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Based Upon This, The Costings Provided By Beveridge Which Was £86 Million ...

Based upon this, the costings provided by Beveridge which was £86 million made up primarily of children's allowances would become unrealistic. It would therefore appear that Bevridge's desire for family allowance payments of eight shillings for every child, were overturned for an alternative scheme of five shillings a week, excluding the first child, primarily to facilitate the change of policy upon pensions, but also because of financial pressures upon the Treasury, owing to priorities in other areas.
An excellent discussion regarding the financial constraints imposed upon the Treasury by the war, and its impact upon family allowance policy is available in Hall, Land et al, in ‘Change Choice and Conflict in Social Policy.' It is only necessary to summarise some of the arguments here. According to Land, the official Government reason for reducing family allowance to five shillings were that it would be supplemented by services in kind to a greater extent than envisaged by Beveridge and, second, it was important that it should not be at a rate which would in practice prove an obstacle to the fullest development of the welfare service.(7)
Despite protestations from the Government that the new plans were not to save money, there can be little doubt that the wish to economize was a determining factor. Britain was coming under increasing financial pressure from the US. Britain was effectively borrowing money from the US through a land-lease scheme. The US seemed content for the arrangements to continue whilst the money was being spent to fund the fighting of the war. Land has suggested that the US were more reluctant to continue the lending arrangements if the money was being used to set up our welfare system.
Land has also suggested that there were differing priorities between the Government and Beveridge regarding the issue of Serviceman's allowances. As Land points out:
The pressures to increase serviceman's allowances, particularly those in respect of their children, were considerable throughout the war. It is not surprising then that discussions concerning the cost of a national scheme of family allowances did not include the suggestion that savings might be made by withdrawing the serviceman's allowances until the details of the Family Allowance Bill were published in March 1945. Even the White Paper on Social Insurance published in September 1944 did not specifically state that separation allowances would be replaced with family allowances.(8)
This would appear to be a case of economics again linking up with political expediency in order to dictate policy. Land's conclusion upon this point was as follows:
Had family allowances replaced separation allowances, civilian earnings and serviceman's pay would have been more directly and easily comparable.


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