Beveridge Report

Beveridge Report (UK) William Beveridge's 1942 report on Social Insurance and Allied Services was a full-scale review of social services in Britain. Its main proposal was a universal social insurance scheme to cover areas such as unemployment benefits and family allowances. This aimed at universal protection from poverty by creating a financial safety net. The report also emphasized the importance of full employment. It was greeted with great enthusiasm, and sold over half a million copies, but the wartime coalition decided only to plan to implement it, rather than carry out its recommendations in full. The report was debated in the House of Commons in February 1943, when James Griffiths led a Labour revolt against government reluctance to implement it. This was important in convincing the electorate that the Labour Party would best create a just society after the war, and prepared the ground for Attlee's surprise victory against Churchill in 1945. Its recommendations formed the foundation of British social and economic policy from 1945 until the advent of Thatcherism in 1979.