Disability and the Welfare State in Britain: Changes in Perception and Policy 1948–79 9781447316435

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Created during and after the Second World War, the British Welfare State seemed to promise welfare for all, but, in its original form, excluded millions of disabled people. This book examines attempts in the subsequent three decades to reverse this exclusion. It is the first to contextualise disability historically in the welfare state and under each government of the period. It looks at how disability policy and perceptions were slow to change as a welfare issue, which is very timely in today’s climate of austerity. It also provides the first major analysis of the Disablement Income Group, one of the most powerful pressure groups in the period and the 1972 Thalidomide campaign and its effect on the Heath government. Given the recent emergence of the history of disability in Britain as a major area of research, the book will be ideal for academics, students and activists seeking a better understanding of the topic. Jameel Hampton is a lecturer at Liverpool Hope University. He was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Society, Work and Development Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

DISABILITY / HISTORY

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain  Jameel Hampton

“For the first time Hampton shows how disabled people, neglected by the post-war welfare state, changed things from the 1960s by campaigning, like other excluded groups, achieving inclusive reforms in the 1970s.” Patricia Thane, Kings College London

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Changes in perception and policy 1948–79

JAMEEL HAMPTON

4/29/2016 3:22:59 PM

DISABILITY AND THE WELFARE STATE IN BRITAIN Changes in perception and policy 1948–79 Jameel Hampton

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by Policy Press North America office: University of Bristol Policy Press 1-9 Old Park Hill c/o The University of Chicago Press Bristol 1427 East 60th Street BS2 8BB Chicago, IL 60637, USA UK t: +1 773 702 7700 t: +44 (0)117 954 5940 f: +1 773-702-9756 [email protected] [email protected] www.policypress.co.uk www.press.uchicago.edu © Policy Press 2016 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN 978 1 44731 642 8 hardcover The right of Jameel Hampton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Policy Press. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the author and not of the University of Bristol or Policy Press. The University of Bristol and Policy Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Policy Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design by Policy Press Front cover image: www.alamy.com Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Policy Press uses environmentally responsible print partners

Contents List of tables iv List of acronyms v About the author vii Acknowledgements ix one Introduction two The old regime: provision for disabled people before the welfare state three Promotional welfare, 1948–63 four The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 five Cinderella of the welfare state: legislation for disabled people, 1970–72 six The final days: disability at the end of the welfare state, 1973–79 seven The last waltz: epilogue eight Conclusions

1 21 49 83 131 181 231 237

Appendix: Ministerial periods of office 247 Bibliography 249 Index

269

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List of tables 6.1 6.2

Potential alterations to quota scheme as suggested by the Department of Employment and Productivity The Trades Unions Congress General Council’s recommendations based on the responses of affiliated organisations

iv

195 196

List of acronyms Archives CPA

MRC PTC TNA

Conservative Party Archive, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Commonwealth Party Archive, University of Sussex Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester Alf Morris Collection, London School of Economics and Political Science Archive Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick Peter Townsend Collection, University of Essex The National Archive, Kew

ACP AMC BCRD BRA CBI CCCC CCD CND CPAG CPRS CRD CSDP DHSS DIG EEC FIS GDP HNCIP IMF IRU JGAD LRD MP MSS NAB NCIP NCRL NFRCD

[Conservative] Advisory Committee on Policy Association of Municipal Corporations British Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled British Rheumatic Association Confederation of British Industry Central Council for the Care of Cripples Central Council for the Disabled Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Child Poverty Action Group Central Policy Review Staff Conservative Research Department Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (1970) Department of Health and Social Security Disablement Income Group European Economic Community Family Income Supplement gross domestic product Housewives Non-contributory Invalidity Pension International Monetary Fund Industrial Rehabilitation Unit John Grooms Association for the Disabled Labour Research Department Member of Parliament Multiple Sclerosis Society National Assistance Board Non-contributory Invalidity Pension National Cripples Reform League National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases

CWP LHA MOR

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

NHS NLB NLBD OPCS OPEC PAR PESC PDPL PSS SERPS SIIWC SSD TUC UPIAS

National Health Service National League of the Blind National League of the Blind and Disabled Office of Population and Census Surveys Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries Programme Analysis and Review Public Expenditure Survey Committee Physically Disabled Persons League Personal Social Services State Earnings-related Pension Scheme Social Insurance and Industrial Welfare Committee social services department Trades Union Congress Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation

vi

About the author Jameel Hampton is a lecturer at Liverpool Hope University. He was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Society, Work and Development Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, Republic of South Africa. He has a PhD in Modern History from the University of Bristol and has lectured in modern Irish history at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He is the author of ‘Discovering disability: the general classes of disabled people and the classic welfare state, 1948-1964’, Historian, vol 75, no 1 (2013), pp 69-93. His research interests are the classic welfare state in Britain, comparative contemporary history, and disability in Britain and Apartheid South Africa.

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Acknowledgements This book was developed from my University of Bristol doctoral thesis. I am grateful to Rodney Lowe, my doctoral supervisor, for his expertise on the welfare state and his excellent counsel. Pauline Heslop, Maria Meyer-Kelly, James Miner, Chris Pearson, Kirsty Reid and Dave Tollerton were also very helpful during my time at Bristol. I am fortunate to have had the benefit of archival, research and writing advice from Paul Bridgen, Stephen Brooke, Martin Gorsky, Bernard Harris, Martha Stoddard Holmes, Geoffrey Hudson, Iain Hutchison, Kevin Jefferys, Hilary Marland, Gareth Millward, Roger Middleton, Roy Parker, Mark Priestley, Samantha Shave, Pat Thane, Mathew Thomson and Chris Wrigley. I am grateful to Nicholas Timmins for his advice. In Canada, I am indebted to friends and colleagues who never failed to lend their assistance and good company. I learned a great deal from Clay Burlingham, Man Kam Leung and Christopher Kent, all formerly at the University of Saskatchewan. At the University of Regina, the Reverend Frank Obrigewitsch, Society of Jesuits, was very kind to me. At Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, I am grateful to Sandra den Otter and Timothy B. Smith. I am greatly indebted to my friends: Graison Dangor, Steven Espey, Del Ford, Jeremy Geddert, Shawn Grimes, Daniel MacFarlane, Mark Polachic, Clay Poupart and Lucas Richert. In South Africa, I would like to thank all my colleagues at the Society, Work and Development Institute, especially Jacklyn Cock, Karl von Holdt and Eddie Webster. Shirley Miller was also of great assistance. At Liverpool Hope University, I am grateful to colleagues who have helped me adjust to my new position, especially Steve Corbett, Lucy Hanson, Joe Greener, Michael Lavalette and Laura Penketh. This project would not have been possible without funding from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Social Sciences and Humanities Council of Canada, the University of Bristol Postgraduate Award and the British Overseas Research Scheme. I am also grateful to other bodies for smaller and research-based funding: • • • •

Economic History Society Institute of Historical Research Royal Historical Society Society for the Study of Labour History

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Acknowledgements

• University of Bristol Department of History • University of Bristol Alumni Foundation Finally, I would like to acknowledge the assistance of archival and library staff at the Albert Sloman Library Special Collections (University of Essex), British Library, the now closed British Library Newspaper Reading Room (Colindale), Conservative Party Archive (Bodleian Library, University of Oxford), the Labour History Archive and Study Centre (Manchester), the Archives of the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Modern Records Centre (University of Warwick), the National Archive (Kew) and the University of Sussex Special Collections Library. Any errors or omissions are my own. Note: In the interest of historical accuracy, I have used genderspecific language in this book, for example, ‘ex-serviceman’ has not been changed to ‘ex-serviceperson’.

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ONE

Introduction ‘It is an ambiguous coincidence that as the International Year of Disabled People is being launched that the Elephant Man should be running so well in London and New York on the stage as well as the screen’, wrote George Hill in 1981. ‘The half-forgotten story of the short life of John Merrick, grotesquely deformed by rare bone disease, is enjoying a minor vogue today, as expressed in books and even t-shirts. If we are less rejecting in our attitudes than the Victorians it is a matter of degree not of kind.’1 The welfare state in Britain began to dissolve with the economic crises of the mid-1970s, when the Labour government of the time abandoned full employment (the basis of the welfare state settlement 1943–48), approached the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan in 1976, and imposed strict cash limits on social expenditure. With its victory in the 1979 General Election, the Conservative Party returned to power, but this time as its alter ego that had been dormant for the three decades after the Second World War. Margaret Thatcher’s government was openly committed to inequality in its rejection of the collectivist consensus of the welfare state, and marginalisation and poverty for those unable to compete was again a success, and not a failure. The welfare state did seem to promise equality and has often been judged on the equality it created, both generally and for particular groups. There was much redistribution of wealth and power, and improved living standards for many, including traditionally disadvantaged groups such as needy children and poor older people. By 1981, however, it was recognised that the supposedly cradle-to-grave welfare state had actually failed millions of disabled people, not least in respect and acceptance from exclusion. How did it come to this? How did the perceptions of disabled people change? And how did policies for disabled people develop? Why were disabled people ‘the wretched’ of the welfare state? This book answers these questions. It is the first to contextualise historically disability in the welfare state, and under each government of the period 1948–79. It adds disability policy to our knowledge on the Labour and Conservative Parties, media and advocacy, as well as the Trades Unions Congress (TUC), and provides the first major analysis of the Disablement Income Group (DIG), one of the most powerful pressure groups in the 1960s. It also provides original archival analysis

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

of the 1972 thalidomide crisis using material previously unavailable under the 30-year closure rule for public documents. The book also explains how legislative changes, and shifting perceptions about the appropriate place of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare, affected the lived experience of millions of disabled people. Beginning with the recognition of the special needs of disabled schoolchildren in the 1880s, the state took on the welfare of groups of disabled people perceived to be ‘deserving’ of statutory welfare, while tort law and compensation provided cash benefits and rehabilitation schemes for those injured at work. Disabled ex-servicemen and blind people were recognised in legislation both during and after the First World War. The creation of the welfare state brought the possibility of new benefits in cash and services for all disabled people, but the ‘general classes’ of disabled people (see further below) were largely excluded, and remained a relatively unknown group in the policy-making realm throughout the 1950s. With the ‘rediscovery’ of poverty and the activities of DIG in the dynamism of the 1960s, the welfare of the general classes then emerged as an important political and policy issue. This breakthrough in recognition developed into small, targeted legislation in cash benefits in the early 1970s, as well as the landmark Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons (CSDP) Act 1970, although it was commonly held that further major provision would be forthcoming. While the general classes appeared to have made great gains, with the extensive cash benefits of 1974–75, these benefits proved ineffective, and appeared just before the rolling back of the state and a renewed focus on non-statutory welfare. Perceptions of the welfare of the general classes changed greatly from 1948 to 1979, and while there were psychological and representative gains, policies during the ‘classic welfare state’ period (see further below) did little to actually improve their welfare.

