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Beveridge Report and Labour[edit]
The aftermath of the First World War boosted demands for social reform, and led to a permanent increase in the role of the state in British society. The end of the war also brought a slump, particularly in northern industrial towns, that deepened into the Great Depression by the 1930s.

During the war, the government became much more involved in people's lives via governmental organisation of the rationing of foodstuffs, clothing and fuel and extra milk and meals being given to expectant mothers and children. The wartime coalition government also committed itself to full employment through Keynesian policies, free universal secondary education, and the introduction of family allowances. Many people welcomed this government intervention and wanted it to go further.

The Beveridge Report of 1942, (which identified five "Giant Evils" in society: squalor, ignorance, want, idleness and disease) essentially recommended a national, compulsory, flat rate insurance scheme which would combine health care, unemployment and retirement benefits. Beveridge himself was careful to emphasise that unemployment benefits should be held to a subsistence level, and after six months would be conditional on work or training, so as not to encourage abuse of the system. That was however predicated on the concept of the "maintenance of employment" which meant ‘it should be possible to make unemployment of any individual for more than 26 weeks continuously a rare thing in normal times’  and recognised that the imposition of a training condition would be impractical if the unemployed were numbered by the million. Throughout WWII, Parliament presented and discussed various white papers related to welfare that would shape how the government constructed its policies. After its victory in the 1945 general election, the Labour Party pledged to eradicate the Giant Evils, and undertook policy measures to provide for the people of the United Kingdom "from the cradle to the grave."

Included among the laws passed were the National Assistance Act 1948, National Insurance Act 1946, and National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946.