WI Tories embrace the Beveridge Report
I'm considering a time line where the Conservative party run on an National Education Service ticket and counter the NHS proposal of the Labour party. Individual opportunities based on merit.
The four revolutionary measures to combat Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness:
National Health Service 5% of GDP
All treatments to a minimum standard paid for from taxation. More expensive treatment available through private practice. No doctor/dentist can refuse to provide NHS treatment and no more than 25% (time) of his workload can be private work.
National Education Service 5% of GDP plus loans
This would furnish free full-time education for all until the age of 16. This would offer basic education in reading, writing, arithematic, science and either the history of Britain or a modern language. You would also get an option to start to learn a local trade or join the cadets. From the ages of eleven to thirteen individual opportunities would arise to qualify for scholarships (fees, boarding and educational expenses) to public schools and new Technical Schools. There would be three chances to sit an entrance exam (one a year for either Tech or Public). Further scholarships would be available to anyone who qualified for higher education, but these fees would have to be repaid out of earnings when you started work (interest charged at base rate only). This would also apply to university places, PhDs etc. started before the age of twenty two or within two years of demobilisation from the armed forces.
National Employment Service
A minimum income available from taxation based on number and age of dependants. Up until retirement age there is a requirement to work for this.
National Housing Service
To build social housing to a minimum standard of amenities and density of population. Enough for all who want it. Alongside higher quality private provision.
The aim is for a fair start and a safety net for those that are unlucky. Anything more would be wasteful.
Seeking common ground with French Christian Democrats the Tories warm to the ideas of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schuman and get in on the ground floor of the European Coal and Steel Community.
*Anything like the 'one nation' Tory Reform Group?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_Reform_Group
I'm considering a time line where the Conservative party run on an National Education Service ticket and counter the NHS proposal of the Labour party. Individual opportunities based on merit.
Policies of social security "must be achieved by co-operation between the State and the individual", with the state securing the service and contributions. The state " should not stifle incentive, opportunity, responsibility; in establishing a national minimum, it should leave room and encouragement for voluntary action by each individual to provide more than that minimum for himself and his family". - The Beveridge Report third guiding principle
POD this opinion poll is a wake up call to the conservatives.There was a planned debate in Parliament on the Report for February 1943 so the Cabinet appointed the Lord President of the Council, Sir John Anderson, to chair a committee to consider the Report and to set out the government's line in the Commons debate. In the Commons debate the government announced they would not implement the Report immediately. The Tory Reform Committee*, consisting of 45 Conservative MPs, demanded the founding of a Ministry of Social Security immediately. At the division at the end of the debate, 97 Labour MPs, 11 Independents, 9 Liberals, 3 Independent Labour Party MPs and 1 Communist voted against the government.[5] A Ministry of Information Home Intelligence report found that after the debate the left-wing section of the public were disappointed but that "an approving minority" thought that the government was correct in waiting until the post-war financial situation were known before making a decision. An opinion poll by the British Institute of Public Opinion found that 29% were satisfied with the government's attitude to the Report; 47% were dissatisfied and 24% "don't knows"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beveridge_Report
The four revolutionary measures to combat Want, Disease, Ignorance, Squalor and Idleness:
National Health Service 5% of GDP
All treatments to a minimum standard paid for from taxation. More expensive treatment available through private practice. No doctor/dentist can refuse to provide NHS treatment and no more than 25% (time) of his workload can be private work.
National Education Service 5% of GDP plus loans
This would furnish free full-time education for all until the age of 16. This would offer basic education in reading, writing, arithematic, science and either the history of Britain or a modern language. You would also get an option to start to learn a local trade or join the cadets. From the ages of eleven to thirteen individual opportunities would arise to qualify for scholarships (fees, boarding and educational expenses) to public schools and new Technical Schools. There would be three chances to sit an entrance exam (one a year for either Tech or Public). Further scholarships would be available to anyone who qualified for higher education, but these fees would have to be repaid out of earnings when you started work (interest charged at base rate only). This would also apply to university places, PhDs etc. started before the age of twenty two or within two years of demobilisation from the armed forces.
National Employment Service
A minimum income available from taxation based on number and age of dependants. Up until retirement age there is a requirement to work for this.
National Housing Service
To build social housing to a minimum standard of amenities and density of population. Enough for all who want it. Alongside higher quality private provision.
The aim is for a fair start and a safety net for those that are unlucky. Anything more would be wasteful.
Seeking common ground with French Christian Democrats the Tories warm to the ideas of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Schuman and get in on the ground floor of the European Coal and Steel Community.
*Anything like the 'one nation' Tory Reform Group?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tory_Reform_Group
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