The ‘general classes’ of disabled people The ‘general classes’ of disabled people were adult physically disabled people under 65 whose disablement had not come about as a result of war or industrial injury. The most common causes of disablement were diseases of the bones and limbs, central nervous system disorders, and respiratory and circulatory difficulties. Other disabling conditions included amputation, acquired injuries, diseases of the digestive system, as well as allergic, endocrine, metabolic and nutritional diseases. Among

2

Introduction

the most common particular pathologies were Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, paraplegia and hemiplegia, cerebral palsy, arthritis and conditions conducive to recurring strokes. The first attempts at quantifying the numbers of disabled people in the late 1960s identified 3 million adult disabled people, but this estimation used a narrow definition of disability, and the number may actually have been as high as 6 million by 1988.2 There are historical and conceptual precedents for identifying this heterogeneous collection of individuals as a distinct category of disabled people, and as a distinct category for the purposes of statutory welfare. They were defined less by their inclusion in the welfare settlement of the 1940s than by their exclusion from it, as there were separate provisions for adult blind and deaf people, disabled children and disabled people with mental ill health. Beveridge’s intention was that such groups requiring Personal Social Services (PSS) should remain largely the responsibility of non-statutory agencies working in cooperation with the state.3 For statutory welfare, those physically disabled people who were not ex-servicemen and who could not participate in the contributions-related benefit scheme of the National Insurance Act 1946 were to be provided for under the National Assistance Act 1948. So the widespread recognition of the existence of a general class of disabled people developed in the 1950s, and by the mid-1960s, they were established in both the public and policy minds as a self-aware group, both large and unknown in size. While levels of disablement are too complex to place on a linear continuum, it is often the less severe and less visible sorts of disability that, as a consequence of this invisibility, fail to attract policy-makers’ attention. Writing in the mid-1970s, Blaxter identified that the separation and comparatively poor lot of disabled people was embedded in the history of modern British welfare: Every welfare system – from a small local charity to a complex national organization – will have its own particular history, and its own legacy of ways of defining the client and his needs. Thus weighed down, it may only move sluggishly in response to newer concepts.... The basic historic anomaly remains that where a man is injured during his working life or while serving in the armed forces, his income for the rest of his life may vary by a factor of three, depending on whether or not he is judged to have been “on duty” at the time of his accident.4

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

A major focus of this book, therefore, is to explain the first attempts to move away from this tradition in the welfare state, particularly the dynamism of the mid and late 1960s and early and mid-1970s, when efforts ranged from creating the smallest improvement in provision in cash or services to those that sought a national disability income for all disabled people. While the term ‘disabled people’ is commonly used to refer to all disabled people or disabled people in the abstract, here ‘disabled people’ refers specifically to the ‘general classes’. Other groups of disabled adults under 65 – ex-servicemen, industrially injured people, blind and deaf people, or mentally disabled people – are treated separately. The term ‘general classes’ never came into common use, and ‘disabled people’ is the preferred term in the view of disabled individuals and groups, as well as non-disabled people involved with disability organisations.

Disability and the welfare state Since the Poor Law Act 1601 – or indeed, since the labour shortage caused by the Black Death necessitated the Statute of Labourers in 1351 – there has been a welfare state. Some use the term ‘classic welfare state’ to refer to the welfare state created in the 1940s that ended with the imposition of cash limits on spending and the abandonment of full employment in 1976. This was a period of faith in increased statutory welfare and confidence in the state to defeat economic problems and to maintain full or near-full employment. With varying degrees of reluctance, the Conservatives in this period thought that the welfare state was necessary to maintain social and economic cohesiveness. For Labour, the welfare state was the fulfilment of the aspirations of the labour movement, and the way to a more equal society through the redistribution of wealth. As Fraser put it, ‘the parties were like two parallel trains travelling together for part of the way but with different destinations always intended.’5 The period up until 1976 has often been the object of affection for those who yearned for a more equal society during and after the Conservative governments of 1979–97. While many elements of the 1943–48 settlement, such as the National Health Service (NHS), remain to this day, I therefore use ‘welfare state’ as in the ‘classic welfare state’ in this book. Disability was, until recently, an unfashionable topic for British historians – indeed, it is largely absent from major works dealing with the welfare state and welfare in the 20th century.6 There are several reasons for this, such as the mistaken assumption that there are few relevant archival sources, and most welfare historians have been late

4

Introduction

to warm to non-traditional sources. Notwithstanding the idea of a universal welfare state, non-statutory informal care in the form of the efforts of friends, families and communities continued to overshadow statutory programmes for disabled people after 1945; it is therefore perhaps not surprising that work on statutory welfare in the 20th century would not include disability. Disability is a poor relation compared to other areas of statutory welfare with more contemporary, historical and popular esteem such as the NHS, education or even child delinquency. For historians of 20th-century welfare, disability has been somewhat inconspicuous in its absence. Disability, however, has developed rapidly since 2000 as a major area of enquiry for 20th-century British historians, although the only comprehensive study to date is Borsay’s Disability and social policy in Britain since 1750 (2004). Borsay’s contention that those disabled people unable to work received little meaningful financial relief throughout the welfare state is a good basis for more particular examinations of how and why there has been little change in this area.7 While emancipatory disability studies offer valuable sociological and activist perspectives on the systematic exclusion of disabled people in industrialised society, they tend to focus on institutionalism and exclusion, and do not usually offer empirical analyses within the relevant historical contexts.8 This book, however, is part of the beginning of a major engagement with disability in the 20th century. There has been much recent interest in ex-servicemen,9 ex-servicemen and gender,10 and four major editions examining the history of British and foreign disability in the modern period.11 Disabled people and 20th-century welfare is consequently a burgeoning field of historical enquiry.

Personal Social Services The historical and historiographical neglect of disabled people may be partly explained by the general neglect of personal welfare or PSS, to which their fortunes were closely linked. PSS are smaller, residual services provided at the local level to ‘extraordinary’ groups: children and troubled families, older people, and mentally and/or physically disabled people. They tend to be the last area of statutory welfare to develop in advanced capitalist democracies, and do not enjoy the public esteem and affection of health or education, are not universal, and are directed towards the periodic or continual needs of extraordinary individuals or groups. They receive a very small portion of public expenditure.

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Success in PSS initiatives is also very difficult to measure. It is also perhaps for these reasons that PSS is the least studied area by welfare state historians. If scholarly work on welfare reflects the preoccupations at the time of its composition, this is not surprising, as PSS have never commanded much attention compared to other welfare areas. Like Beveridge, the wartime coalition government and Labour governments of 1945–51 thought that personal welfare should remain largely the domain of local government and non-statutory groups. In 1947, Prime Minister Clement Attlee spoke of the immortal presence of voluntary activity in Britain: ‘This country will never become a people of an exclusive and omnipotent state.... I believe that we shall always have alongside the great range of public services, the voluntary services which humanise our national life and bring it down from the general to the particular.’12 The public agreed. A 1947 report based on material from Mass Observation – the organisation that had studied British aspects of work and life in British society since 1937 – said that most believed that non-statutory groups should be responsible for personal welfare.13 Further, PSS seemed to fit well with the traditional strengths of non-statutory groups. From 1948 to the late 1950s, the welfare of disabled people was only sometimes considered a distinct category for statutory provision in cash and services. With some similar needs and administrative grouping under the National Assistance Act 1948, the particular needs of disabled people were addressed indirectly via those of older people. In the 1950s, however, disabled people slowly began to be recognised as a distinct group, and as a target for future specific provision. Perceptions of and policy for other PSS groups during the welfare state have received much scholarly attention14 – mental health and institutions have been widely studied, as have children and older people.15 Disability, however, receives almost no mention in the major works on the discovery of PSS in the 1960s and in the Seebohm report on the future of social services.16 There is only the work of Sainsbury on disabled people at this time.17 Sainsbury sought to add this group to the state of knowledge on PSS groups and the welfare state. PSS addressed the needs of some of society’s most vulnerable members, and the welfare state can be judged on what it did or did not do for those who could give little back to the economy and the contribution-based central insurance system.

