Memorandum on the Beveridge Report
1943-02 1943 1940s 28 pages this will bring the question of sick benefits "into politics" should be regarded as a recommendation. It is the fact that sick benefits (unlike unemployed benefits) were regarded as being outside politics, which explains the scandalous situation whereby...
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| Institution: | MCR - The Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick |
| Language: | English English |
| Published: |
London : Communist Party of Great Britain
February 1943
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/10796/3E39D01E-02A6-431E-AB08-E8EC0E768E71 http://hdl.handle.net/10796/65E959AE-FC43-4BCA-8C6C-52DA8329932A |
| Summary: | 1943-02
1943
1940s
28 pages
this will bring the question of sick benefits "into politics" should be regarded as a recommendation. It is the fact that sick benefits (unlike unemployed benefits) were regarded as being outside politics, which explains the scandalous situation whereby a sick worker receives 18/- per week, with no allowance for his wife or family, as compared with an unemployed worker's 30/- for himself and wife and 4/- for each of the first two children. The principle of equal benefits for single men and women who are gainfully employed is an important step to sex equality, as is the housewives' charter establishing special insurance rights for married women. The establishment of children's allowances should protect the child population of this country, who have in the past had to suffer most cruelly when the family breadwinner was sick or unemployed. The establishment of a State death benefit will end the worst aspects of insurance racketeering and will give benefits far more cheaply than could possibly be provided by private insurance companies; and the establishment of an Industrial Assurance Board will enable the whole business of assurance to be rationalised as to provide policy-holders with a cheaper and more efficient services, and guaranteed good conditions and security of tenure to insurance employees. Any one of these measures would have been regarded before the war as a major social reform, and their value must be borne in mind when criticisms of the Report are being considered. SCALE OF BENEFITS The Beveridge Plan provides the same scales of benefit for unemployment, sickness and (after a twenty-year transitional period) for old age pensioners. The question of their adequacy is therefore of some importance. The Report does not pretend that these benefits will provide a reasonable standard of life. They are subsistence benefits 9
15X/2/103/272 |
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| Physical Description: | TEXT |