Statutory Commission (otherwise known as the Simon Commission). He became the Labour Party expert on India and by 1934 was committed to granting India the same independent
dominion status that Canada, Australia,
New Zealand and
South Africa had
recently been given. He faced strong resistance from the die-hard Conservative imperialists, led by Churchill, who opposed both independence and efforts led by Prime Minister
Stanley Baldwin to set up a
system of limited local control by Indians themselves. Attlee and the Labour leadership were sympathetic to both the
Indian National Congress led by
Jawaharlal Nehru and the Pakistan movement led by
Muhammad Ali Jinnah. During the Second World War, Attlee was in charge of Indian affairs. He set up the
Cripps Mission in 1942, which tried and failed to bring the factions together and unite behind the war effort. When
Gandhi and Congress called for passive resistance in the
Quit India movement of 1942–1945, the British government ordered the widespread arrest and internment for the duration of tens of thousands of Congress leaders as part of its efforts to crush the revolt. Labour's election Manifesto in 1945 called for "the advancement of India to responsible self-government". Attlee did not object. By contrast, the
Muslim League, led by Muhammad Ali Jinnah, strongly supported the war effort. They greatly enlarged their membership and won favour from London for their decision. Attlee retained a fondness for Congress and until 1946, accepted their thesis that they were a non-religious party that accepted Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and everyone else. Nevertheless, this difference in opinion between the Congress and the Muslim League towards the British war effort encouraged Attlee and his government to consider further negotiations with the Muslim League. The Muslim League insisted that it was the only true representative of all of the Muslims of India. With violence escalating in India after the war, but with British financial power at a low ebb, large-scale military involvement was impossible. Viceroy
Archibald Wavell said he needed a further seven army
divisions to prevent communal violence if independence negotiations failed. No divisions were available; independence was the only option. Given the increasing demands of the Muslim League, independence implied a partition that set off heavily Muslim Pakistan from the main portion of India. After becoming prime minister in 1945 Attlee originally planned to give India dominion status in 1948. Attlee suggested in his memoirs that "traditional" colonial rule in Asia was no longer viable. He said that he expected it to meet renewed opposition after the war both by local national movements as well as by the United States. The prime minister's biographer John Bew says that Attlee hoped for a transition to a multilateral world order and a
Commonwealth, and that the old British Empire "should not be supported beyond its natural lifespan" and instead be ended "on the right note." His exchequer
Hugh Dalton meanwhile feared that post-war Britain could no longer afford to garrison its empire. Ultimately the Labour government gave full independence to India and Pakistan in 1947 through the
Indian Independence Act. This involved creating a demarcation between the two regions which was known as the
Radcliffe Line. The boundary between the newly created states of Pakistan and India involved the widespread resettlement of millions of Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims. Almost immediately, extreme anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh violence ensued in
Lahore,
Multan and
Dacca when the
Punjab province and the Bengal province were split in the
Partition of India. This was followed by a rapid increase in widespread anti-Muslim violence in several areas including
Amritsar,
Rajkot,
Jaipur,
Calcutta and
Delhi. Historian
Yasmin Khan estimates that over a million people were killed of which several were women and children. Gandhi himself was
assassinated in January 1948. Attlee remarked Gandhi as the "greatest citizen" of India and added, "this one man has been the major factor in every consideration of the Indian problem. He had become the expression of the aspirations of the Indian people for independence". Historian Andrew Roberts says the independence of India was a "national humiliation" but it was necessitated by urgent financial, administrative, strategic and political needs. Churchill in 1940–1945 had tightened the hold on India and imprisoned the Congress leadership, with Attlee's approval. Labour had looked forward to making it a fully independent dominion like Canada or Australia. Many of the Congress leaders in India had studied in England, and were highly regarded as fellow idealistic socialists by Labour leaders. Attlee was the Labour expert on India and took special charge of decolonisation. Attlee found that Churchill's viceroy, Field Marshal Wavell, was too imperialistic, too keen on military solutions, and too neglectful of Indian political alignments. The eventual appointee for new viceroy,
Lord Mountbatten, the dashing war hero and a cousin of the King, was put forward by
V. K. Krishna Menon as a candidate acceptable to all, in a series of clandestine meetings with Sir Stafford Cripps, and with Attlee. Attlee also sponsored the peaceful transition to independence in 1948 of
Burma (Myanmar) and
Ceylon (Sri Lanka).
Palestine celebrations in British-controlled
Jerusalem (1945) One of the most urgent problems facing Attlee concerned the future of the
British mandate in Palestine, which had become too troublesome and expensive to handle. British policies in Palestine were perceived by the
Zionist movement and the Truman administration to be pro-Arab and anti-Jewish, and Britain soon found itself unable to maintain public order in the face of a
Jewish insurgency and a
civil war. During this period, 70,000 Holocaust survivors attempted to reach Palestine as part of the
Aliyah Bet refugee movement. Attlee's government tried several tactics to prevent the migration. Five ships were bombed by the
Secret Intelligence Service (though with no casualties) with a fake Palestinian group created to take responsibility. The navy apprehended over 50,000 refugees en route, interning them in
detention camps in Cyprus. Conditions in the camps were harsh and faced global criticism. Later, the refugee ship
Exodus 1947 would be sent back to mainland Europe, instead of being taken to Cyprus. With the establishment of the state of
Israel in 1948, the camps in Cyprus were eventually closed, with their former occupants completing their journey to the new country.
Africa The government's policies with regard to the other colonies, particularly those in Africa, focused on keeping them as strategic Cold War assets while modernising their economies. The Labour Party had long attracted aspiring leaders from Africa and had developed elaborate plans before the war. Implementing them overnight with an empty treasury proved too challenging. A major military base was built in
Kenya, and the African colonies came under an unprecedented degree of direct control from London. Development schemes were implemented to help solve Britain's post-war
balance of payments crisis and raise African living standards. This "new colonialism" worked slowly, and had failures such as the
Tanganyika groundnut scheme.
Elections The
1950 election gave Labour a massively reduced majority of five seats compared to the triple-digit majority of 1945. Although re-elected, the result was seen by Attlee as very disappointing, and was widely attributed to the effects of post-war austerity denting Labour's appeal to middle-class voters. With such a small majority leaving him dependent on a small number of MPs to govern, Attlee's second term was much tamer than his first. Some major reforms were nevertheless passed, particularly regarding industry in urban areas and regulations to limit air and water pollution. By 1951, the Attlee government was exhausted, with several of its most senior ministers ailing or ageing, and with a lack of new ideas. Attlee's record for settling internal differences in the Labour Party fell in April 1951, when there was a damaging split over an austerity Budget brought in by the Chancellor,
Hugh Gaitskell, to pay for the cost of Britain's participation in the
Korean War.
Aneurin Bevan resigned to protest against the new charges for "teeth and spectacles" in the National Health Service introduced by that Budget, and was joined in this action by several senior ministers, including the future prime minister
Harold Wilson, then the
president of the Board of Trade. Thus escalated a battle between the left and right wings of the Party that continues today. Finding it increasingly impossible to govern, Attlee's only chance was to call
a snap election in October 1951, in the hope of achieving a more workable majority and to regain authority. The gamble failed: Labour narrowly lost to the Conservative Party, despite winning considerably more votes (achieving the largest Labour vote in electoral history). Attlee tendered his resignation as prime minister the following day, after six years and three months in office. ==Return to opposition==