6

Introduction

Mixed economy of welfare The welfare of disabled people was perceived as part of a mixed economy. Some writers in the 1950s and 1960s perceived the historical balance of welfare between non-statutory efforts and the state as a ‘collective train’ or as a ‘welfare state escalator’.18 Whether considered in a long-term structural framework beginning with Britain’s industrial evolution, or from the settlement of the 1940s to 1979 by later commentators, the ‘evolution’ or ‘rise’ of British welfare meant an irresistible movement of responsibility toward the state. The corollary of this view was supported by concurrent and later work speculating about the lot of non-statutory organisations after the settlement of the 1940s, when the state became the dominant provider of welfare. The 1950s have been identified as a period of marking time for non-statutory groups, and some have gone as far as to call the decade ‘moribund’.19 Since 1995, scholars have defeated the assumption that non-statutory welfare had been largely made obsolete by the creation of the welfare state. There is no doubt that in 1945 the state became a major force in welfare for most groups, but apart from its magnitude, this shift in favour of the state was no different from past shifts in the mixed economy of welfare, as it was neither complete, steady nor smooth. Brenton, Finlayson and Prochaska have all pointed out the defects in the state-centred approach to the study of welfare – studies that trace a trajectory from ‘active citizen’ to ‘active state’ are always in danger of becoming Whiggish, and often fail to appreciate how past traditions shape later changes.20 Moreover, preoccupation with the state usually highlights shortcomings or the perceived shortcomings of non-statutory efforts, and obscures their strengths; most state-centred texts written between 1975 and 1995 emphasise socialism and collectivism, but not voluntarism and charity.21 This, again, often lends to a Whig interpretation of the history of British welfare as a long march away from Adam Smith and Samuel Smiles, and ignores the fact that voluntary activity and statutory welfare often increase simultaneously.22 Not including the influences of non-statutory groups can lead to an incomplete analysis of how and why disability policy is created: with the exception of the ex-servicemen of the First and Second World Wars, no group of disabled people possessed the power or public backing to have the state initiate a greater role in their overall welfare. Non-statutory organisations are particularly important in examining the overall welfare of disabled people both as providers of welfare and as advocates for new or increased statutory provision.

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Motivated partly by the ‘big society’ emphasis of the 2010 Conservative-led coalition government, several recent texts have taken on the long overdue challenge of precisely mapping non-statutory activity, particularly after 1945.23 For disabled people, it is necessary to ascertain how different non-statutory groups dealt with the challenges and opportunities presented by the state’s initial unwillingness to expand into areas of welfare that belonged to formal or informal providers. In capturing the defects of the ‘moving frontier’ model, Grier identified a more nuanced approach to the study of voluntary groups and the welfare state: Debates between voluntary societies involved in child migration, central government departments and local authorities’ children’s departments reveal a set of relationships far more complex than models that describe the voluntary/ statutory relationship as a moving frontier. Such models portray the state and the voluntary sector as single discrete entities and presuppose unanimity of purposes and ideology between government departments and between local government and central government.24 Measuring the activity, size or impact of the voluntary sector in any place or period is impossible as voluntary activity defies an adequate comprehensive description, quantification or measurement of qualitative impact. Yet no picture of the welfare of disabled people could be complete without analyses of the efforts of non-statutory groups, such as the Disablement Income Group (DIG).

Disablement Income Group Disabled people burst onto the policy stage in the mid-1960s, and DIG was the catalyst. In work on British non-statutory and pressure groups, DIG is identified as the one of the most powerful in the period. As Whiteley and Winyard put it: Poverty in Britain was rediscovered as a political issue in the mid-1960s. A series of reports and surveys shattered the widely held belief that the postwar “welfare state” had abolished want. Central to this process was the work of a number of newly established pressure groups including the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), Disablement Income Group (DIG) and Shelter.25

8

Introduction

Single- and multi-issue pressure groups were a distinctive feature of the period, and crucial to pervasive changes in attitudes toward disadvantaged groups. Notwithstanding the aforementioned recent focus on non-statutory groups, DIG’s vital role has, however, not been investigated.26 This neglect is very likely because of the slow development of disability history in Britain, and the continued focus on traditionally more esteemed topics in the history of welfare, politics and policy. DIG was largely responsible for the emergence of disabled people as a welfare issue for the media, both major political parties, the House of Commons and government ministries. It also succeeded in shifting the focus of planning for future provision from local government services to centrally administered cash benefits. Historians of 20th-century British social policy have traditionally focused on central government and its process of policy-making. The government’s creation of statutory welfare and institutions in response to social problems tends to attract the attention of concerned scholars. Historians have been criticised for focusing on records in the National Archives at the cost of the records of non-statutory groups. In her expansive edition on civil society, Harris reminds scholars of the blurred lines between state and voluntary activity.27 Further, as a recent book on Beveridge’s influence suggests, ‘any analysis of British politics overlooks the voluntary sector at its peril’.28 While central government is key to the creation of social policy, it is essential to study other influential actors and groups to illuminate the complex and often conflicting motives that generate government action and the dynamic nature of policy creation. Attention to the influence of non-statutory groups is also important for understanding how definitions of ‘deserving need’ change for the purposes of statutory welfare. Referring to ‘the Man in Whitehall’, Hilton and McKay have identify DIG as one of the groups in the 1960s that ‘set about teaching him a thing or two’.29

Disability and social policy Constructing models of disability for the purposes of welfare has been an enduring obsession in Western culture. Much contemporary argument over historical developments in disability policy involves debating the existence and prominence of different models at different times in the past. Scholars have employed three major models of disability in their analyses:

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• The medical or biomedical model has disability as a medical impairment of one who is sick or injured or the victim of unfortunate circumstances. Under this model, the general goals of statutory and non-statutory welfare throughout the life cycle are prevention, cure, rehabilitation and alleviation of pain. • The economy or policy model conceives a disabling condition as one that limits the capacity of a person to work. • Different sorts of social models are postulated by social deviance theorists, Marxists and minority group theorists. The common element of different social models is that disability is a largely or wholly socially constructed phenomenon that creates and enforces the social and economic hardship of disabled people. Hahn thought that the fundamental theoretical goal of reducing complex phenomena to understandable ideas has rendered the history of disability policy a battle between the three major models.30 Yet there have always been many ways of conceiving disability: legal, moral, political, physical, religious and scientific. Bickenbach scrutinised the models that theorists have applied to periods in the past to understand how historical figures and agencies fashioned disability: Each model has generated an expertise – usually a science – as class of experts, a canonical language or discourse that purports to get to the bottom of disablement … each model deceptively reduces a complex and multi-dimensional phenomenon to a single dimension. Thus, notoriously, the medical model is almost wholly insensitive to the social character of disablement, whereas the economic [or policy] model effectively reduced disablement to its economic consequences. The social model as a result of its radical critiques of the standard models, over steers and detaches disablement from its biomedical foundations and economic consequences.31 The history of disability and statutory welfare is not only about economic rationality, the advancement of medical or professional interests, the self-preservation of capitalism and modes of difference between the sexes, or the systematic exclusion of those unsuitable for physical labour since industrial evolution. In many ways, disability was an undeveloped part of the welfare state. Yet it is not unique from other areas of social policy in that it is important to understand how historical actors came to political reconciliations of partly incompatible

10

Introduction

objectives. Further, abstract models of disability did not control the complex thinking of individuals and groups involved in the policymaking process. In both philosophical and more tangible ways, opinions are far more complex, fluidic and mixed. Social policy is formed in a turbulent environment with conflicting visions and priorities, competing interests both inside and outside government, and unfulfilled initiatives. Outcomes in both legislation and its implementation are not only the result of the objectives, specific schemes or ideas of central government. Rather, it is necessary to understand how the complex interplay between groups, ideas and more tangible realities produce particular outcomes. The variety of archival and non-archival sources employed in this the book reflects this approach. Scholars of modern Britain are faced with the problem of massive amounts of archival materials. Government records for the 1960s are of particular large quantity and value because of central government’s power at the time, and the development of higher standards of bureaucratic record keeping, and while the lack of historical work on disability in the 20th century has often been attributed to lack of sources, there are, in fact, a great deal. Indeed, in the interests of not expanding this project in an impossibly large way, many sources had to be left out. Further, this book does not deny the agency of disabled individuals in their ability to effect change on their circumstances or the welfare afforded to them, but the oral testimony of disabled people is unfortunately outside the scope of this book.32 The consequence of this, as identified by Means and Smith concerning older people, is that disabled people and their families may appear as passive objects of policy, and this is a false reflection of reality.33 Regardless of debates in the historical profession about the possibility and desirability of objectivity, any author brings personal bias, whether conscious or unconscious, to their writing and analyses. Avoiding value judgements is especially difficult when dealing with the neglect of some of society’s most disadvantaged members and efforts to alleviate their problems; few could argue that increased mobility for disabled people or the protection of children and older people from mental and physical abuse are not successes. These facts are inescapable, but can be countered by an author’s dedicated effort to be objective, and by backing analysis with corroborative references to its sources of evidence. Policy historians may also nullify their political leanings by judging policies solely in terms of their own goals and reasoning and what was realistically possible at the time, not by an idiosyncratic set of personal criteria. While counterfactuals are at best a parlour game, considering

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

alternative policy proposals that were being discussed at the time also mollifies personal prejudices by grounding judgements in historical realities. Further, examination of detail in extant records is important in studying welfare states and their particular aspects, as Baldwin put it: The development of the welfare state is a topic which similarly conceals questions of utmost importance under matters that may at first seem merely technical and abstruse. Social insurance, old-age pensions, workers’ compensation, actuarial risk, waiting time, point-indexing and costof-living differentials rarely seems the stuff of dramatic narrative. In fact, approached from the right angle, the nuts and bolts of social policy testify to the heated struggles of classes and interests. The battles behind the welfare state lay bare the structure and conflicts of modern society.34 There is solidity in specification in the study of social policy.

