Abstract
The battle over rents had provided a glimpse of the hardship facing poor tenants. But even while the new rent system was being put in place a wider battle was beginning: in December 1965 a major campaign was launched to focus attention on poverty as a general problem, especially among families with children. Family poverty quickly became the leading social issue of the decade, confronting the Labour Government with one of its most difficult social policy decisions. After a protracted and agonised internal struggle, lasting from mid-1966 until early 1968, the Government finally revealed its policy: family allowances would be increased but the increase would be ‘clawed back’ from non-poor families through the tax system. This policy was only a partial response to the problem, and family poverty remains an important social policy issue. But the Labour decision did represent an important innovation because, for the first time, an explicit link was forged between social payments and the tax system; a new principle was legitimated and the way was paved for much broader proposals, such as tax credits, in the next decade. Family poverty and ‘clawback’ both represented critical departures in social policy, and together they form the subject of this chapter.
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Notes
Seebohm Rowntree and R. G. Lavers, Poverty and the Welfare State (London: Longmans, Green, 1951).
For a survey of these assumptions in the literature, see Richard Titmuss, Income Distribution and Social Change (London: Allen & Unwin, 1962), ch. 1.
See also Barbara Wootton, The Social Foundations of Wage Policy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1955).
David Butler, The British General Election of 1951 (London: Macmillan, 1952), pp. 46–8, 108.
Also C. A. R. Crosland, The Future of Socialism (London: Jonathan Cape, 1956), pp. 42–6.
See, for instance, Peter Townsend, ‘A Society for People’, in Norman Mackenzie, (ed.), Conviction (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1959).
For a discussion of the nature and influence of this poverty line, see Tony Lynes, National Assistance and National Prosperity (London: Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 3, 1963).
Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend, The Poor and the Poorest (London: Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 17, 1965), p. 65.
For the early background of the group, see Frank Field, ‘A Pressure Group for the Poor’, in David Bull (ed.), Family Poverty (London: Gerald Duckworth, 1971);
Patrick Seyd, ‘The Child Poverty Action Group’, Political Quarterly, 47 (1976), 189–202.
Brian Abel-Smith, Labour’s Social Plans (London: Fabian Society, Tract 369, 1966);
Richard Titmuss, Choice and ‘The Welfare State’ (London: Fabian Society, Tract 370, 1967);
Peter Townsend, Povery, Socialism and Labour in Power, (London: Fabian Society, Tract 371, 1967);
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R. Lambert, Nutrition in Britain, 1950–1960 (London: Occasional Papers on Social Administration, No. 6, 1964).
Aneurin Bevan, In Place of Fear (London: Heinemann, 1952);
Anthony Crosland, The Conservative Enemy (London: Jonathan Cape, 1962), p. 11;
Harold Wilson, Purpose in Politics (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), pp. 237–41;
Richard Crossman, Payingfor the Social Services (London: Fabian Society, Tract 399, 1969), P. 15.
Samuel Beer, Modern British Politics: A Study of Parties and Pressure Groups (London: Faber, 1965), chs. 9–11.
Iain Macleod and Enoch Powell, The Social Services, Needs and Means (CPC, 1952); The Future of the Welfare State (CPC, 1958); Principles in Practice (CPC, 1961); Enoch Powell, The Welfare State (CPC, 1961).
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For discussions of the unions’ attitude towards the initiation of family allowances and National Superannuation, see P. Hall, et al., Change, Choice and Conflict in Social Policy (London: Heinemann, 1975), ch. 9
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Sir John Walley, Social Securiy (London: Charles Knight, 1972); also his articles in Poverty, No. to, and in Bull (ed.), Family Povery.
For this tradition in France, see Barbara Rogers, ‘Family Policy in France’, Journal of Social Policy, 4 (1975), 113–28.
For an earlier British statement, see E. Rathbone, Family Allowances (London: Allen & Unwin, 1949).
See also Margaret Wynn, Family Policy (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin, 1972).
HCD 729, col. 1918. On the problems of helping the poor by regulating the wage structure, see Department of Employment and Productivity, A National Minimum Wage (London: HMSO, 1969)
National Board for Prices and Incomes, General Problems of Low Pay (London: HMSO, Cmnd 4648, 1971).
David Butler and Anthony King, The British General Election of 1964 (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. 140;
David Butler and Anthony King, The British General Election of 1966 (London: Macmillan, 1966), p. 115.
For a major dispute within the Conservative cabinet over proposed cuts in family allowances in 1957, see Harold Macmillan, Riding Out the Storm (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 364–71.
Peter Jenkins, The Battle of Downing Street (London: Charles Knight, 1970), ch. 5.
Tony Lynes, ‘Family Allowances in Great Britain’, in E. Burns (ed.), Children’s Allowances and the Economic Welfare of Children (New York: Citizens’ Committee for the Children of New York, 1968), p. 109.
R. S. Sayers, Financial Policy 1939–45 (London: HMSO, 1956), pp. 97–8; Royal Commission on Taxation and Profits, Second Report, para. 35a.
On the Inland Revenue’s insistence on keeping the tax system’s goals as simple as possible, see Sir A. Johnson, The Inland Revenue (London: Allen & Unwin, 1965).
John Mackintosh, The British Cabinet, 3rd edn. (London: Stevens, 1977), pp. 464–71.
David Butler and Richard Rose, The British General Election of 1959 (London: Macmillan, 1960), pp. 59–63.
See also David Butler, The British General Election of 1955 (London: Macmillan, 1955), pp. 83–4.
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© 1979 Keith G. Banting
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Banting, K.G. (1979). Family Poverty. In: Poverty, Politics and Policy. Studies in Policy-Making. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-03610-3_3
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