Outline of the chapters The development of statutory welfare for disabled people from the 17th century through to the Second World War is examined in Chapter Two. It establishes the enduring realities of statutory welfare for disabled people through three distinct phases: from the Poor Law Act 1601 through to the beginning of industrial evolution and the consequences of that transformation; the decades following the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 and the themes of generalisation and institutionalisation in statutory welfare for disabled people; and the late 19th century through the interwar period when disabled people were categorised for the purposes of creating targeted statutory welfare schemes. This chapter also includes an important analysis of the shifting perceptions of the welfare of different groups of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare: disabled children, ex-servicemen, industrially injured people and blind people. Chapters Three through Six are organised according to the distinct periods in the growing awareness of, and changing perceptions about, the welfare of disabled people. Analysing these changes in thinking by different groups and individuals in the policy-making nexus is a central objective of this book. No legislation for disabled people was enacted in the period under examination in Chapter Three. Chapters Four through Six analyse how and why the late 1960s and 1970s brought about greater change in perceptions, and legislation providing cash

12

Introduction

and services. Following Chapter Seven, an epilogue, Chapter Eight, offers conclusions. Chapter Three is a study of the limited attempts to improve the welfare of disabled people from the National Assistance Act 1948, the final piece of the welfare state settlement, to the end of 13 years of Conservative governments in 1964. Notwithstanding the increased recognition during and after the war, the welfare state settlement largely consigned disabled people to National Assistance, as they lacked the requisite factors that allowed for the more significant inclusion of ex-servicemen and industrially injured people. The 1950s were a period of overall growth of welfare expenditure, and the Conservatives’ commitment to the maintenance and then controlled expansion of the welfare state. Progress in the development of local services under the National Assistance Act 1948 was slow, and it was widely held that non-statutory welfare for disabled people was preferential. While there was some significant development in local statutory welfare services from the mid-1950s, the major changes in the period came in the perception and awareness of the welfare of disabled people. The independent inquiries of the mid-1950s raised the overall profile of disabled people, and this manifested itself in the House of Commons and the media. There was a growing sense that the state would, if gradually, assume responsibility for disabled people from formal and informal voluntarism. By 1964, there was some awareness of disabled people as a needy ‘gap group’ in the welfare state. Chapter Four examines a dynamic period when the recognition of disabled people, and the belief that the state should play a bigger role in their welfare, permeated society. The liberalising of attitudes toward the welfare of disadvantaged groups, the strength of the rediscovery of poverty and the waning faith in the postwar settlement’s success in ending poverty, and the promise of a new Labour government, were among the elements that created the often-mentioned excitement of the time and the possibility of great change. Created in 1965, DIG’s efforts, especially those of its influential founder, Megan du Boisson, compelled both major political parties, the House of Commons and the TUC to engage with the welfare of disabled people as an unjust oversight of the settlement of the 1940s. Through the media, DIG drove home the plight of disabled people, and made it widely accepted that some sort of cash provision was needed and desirable alongside services. As public and political pressure increased, so, too, did Labour’s take-up of disabled people despite their reluctance to betray the contributory basis of the settlement of the 1940s. The announcement of a severe Attendance Allowance in

13

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

1969, a cash payment for those who had to leave work to care for a disabled relative, was the first benefit designed specifically for disabled people. The Conservatives also began to plan for future cash provision as part of their traditional emphasis on statutory welfare targeting the neediest. For services, this chapter analyses disability as part of the study and reform of PSS via the deliberations and report of the Seebohm Committee on the future of social services. Chapter Five discusses how the breakthrough in perception identified in Chapter Four led to the creation of legislation. The landmark CSDP was passed three weeks before the 1970 General Election, and received effusive praise as it was thought that its terms and overall dedication to recognition and acceptance would soon lead to the full equality of disabled people. Historians are yet to engage with this later muchmaligned piece of legislation. Did the government seek to undermine the Act, and if so, what was the reasoning behind curtailing the effectiveness of a popular and humane piece of legislation? Increased provision in cash was advocated in the House of Commons, by both major political parties, the media and the Department of Health and Social Security (DHSS). The DHSS introduced the first of what was planned to be a series of cash benefits. As the feasibility of the welfare state became increasingly precarious in a foreboding economic time, the benefits contributed to the ‘revolution of expectation’ that all wanting groups would soon receive unprecedented and generous statutory provision. Indeed, DIG used British entry into the European Economic Community (EEC) to ‘inspire or shame’ the Heath government into the creation of a national disability income. Chapter Five concludes with an analysis of the highly publicised 1972 thalidomide crisis that immediately, if tragically, raised the profile of disability. Under intense pressure from the media and the public, the Cabinet debated whether to provide special compensation to victims and their families. How concerned parties viewed thalidomide children in relation to disabled people said a great deal about how the role of the state in the overall welfare of disabled people was perceived at the time. This first ‘moral panic’ about a small number of disabled children amplified questions of who was and who should be responsible for the welfare of all disabled people. Chapter Six examines expectations for the new statutory provision for disabled people, including a national disability income, amidst the collapse of the welfare state. Labour, the media and non-statutory representation became increasingly radicalised. Both Labour and the Conservatives were now fully committed to new cash benefits, and promises made during the 1974 General Election campaigns served

14

Introduction

to further heighten expectation. Driven on by the power of Barbara Castle as Secretary of State for Social Services, and the feeling that the Wilson governments of the 1960s had failed in creating adequate social welfare provision, Labour created four new cash benefits: the Invalid Care Allowance, the Mobility Allowance, the Non-contributory Invalidity Pension (NCIP), and the Housewives NCIP (HNCIP). These benefits seemed to have reversed the welfare state’s exclusion of disabled people. It was also in this period that provision in services under the CSDP began to come under scrutiny from academics and the media. An assessment of the state of play on the ground in cash and services serves as a benchmark for the overall record of the welfare state’s contribution to the welfare of disabled people. With significant statutory provision for disabled people coming only towards its end, was the welfare state and its original principle of personal contribution and statutory recompense simply unwilling to accommodate one of society’s neediest groups? What was the extent of gains made by disabled people in psychological and representative terms, as well as in statutory provision in cash and services? Does the experience of disabled people confirm that the welfare state was not universal, and was never meant to be? Why had the welfare state come to fail disabled people? Notes 1

Hill, G. (1981) ‘The disabled’, The Times, 5 January.

Thompson, P. with Buckle, J. and Lavery, M. (1988) Not the OPCS survey: Being disabled costs more than they said, London: Disablement Income Group, p 2. 2

Deakin, N. (1997) ‘The perils of partnership: the voluntary sector and the state, 1945-1952’, in J. Davis, C. Rochester and R. Hedley (eds) An introduction to the voluntary sector, London: Routledge, pp 40-65. The term ‘Personal Social Services’ came into common use in the mid-1960s. Hall said that the term ‘personal welfare’ was derived from a sentence in the 1945 Monckton report. Hall, P. (1976) Reforming the welfare state: The politics of change in the Personal Social Services, London: Heinemann, p 109.

3

Blaxter, M. (1976) The meaning of disability: A sociological study of impairment, London: Heinemann Educational, pp 5, 7.

4

Fraser, D. (2009) The evolution of the British welfare state: A history of policy since the Industrial Revolution (4th edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 289-90.

5

15

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Ibid; Gladstone, D. (1999) The twentieth-century welfare state, Basingstoke: Macmillan; Glennerster, H. (2007) British social policy: 1945 to the present (3rd edn), London: Blackwell; Harris, B. (2004) The origins of the British welfare state: Society, state and social welfare in England and Wales, 1800-1945, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Hill, M. (1993) The welfare state in Britain: A political history since 1945, Aldershot: Edward Elgar; Lees, L.H. (1998) The solidarities of strangers: The English Poor Laws and the people, 17001948, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Lowe, R. (2005) The welfare state in Britain since 1945 (3rd edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Timmins, N. (2001) The five giants: A biography of the welfare state (2nd edn), London: HarperCollins.

6

Borsay, A. (2004) Disability and social policy in Britain since 1750: A history of exclusion, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 163-7.

7

Criticisms of emancipatory disability studies cite the need to move away from a focus on institutionalism and exclusion and instead a move toward empirical studies that are placed within relevant social and historical contexts. See Bredberg, E. (1999) ‘Writing disability history: problems, perspectives and sources’, Disability & Society, vol 14, no 2, pp 189-201; Gleeson, B.J. (1997) ‘Disability studies: a historical materialist view’, Disability & Society, vol 12, no 2, pp 179-202.

8

Anderson, J. (2003) ‘Turned into taxpayers: paraplegia, rehabilitation and sport at Stoke Mandeville, 1944-1956’, Journal of Contemporary History, vol 38, no 3, pp 461-75; Anderson, J. (2011) War, disability and rehabilitation in Britain: Soul of a nation, Manchester: Manchester University Press; Anderson, J. and Pemberton, N. (2007) ‘Walking alone: aiding the war and civilian blind in the inter-war period’, European Review of History, vol 14, no 4, pp 459-79; Atherton, M. (2012) Deafness, community and culture in Britain: Leisure and cohesion, 1945-95, Manchester: Manchester University Press; Bergen, A. (2006) ‘The blind, the deaf and the halt: physical disability, the Poor Law and charity c. 1830-1890, with particular reference to the County of Yorkshire’, PhD, University of Leeds; Carden-Coyne, A. (2006) Reconstructing the body: Classicism, modernism, and the First World War, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Cohen, D. (2001) The war come home: Disabled veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press; Koven, S. (1994) ‘Remembering and dismemberment: crippled children, wounded soldiers and the Great War in Great Britain’, American Historical Review, vol 99, no 4, pp 1167-202; Kowalsky, M. (2007) ‘“This honourable obligation”: the King’s National Roll scheme for disabled ex-servicemen, 1915-1944’, European Review of History, vol 14, no 4, pp 567-84; Kowalsky, M. (2007) ‘Enabling the Great War: ex-servicemen, the mixed economy of welfare and the social construction of disability, 1899-1930’, PhD, University of Leeds; Meyer, J. (2004) ‘Not Septimus now: wives of disabled veterans and cultural memory of the First World War in Britain’, Women’s History Review, vol 13, no 1, pp 117-38; Reznik, J. (2005) Healing the nation: The culture of caregiving in Britain during the Great War, Manchester: Manchester

9

16

Introduction University Press; Wheatcroft, S. (2013) Worth saving: Disabled children during the Second World War, Manchester: Manchester University Press. Anderson, J. (2006) ‘British women, disability and the Second World War’, Contemporary British History, vol 20, no 1, pp 37-53; Bourke, J. (2006) Dismembering the male: Men’s bodies, Britain, and the Great War, London: Reaktion; Gagen, W.J. (2007) ‘Remastering the body, renegotiating gender: physical disability and masculinity during the First World War, the case of J.B. Middlebrook’, European Review of History, vol 14, no 4, pp 525-41; Gagen, W.J. (2004) ‘Disabling masculinity: ex-servicemen, disability, and gender-identity, 1914-1930’, PhD, University of Essex.

10

Borsay, A. and Dale, P. (eds) (2012) Disabled children: Contested caring, 1850-1979, London: Pickering and Chatto; Ernst, W. (ed) (2006) Histories of the normal and the abnormal, New York: Routledge; Turner, D.M. and Stagg, K. (eds) (2006) Social histories of disability and deformity, New York: Routledge; Watson, N. (ed) (2007) Disability, New York: Routledge.

11

Quoted in Briggs, A. and Macartney, A. (1984) Toynbee Hall: The first hundred years, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp 135-6.

12

Finlayson, G. (1994) Citizen, state, and social welfare in Britain, 1830-1990, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 301.

13

Documenting the situation of ex-servicemen and the industrially injured people in the early 1970s was the objective of Sainsbury in Sainsbury, S. (1993) Normal life: A study of war and industrially injured pensioners, Aldershot: Avebury.

14

Bridgen, P. and Lewis, J. (1999) Elderly people and the boundary between health and social care, 1946-1991. Whose responsibility?, London, Nuffield Trust for Research and Policy Studies in Health Services; Hendrick, H. (1997) Children, childhood and English society, 1890-1990, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Long, V. (2014) Destigmatising mental illness? Professional politics and public education in Britain, 1870-1970, Manchester: Manchester University Press; Means, R. and Smith, R. (1985) From Poor Law to community care: The development of welfare services for elderly people, 1939-1971, London: Croom Helm; Means, R., Moberly, R. and Smith, R. (2002) From community care to market care?, Bristol: Policy Press; Packman, J. (1981) The child’s generation: Child care policy from Curtis to Houghton, Oxford: Blackwell; Parker, R. (1983) ‘The gestation of reform: the 1948 Children Act’, in P. Bean and S. Macpherson (eds) Approaches to welfare, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp 196-217; Rodgers, A. and Pilgrim, D. (2005) Mental health policy in Britain: A critical introduction (2nd edn), Basingstoke: Macmillan; Thane, P. (2000) Old age in English history: Past experiences, present issues, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Thomson, M. (2006) Psychological subjects: Identity,

15

17

Disability and the welfare state in Britain culture and health in twentieth century Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Welshman, J. (2006) ‘Growing old in the city: public health and the elderly in Leicester, 1948-74’, Medical History, vol 40, no 1, pp 74-89. Cooper, J. (1983) The creation of the Personal Social Services, 1962-74, London: Heinemann Educational; Hall, op cit; Parker, J. (1965) Local authority health and welfare services, London: George Allen & Unwin.

16

Sainsbury, S. (1970) Registered as disabled, London: Bell; (1973) Measuring disability, London: Bell; (1985) Disability and social policy, London: London School of Economics and Political Science; (1995) ‘Disabled people and the Personal Social Services’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare: Past, present and future, London: University College London Press, pp 183-94.

17

Bruce, M. (1961) The coming of the welfare state, London: Batsford; Clark, G.K. (1967) An expanding society: Britain, 1830-1900, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Leadbeater, C. (1989) ‘New times: back to the future’, Marxism Today, May.

18

19

Knight, B. (1993) Voluntary action, London: Centris, p 78.

Brenton, M. (1985) The voluntary sector in British social services, New York: Longman; Finlayson, op cit; Prochaska, F. (1988) Voluntary impulse: Philanthropy in modern Britain, London: Faber.

20

Finlayson, G. (1990) ‘A moving frontier: voluntarism and the state in British social welfare 1911-1949’, Twentieth Century British History, vol 1, no 1, p 183.

21

22

Brenton, op cit, pp 40-1.

Crowson, N., Hilton, M. and McKay, J. (eds) (2009) NGOs in contemporary Britain: Non-state actors in society and politics since 1945, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan; Hilton, M. and McKay, J. (eds) (2011) The ages of voluntarism: How we got to the big society, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Hilton, M., McKay, J., Crowson, N. and Mouhot, J.(eds) (2013) The politics of expertise: How NGOs shaped modern Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press; Ishkanian, A. and Szreter, S. (eds) (2012) The big society debate: A new agenda for social welfare?, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar; Oppenheimer, M. and Deakin, N. (eds) (2011) Beveridge and voluntary action in Britain and the wider British world, Manchester: Manchester University Press; Rochester, C., Gosling, G.C., Penn, A. and Zimmeck, M. (eds) (2011) Understanding the roots of voluntary action: Historical perspectives on current social policy, Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press.

23

18

Introduction Grier, J. (2002) ‘Voluntary rights and statutory wrongs: the case of child migration, 1948-67’, History of Education, vol 31, no 3, pp 263-80, pp 263-4.

24

Whiteley, P.F. and Winyard, S.J. (1987) Pressure for the poor: The poverty lobby and policy making, London: Methuen, p 1. 25

The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) and the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) have received much attention. Lowe, R. (1995) ‘The rediscovery of poverty and the creation of the Child Poverty Action Group, 1962-68’, Contemporary Record, vol 9, no 3, pp 602-11; Lowe, R. and Nicholson, P. (1995) ‘The formation of the Child Poverty Action Group’, Contemporary Record, vol 9, no 3, pp 612-37; Meyer-Kelly, M. (2001) ‘The Child Poverty Action Group, 1965-1974: the origins and effectiveness of a single issue pressure group’, PhD, University of Bristol; Seyd, P. (1976) ‘The Child Poverty Action Group’, Political Quarterly, vol 47, no 2, pp 189-202; Burkett, J. (2009) ‘Direct action and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’, in N. Crowson, M. Hilton and J. McKay, op cit, pp 21-37; Byrne, P. (1988) The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, London: Croom Helm; Taylor, R. and Pritchard, C. (1980) The protest makers: The British nuclear disarmament movement of 1958-1965, twenty years on, Oxford: Pergamon; Hudson, K. (2005) CND – Now more than ever: The story of a peace movement, London: Vision Paperbacks; Mattausch, J. (1989) A commitment to campaign: A sociological study of CND, Manchester: Manchester University Press; Minnion, J. and Bolsover, P. (eds) (1983) The CND story: The first 25 years of CND in the words of the people involved, London: Allison & Busby; Nehring, H. (2001) ‘From gentleman’s club to folk festival: the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in Manchester, 1958-63’, North West Labour History Journal, vol 26, no 1, pp 18-28; Parkin, F. (1968) Middle class radicalism: The social bases of the British Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

26

Harris, J. (ed) (2003) Civil society in British history: Ideas, identities, institutions, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

27

Oppenheimer, M. and Deakin, N. (2011) ‘Beveridge and voluntary action’, in Oppenheimer and Deakin, op cit, p 5.

28

Hilton, M. and McKay, J. (2011) ‘The ages of voluntarism: an introduction’, in Hilton and McKay, op cit, 8.

29

Hahn, H. (1984) ‘Reconceptualizing disability: a political science perspective’, Rehabilitation Literature, vol 45, nos 11-2, pp 362-74, p 362.

30

Bickenbach, J.E. (1993) Physical disability and social policy, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, pp 12-14.

31

19

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Shah and Priestley used oral testimony to study the encounters of disabled people with public policies across three generations in the mid and late 20th century. Shah, S. and Priestley, M. (2011) Disability and social change: Private lives and public policy, Bristol: Policy Press.

32

33

Means and Smith, op cit, p 9.

Baldwin, P. (1990) The politics of social solidarity: Class bases of the European welfare state, 1875–1975, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 1.

34

20

TWO

The old regime: provision for disabled people before the welfare state This chapter introduces the traditional difficulties with the welfare of disabled people through an investigation of three distinct periods in the development of statutory welfare. The first period began with the Poor Law Act 1601 (also known as the Old Poor Law) that gave local parishes responsibility for the relief of the ‘impotent’ poor. Disabled people could receive outdoor relief in cash or goods, as well as indoor relief in workhouses, hospitals or asylums, according to their particular circumstances within the mixed economy of welfare. Attempts were constantly made to differentiate ‘undeserving’ ‘sturdy beggars’ from ‘deserving’ and genuinely disabled people. Indeed, Turner has argued for a ‘long 18th century’ of 1660 to 1830, when attitudes towards disabled people ranged from genuine compassion to revulsion to the punishment of sin and chance of salvation.1 The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 (also known as the New Poor Law), the second period, was partly a reaction to the changing needs of an increasingly urbanised and industrial economy and society in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In opposition to the traditional practice of paternalism and the acceptability of outdoor relief, this Act focused on placing needy disabled people in institutions to ensure that their need was genuine. In the third period, from the late 19th century, broadly, through to the Second World War, the state recognised and took on some responsibility for different groups of disabled people and their different needs and circumstances: disabled children, blind and deaf people, those with industrial injuries and ex-servicemen from the First World War. It was also in this period when central government assumed responsibility for cash benefits and pensions as part of a national social insurance system. Disabled people in the early modern period patched together a living through the mixed economy of welfare. While the term ‘mixed economy’ only came into common use in Britain toward the end of the 20th century, Lewis has rightly pointed out that the entire history of British welfare should be viewed as ‘mixed’, not just the welfare state period and after.2 Finkelstein and others have argued that while

21

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

early modern society was better at including disabled people in social and economic life, albeit at the very bottom, industrial evolution, urbanisation and the physical nature of industrial labour furthered their exclusion.3 According to Winzer, there were several reasons for the prevalence of disability in the early modern period: … the widespread occurrence of debilitating physical and mental conditions in pre-modern times probably resulted from a combination of factors. The absence of modern prenatal care and enlightened medical assistance, combined with poor maternal nutrition, meant that many infants did not survive or were born with physical or mental anomalies. Epidemics, plagues, and fevers periodically decimated the population, leaving survivors with a range of handicapping conditions.... The problems of unchecked virulent fevers and other illnesses were compounded by unsanitary conditions and the primitive state of medical knowledge. Limited mobility and consequent inbreeding ensured the passage of inherited conditions from one generation to the next; at the same time, the movement of troops in the constant wars that beset the ancient and medieval world spread many epidemics.4 Unfortunately, there is little evidence about what help disabled people – both generally and in more particular ways – received informally from families, friends and communities in the early modern period. From the mid-18th century, however, there were five identifiable formal bodies through which disabled people could receive both statutory and non-statutory provision in cash and services: workhouses, charitable and mutual aid societies, asylums and hospitals.5 There are several ways in which the welfare of disabled people was perceived: • economic rationality via employment and productivity; • moral judgements and the constant evaluation of ‘deserving’ need; • means testing. Non-statutory, and informal welfare in particular, were seen as the most desirable providers of welfare. There was little distinction between the cause or type of physical disablement for provision of services;

22

The old regime

• a humane, if often minimum, standard of care for those deemed ‘deserving’; • a sliding scale and often-parsimonious evaluation of levels of need for dispensing cash benefits; • great territorial variance. As examined in this chapter, the changes and continuities in these attitudes and practices continued to affect changes in policy and perception of disability in the welfare state.

The Old Poor Law (Poor Law Act 1601) Brought to crisis levels during the economic recession of the 1590s, the Old Poor Law was passed in response to the unprecedented growth in population and inflation, and high rates of illegitimacy, crime and vagrancy in the 16th century. Under these pressures, Parliament was forced to codify what had been known for decades: official distinctions needed to be made between ‘vagrants’, the ‘impotent poor’ and ‘unemployed people’.6 The Act made it mandatory in England and Wales for each of the 15,000 parishes to elect ‘overseers’ of the poor. These overseers were given responsibility to implement a propertybased tax, provide outdoor relief to the ‘impotent’ and ‘deserving’ poor (including disabled people and elderly infirm people), and through the workhouse, the assignment of employment to those able to work and the punishment of those unwilling to work.7 There were no national standards for the form and levels of state assistance, nor any particular regulations for workhouse conditions. It is reasonable to assume that a great portion of welfare for disabled people was provided informally, and what statutory welfare was available was subject to great territorial variance.8 This local patchwork of welfare was further complicated when some towns were required to elect overseers, and more so when the Poor Law Relief Act 1662 placed responsibility for poor people on the parish of their birth or the parish where they had resided for 40 consecutive days.9 Within the mixed economy, disabled people were regularly provided with outdoor relief. In 1788, the income of charitable trusts comprised only 10 per cent of that collected from the poor rates, a parish tax to fund the Poor Law.10 Applicants deemed deserving of outdoor relief were means-tested within the mixed economy with family as the first port of call because the Old Poor Law required the needs of disabled people to be determined by the amount of care they could receive from their children, parents and grandparents.11 In practice,

23

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

cash payments were flexible to the changing circumstances of families with disabled people, but were never generous. Notwithstanding high inflation and the hardening of attitudes towards poor people because of laissez-faire economics and evangelicalism, many received outdoor relief throughout the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic period. In an effort to prevent social unrest, the Speenhamland System paid outdoor relief in line with the price of bread and the number of children in a family.12 From 1784 to 1815, expenditure on poor relief approximately tripled, from £2 million to £6 million.13 Yet with the high inflation of the time life for disabled people did not improve, and regular pensions often became periodic, or were substituted for irregular cash payments or the provision of basic goods. Commissioned in 1803, the Abstract of returns relative to the expense and relief of the poor in England and Wales revealed that more than 1 million people, or approximately 11 per cent of the population, were paupers. For any significant relief, total incapacity had to be established, as was the practice in Liverpool. A former overseer told the Select Committee on Poor Law in 1828: What is the description of persons who received relief out of the workhouse? – They are principally the aged, the infirm and the blind. Any able-bodied persons? – No able-bodied person whatever. Did not that some able-bodied men were employed by the parish in breaking stones? – Yes, they are the casual poor ... but it is a task work they dislike exceedingly; there is not one instance in fifty that a man remains at it for a month, he exerts himself, and contrives to procure employment.14 While cash payments tended to rise after 1815, the Old Poor Law never comprised a regular and adequate amount of assistance to come even close to addressing the welfare needs of a disabled person.15 At the centre of statutory welfare in the 17th and 18th centuries was the workhouse. Between 1696 and 1712, several local Acts of Parliament established ‘Corporations of the Poor’ in 14 towns. Knatchbull’s Act of 1723, for example, permitted local authorities to refuse to provide outdoor relief to able-bodied workers who could be employed in the workhouse. By 1750, there were some 600 workhouses in England. Some were commercial enterprises, with the majority of local statutory institutions seeking to increase production and provide moral reform through

24

The old regime

hard labour. As shown by Borsay, perceiving disabled people in terms of economic rationality was not an invention of industrial evolution and the physicality of industrial labour.16 Production and benevolence, however, did not mesh well, as elderly and disabled people often could not work, and so the economic rationality of the workhouse was soon abandoned in many localities. Outdoor relief for able-bodied poor people came to be seen as cheaper than the workhouse, and while it could be granted where institutional care was not available, Gilbert’s Law of 1782 declared that only elderly infirm or disabled people should ordinarily be admitted into a workhouse.17 While life for disabled people in these workhouses was no doubt diverse, it was often grim and subject to the idiosyncrasies of local economic conditions and personnel. For those who wanted to leave, the Vagrancy Act 1714 required two Justices of the Peace to sign off on permanent confinement for ‘lunatics’ with no recourse, and disabled people were often committed involuntarily.18 Most comprised elderly and disabled people, along with women and children, as men able to work were not admitted. Work requirements varied enormously, however, and while the New Poor Law later sought to radically change the ethos and efficiency of the workhouse, the sort of hard cases used by Victorian social reformers were long commonplace. By 1800, there were 33 voluntary infirmaries in England and Wales,19 governed and funded by local benefactors. Physicians who had fee-paying practices gave their time to work with infirmary patients as exercises in professional curiosity and experimentation. Notwithstanding humanitarian and religious philanthropic motives, 18th-century infirmaries, like workhouses, were driven by economic rationality. Before the prevalence of orthopaedics in Britain in the Victorian period, those disabled people whose condition could be improved on – mostly young adults and men – were sent to hospitals to be ‘fixed’ for their return to work. Those with chronic or particularly debilitating conditions who could not be fixed were left to the auspices of informal care and what medical assistance was available within the local workhouse. As part of this reasoning, physically and mentally disabled people were then confined to 18th-century asylums – those disabled people with irreparable communicative disorders or sensory impediments were often categorised as mentally disabled when in fact, they may have had a debilitating physical condition, such as cerebral palsy. Self-help is often regarded as the invention and ethos of the Victorian age, but it existed in the late 18th century as industrial evolution and

25

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

laissez-faire individualism began to break down paternalist bonds.20 Friendly societies emerged as a non-statutory mutual aid system based on a shared pooling of risk. Disabled people with pre-existing conditions, however, were often prevented from joining these societies, which numbered an estimated 648,000 in 1793, 704,350 in 1803, 925,429 in 1815, and over 4 million in 1872.21 They would often not admit people over the age of 40, and imposed a household means test to determine if a disabled person’s family could provide them with adequate welfare. For members who became disabled, benefits varied depending on the severity of conditions determined by a sliding scale that took into account the financial state of the particular society.22 Formal non-statutory activity was a major source of welfare for disabled people, and assistance was based on tough moral judgements of character. In the 1780s, however, ‘humanity was in fashion’ as theories abounded about how state and society could better use its resources, especially the steam engine that appeared in 1782, to benefit poor people.23 Many evangelical organisations were created to assist the disadvantaged toward self-improvement. John Townshend, Congregational Church Minister at Bermondsey and member of the Clapham Sect, founded the Bermondsey Institution for Blind Children in 1792, and because of great need, it soon grew into a national charity for disabled people. Created in 1805, the Bath Society for the Suppression of Vagrants and Impostors distributed tickets to the nobility and gentry who were to pass them on to poor people instead of alms. In possession of the tickets, one could report to the Society to be examined as genuinely needy to receive outdoor relief. The homes of recipients were visited often to ensure quality of character and that independent means were genuinely insufficient.24

The New Poor Law (Poor Law Amendment Act 1834) There was great anxiety about statutory welfare in the first three decades of the 19th century. During the Napoleonic Wars, grain was an expensive commodity, and as wages stagnated, many agricultural labourers became paupers. Unemployment and poverty increased during the industrial and agricultural downturns of the mid and late 1810s, and so there was a surfeit of labour, with some 300,000 exservicemen, many of whom were disabled, requiring employment or statutory assistance. The population grew rapidly, and the local and agricultural nature of early modern society began to yield to industrialisation and urbanisation, creating a previously unimagined

26

The old regime

class of poor people. Poor rates rose to unacceptably high levels in response. The state’s myriad financial problems also demanded less expenditure, and this was accompanied, as it usually is, by a souring of attitudes toward the less fortunate. Benthamite reformers wanted to greatly curtail the existing Poor Law, and some, like Thomas Malthus, went as far as to ask for it to be dismantled.25 The stakes in controlling poor people were high, as the social control function of statutory welfare became vital in response to the threat of revolution and violent Republicanism that seemed a real possibility, with events like the Spa Field riots in 1816 and the Peterloo massacre in 1819.26 The Swing Riots of 1830–31 occurred in areas with high rates of the allowance system (outdoor relief to supplement low wages), and this was seen as additional evidence of the link between poverty, statutory welfare and social unrest.27 Presented at the time as a revolution in statutory welfare, the New Poor Law sought to eliminate the inefficiencies and excessive generosity of the existing local-based system. The approximately 15,000 parishes in England and Wales were reorganised into approximately 6,000 Poor Law Unions, each of which were managed by a board of local Poor Law guardians comprised of elected local notables. It also sought to provide the rational and efficient treatment of poor people in England and Wales, attempting, in effect, to impose the order of economic efficacy on great territorial disparity – uniform administration was to be created under the central Poor Law Commission. Reformers believed that the principle of ‘less eligibility’ – that relief that could only be provided in the workhouse (and the workhouse was far worse than any sort of employment) would eliminate the impostor and the able-bodied pauper. The workhouse was to care for the genuinely needy, especially elderly and disabled people. The threat of the workhouse was to bolster the incentive to gain employment, and the need for inefficient outdoor relief would cease to exist. Outdoor relief Economic efficacy drove the New Poor Law as it sought to end ablebodied pauperism. Indeed, the 1834 Poor Law report was particularly antipathetic towards outdoor relief in the form of cash – it was given without regard to character, spent on beer and gin, and blamed for the degradation of family and social relations, fraud and intimidation, and the hoarding of cash among paupers.28 Yet the report’s attitude to cash benefits for elderly and disabled people was far more liberal:

27

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

The out-door relief to the impotent (using that word as comprehending all except the able-bodied and their families) is subject to less abuse. The great source of Poor Law maladministration is, the desire of many of those who regulate the distribution of the parochial fund to extract from it a profit to themselves. The out-door relief to the able-bodied, and all relief that is administered in the workhouse, afford ample opportunities for affecting this purpose; but no use can be made of the labour of the aged and sick, and there is little room for jobbing if their pensions are paid in money. Accordingly, we find that even in place distinguished by the most wanton parochial profusion, the allowances to the aged and infirm are moderate.29 Scholars generally agree, however, that financial relief was provided sympathetically to elderly and disabled people.30 Thomson, in fact, has argued that widespread and unusually generous pensions were available to elderly people: ‘at any one moment between 1840 and 1870 about 65-70% of all women in England and Wales who were aged 70 or more, along with 50-55% of men so aged, were being given a regular poor law pension.’31 There were, however, limitations to this humanitarian sentiment, with many assistant commissioners trying to substitute pensions for foodstuffs or other goods and services. Some Poor Law Unions continually slashed pension levels, and pensions were intended only to comprise a small part of disabled people’s welfare within the mixed economy.32 The state was at best a small contributor to the outdoor welfare of disabled people, and it was only a last resort after the more desirable efforts of formal and informal non-statutory welfare had failed. The Poor Law report regarded the legal enforcement of families’ duties as uncivilised, but sometimes necessary.33 There was a new, powerful stigma attached to the receipt of outdoor relief, and many did not choose to receive it. Further, as benevolent paternalism continued to yield to self-help, disabled people were forced to take on especially supplicant behaviours. Groups like the Charity Organisation Society attempted to resuscitate the economic self-sufficiency of the ‘deserving’ poor, and the idea of evaluative character was important. As Collini put it, ‘There is no great obscurity about the basic core qualities invoked by the evaluative sense of character: self-restraint, perseverance, strenuous effort, courage in the face of adversity.’34 In addition to providing financial help, ‘visitors’, the predecessors of modern social workers, would visit the home of a

28

The old regime

needy family to try to improve the father’s attitude towards work and the mother and children’s domestic practices.35 The second crusade against outdoor relief began in the early 1860s. The provision of financial relief began to decrease greatly in the 1870s, and by 1880, it was provided to approximately 649,000, down from around 917,000 in 1871.36 Henry Longley, a member of the Metropolitan Inspectorate, published an influential report in the 1874 Annual Report of the Local Government Board. In it he argued that inadequate outdoor relief encouraged begging and crime, offered local guardians an easy way to trim the pool of applicants for scarce employment opportunities, and failed to give meaningful support to the genuinely needy. Only the workhouse could strike the right balance between inadequate and excessive support. The ‘workhouse test’ was extended from able-bodied to disabled people, and most of those sent to workhouses were elderly and disabled people, as well as other members of the ‘deserving’ poor. The reforms also attempted to impose some uniformity on the great disparities in outdoor financial relief, although many local guardians simply ignored the reforms and continued to give out cash.37 The reforms also served a didactic function as poor people were to be educated on the responsibility of families within the mixed economy of welfare, the avoidance of improvident lives, self-responsibility, and godliness and cleanliness. In the late 1840s, after the creation of a central fund to pay teachers in workhouses, certificates were given to workhouse residents for ‘efficiency,’ ‘competency,’ ‘probation’ and ‘permission’.38 While these measures appeared to be reducing the numbers of recipients of outdoor relief in the 1870s, and numbers levelled off in the following two decades, the great effort against outdoor relief ended in failure. Outdoor relief continued to be subject to great territorial variance, and never approached any sort of uniformity, either out of efforts to reduce or increase rates. Recognising these failures led, in the 1890s, to the Local Government Board’s recommendations for further reform. Motivated by the report of the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, local guardians were to examine ‘the antecedents of destitute persons whose physical faculties have failed by reason of age and infirmary.’ Outdoor relief was to be granted where people ‘have been of good character, thrift according to their opportunities, and generally independent in early life.’39 The New Poor Law’s failures to address poverty led many to seek new solutions, and the widespread objection to the state playing a major role in attempts to alleviate it began to subside.

29

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

The Fabian Society, the Social Democratic Federation and the writings of Booth, Alfred Marshall and T.H. Green, argued for greater state involvement to address poverty and social problems. The Medical Relief (Disqualifications Removal) Act 1885 allowed injured or chronically sick people to attain treatment at a Poor Law dispensary without being deemed paupers.40 Indoor relief The maligned Victorian workhouse entertained very different experiences for its disabled residents. At Hampshire’s infamous Andover Workhouse, it was felt that the ‘old and infirm inmates’ should ‘be allowed Beer with their dinners and suppers on those days when they have Bread and cheese only,’ while in the boneyard, Samuel Green, … found out in the workhouse that bacon marrow bones were good. I could eat meat off some of the bones; I have picked a sheep’s head, a mutton bone, and a beef bone; that was when they were fresh and good; sometimes I have had one that was stale and stunk, and I eat it even then; I eat it when it was stale and stinking because I was hungered, I suppose.41 There were countless acts of cruelty, kindness, neglect or indifference. Notwithstanding the fact that nearly 75 per cent of paupers required medical attention, few workhouses had infirmaries, as there was no legal requirement to provide them under the Poor Laws.42 The rapid expansion of coal mining caused many disabling conditions, and while he can hardly be considered an unpartisan observer, Friedrich Engels described how work in the mines created disabling conditions: The prolongation of the period of childhood is a proof of a retarded development and naturally has its consequences in later years. Miners are either bandy-legged or knockkneed and suffer from splayed feet, spinal deformities and other physical defects. This is due to the fact that their constitutions have been weakened and they are nearly always forced to work in cramped position. Many people, including even doctors, say that in Yorkshire, Lancashire, Northumberland and Durham it is possible to pick a miner out from among a hundred other people because of his physical defects.43

30

The old regime

Hospitals, a site of indoor relief, varied in their conditions and their approach to disabled people. They were funded by a variety of sources including wealthy benefactors, corporate subscriptions from employers, injury compensation schemes from charitable and mutual aid societies, Poor Law authorities and patient charges.44 The 1833–34 Poor Law Commissioners Report said that cash payments as outdoor relief for disabled people were given directly to local surgeons to pay for medical help.45 The ‘general mixed workhouse’ was the dark heart of the Old Poor Law. While there were varying degrees of separation, classification and treatment of the poor, the general mixed workhouse was found to be failing the needs of ‘deserving’ groups such as the elderly poor and mentally and physically disabled people, and these failings received much attention. The fictional and empirical depictions of Victorian workhouse conditions are well known. While local authorities thought that the construction of new workhouses after 1834 was an expensive and ineffective way to combat unemployment, organisations concerned with the working class objected to the incarceration of poor people as inhumane. The proliferation of workhouses across England and Wales also seemed to be the effective end of benevolent paternalism and local solidarity. By the 1860s, a strong sentiment for specialisation had begun to develop. The County Asylums Act 1845 and the Lunatics Act 1845 established the creation of separate asylums for mentally disabled people with the most severe conditions.46 Created in 1867, the Metropolitan Asylums Board was to build separate infirmaries, asylums and hospitals for those with severe mental disabilities. And so, too, did the Poor Law Amendment Act 1868 encourage separate infirmaries.47 Sidney and Beatrice Webb attributed these efforts to humanitarianism and a more progressive attitude toward alleviating poverty, and the strategy was separation: … take out of the mixed general workhouse and transfer to specialised institutions or other forms of treatment, one class of paupers after another; the children, the vagrants, the persons of unsound mind, those suffering from infectious diseases, other sick persons, the blind, the deaf and dumb, the crippled, the sane epileptics, the chronically infirm and or even feeble-minded, the aged and even the able bodied unemployed.48

31

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Separating and specifically addressing the needs of these different deserving groups began to become an important objective from the 1870s on. As mentioned earlier, one of the major objectives of the New Poor Law was to prevent the payment of outdoor relief to able-bodied men. The reduction in payments of outdoor relief began to slow in the 1880s and 1890s, and the faith in less eligibility began to wane in the face of new attitudes and realities. The 1886 Chamberlain Circular asked local authorities to try to address the temporary needs of those who had not sought Poor Law assistance. This marked an important philosophical shift, as it acknowledged the failure of the Poor Law to deal with unemployment and pauperism more generally. In 1895, the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor revealed that many elderly poor people were not receiving poor relief because of stigma.49 Booth and Joseph Rowntree’s studies highlighted the poverty among elderly poor people, and as Himmelfarb said, portrayed the majority of poor people, but not the ‘immoral’ minority, as deserving of statutory assistance.50 These realities and changes in perception helped lead to the Liberal welfare reforms of 1906 to 1914, discussed in the next section. The drive for specialisation, however, was concurrent with the second crusade against outdoor relief. As such, efforts focused mostly on the improvement of care within institutions. The development of separate institutions from 1870 to the end of the century was slow, but there was some progress. The franchise extension of 1867 and 1884–85 led to increased calls from newly enfranchised working men to reform the punitive workhouse system.51 Local Government Board Circulars of 1895 and 1899 said that elderly disabled people should receive a range of indoor benefits: permission to wear their own clothes rather than a pauper uniform, permission to entertain visitors or to make visits themselves, men were to be allowed to smoke, women were to receive additional tea rations, and elderly husbands and wives were allowed to share rooms.52 The welfare of disabled people did not fit well with the ethos of the New Poor Law. While the workhouse was often seen as protecting the ‘impotent’ poor from poverty and illness, the needs of disabled people did not match the strengthened focus on economic rationality, as established by the New Poor Law. Workhouses were to extract maximal labour from the able-bodied unemployed, but these comprised only a small minority of residents. One may suggest that the great effort was not against outdoor relief for able-bodied people, but against outdoor relief for the majority – elderly and disabled people. Less eligibility and the general mixed workhouse were not compatible with the diverse

32

The old regime

nature of disablement, nor its often severely debilitating effects on capacity to work. Further, confinement in the workhouse limited the contributions of other parties within the mixed economy of welfare that had always been vital to disabled people.

Specialisation in the welfare of disabled people (late 19th century to the Second World War) In 1870, central government in Britain remained something of a night watchman – the 1870s to 1940 is regarded as the period when central government engaged in dedicated efforts to help alleviate social problems, with the creation of several departments, an expansion of the civil service, and an increase in the government’s share of local revenue. There is the view that, as the state became more involved in the welfare of disabled people, charity became redundant. This was not the case, and in fact, many influential groups emerged alongside the increasing presence of the state in administering welfare. Harris described this great patchwork of non-statutory activity: Numerous social policy enquiries of the 1880s, 1890s and 1900s uncovered a vast, ramshackle mass of voluntary, selfgoverning, local, parochial, and philanthropic provision that was attempting in a myriad of different ways to assist, elevate, reform or coerce the poor and other persons in need. The annual income and expenditure of registered and unregistered charities, friendly societies, collecting societies, benefit-paying trade unions and other benevolent and selfhelp institutions vastly exceeded the annual budget of the poor law – which in turn vastly exceeded the expenditure of on social welfare of central government until just before the First World War.53 Unprecedented social legislation was passed in the first three decades of the 20th century, and for disabled people, the uncommon needs of particular disablements began to be better recognised by local and central government. Further, the pronounced working-class dislike for the Poor Law and statutory assistance in general subsided, and by 1945, Labour was the party of social provision and the welfare state.54 From the 1870s to the end of the 19th century, the indicators mentioned previously seemed to foretell a great increase in statutory programmes to alleviate poverty. Yet while specialisation in the welfare of disabled people was the aspiration of progressive parties, it was rarely

33

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

practised outside of London. It took some time for the legislative changes of the 1870s through the interwar period to take effect in the localities, including the Blind Persons Act 1920 that required local authorities to provide services and suitable employment for blind and partly sighted people. More immediate in their effects were the centrally administered cash benefits that were part of the Liberal welfare reforms of 1906–14, and the benefits paid to ex-servicemen from the First World War, as well as widows, orphans and elderly poor people between the wars. The Old Age Pensions Act 1908 in particular introduced a noncontributory pension at age 70. More generally, the Liberal reforms provided benefits for the needy outside the Poor Law, and altered the relationship between statutory provision and those in need.55 Welfare for children Compulsory education for children aged five to ten was introduced in Scotland in 1872, and in 1880 in England and Wales. Children were now assessed individually in formal classrooms, and the particular needs of disabled children, many of whom would have previously simply stayed at home, were discovered. The 1889 Royal Commission subsequently recommended that blind, deaf and mentally disabled children should receive specialised schooling. Economic rationality was important: the Commission viewed education as a way to prevent adult poverty and any recourse to statutory assistance – if Oliver Twist finished school, he would not need the workhouse. Children could, in effect, be ‘fixed’. In Johanna Spyri’s Heidi (1872), Clara is confined to a wheelchair until friendship, affection and a robust mountain climate allow her to walk with assistance, and respite for Peter’s blind grandmother are ‘soft pillows’ and ‘sleeping at last on a proper bed instead of a broken old mattress filled with straw’.56 The Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act 1893 created local education authorities that were separated from the local Poor Law authorities, to provide special schooling or to fund local non-statutory education. This was extended to children with intellectual disabilities by the Elementary Education (Defective and Epileptic Children) Act 1899.57 The situation was somewhat different for physically disabled children who were not blind or deaf, as their education was not mandatory until the Education Act 1918, and did not come into effect until the mid-1920s.58 The 1899 Act stated that physical disability did not entitle a child to special education. In practice, physically disabled children were often placed in regular schools or in classrooms with intellectually

34

The old regime

disabled children. Statutory schooling for able-bodied children grew immensely, and by 1950, central and local government spending on education comprised 3–4 per cent of national income.59 Yet non-statutory schooling for all disabled children also grew and continued to thrive. By 1916, there were 179 schools for blind, deaf and mentally disabled children.60 The Education Act 1921 organised disabled children into five categories – blind, deaf, epileptic, mentally and physically defective – and in the 1920s there were more than 500 schools for disabled children, including 78 for physically disabled children.61 The aim of these schools was to strengthen the industrial workforce, and while there was genuine concern for the educational needs of disabled children, it was thought that separate schools would allow conventional schools to operate better.62 Welfare for blind and deaf adults Blind ex-servicemen became a symbol of heroic sacrifice. As Anderson and Pemberton put it, ‘The “tragedy” of blindness was how it removed vision, leaving an active, fit body immobilised and undirected and, unlike cases of neurosis, the mind still intact.’63 After three decades of campaigning on behalf of all blind people, the National League of the Blind (NLB) and the TUC – often joined by Poor Law authorities and voluntary groups – achieved the Blind Persons Act 1920. Also in 1920, the non-contributory old age pension for those over 70, as created by the Old Age Pensions Act 1908, was extended to blind people over 50.64 The 1920 Act encouraged local authorities to create demarcated employment and services for blind people. Its terms were permissive, however, and efforts to amend it in 1924 and 1925 did not succeed. More encouraging was that the Local Government Act 1929 asked local authorities to create provision for blind people under the 1920 Act instead of the Poor Law. The Poor Law Act 1930 then encouraged local authorities to work with a local voluntary group to find suitable employment for deaf people. While there was great territorial disparity in services, and employment training and opportunities, by 1935, 101 of 146 local authorities in England and Wales were providing domiciliary services under the 1920 Act instead of the Poor Law.65 Notwithstanding these initiatives, relatives remained the main providers of care within the mixed economy, and this was thought to be appropriate, as expressed in the Poor Law Act 1930: ‘It should be the duty of the father, grandfather, mother, grandmother, husband or child, of a poor, old, blind, lame, or impotent person, or other poor

35

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

person, not able to work if possessed of sufficient means, to relieve and maintain that person not able to work.’66 Statutory schemes helped very few disabled people into employment, as firms preferred to hire non-disabled ex-servicemen and able-bodied people.67 The state, as ever, was reluctant to make any extra provision, and progress required agitation from non-statutory groups. The NLB was formed in 1894 as an organisation of blind workers. With branches in several cities, it denounced the inadequate efforts of non-statutory workshops for the blind, and pressed government to take responsibility for special employment. It grew more powerful in 1899 when it registered with the TUC. The organisation then lobbied Members of Parliament (MPs) directly, and held two massive marches to London in 1920 and 1936. After the failed amendments to the Blind Persons Act in the mid-1920s, the NLB began to focus on pressing local authorities to improve their efforts in assisting blind people.68 Inspired by the use of guide dogs in Europe and the US, the Guide Dog Association reflected the struggle to define an identity for blind people and to redefine freedom and agency in the drive for rehabilitation. The guide dog movement was seen as fostering confidence and independence, as well as opening up employment opportunities, allowing blind people to live independently in the community.69 Welfare for those with industrial injuries, and National Insurance In 1834, compensation for injuries at work varied greatly. As Bartrip and Burman put it, ‘From available evidence it is difficult to generalise about the fate of accident victims. The position varied from industry to industry, from employer to employer, and even from accident to accident ... compensation was a lottery.’70 The Workmen’s Compensation Act 1897 grew from a generation that did not want to contemplate the idea of the state providing insurance for those injured on the job. It required industrial employers to pay a permanently incapacitated man half his wages or a portion of a reduction in wage because of part-incapacity. Insurance was extended to agricultural labourers in 1900, and to nearly all manual labouring employment in 1906. By 1914, the Act was insuring 15 million workers.71 With the state guaranteeing some provision for disabled workers in law, this was a progressive measure, and has been viewed as the anteroom to a full statutory insurance system for industrially injured people, and the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946 in particular.

36

The old regime

Before the Act, the only recourse for an injured labourer was common law, and the worker was responsible for proving the employer’s negligence. While trades unions’ pressure was partly responsible for the 1897 Act, trades unions and friendly societies resisted its terms as they were thought to partly absolve employers of a sense of responsibility.72 Again, working-class dislike for statutory assistance dissipated in the interwar years, and the power of organised labour ensured that those injured on the job, in addition to ex-servicemen, became a ‘privileged status’ group after the Second World War and through the 1946 Act.73 The National Insurance Act 1911 established a sickness benefit including basic medical treatment for 26 weeks per year. Those whose annual income was less than £250 were eligible, and employers, employees and central government contributed. For permanent or long-term sickness, applicants could claim at one-half the rate after six months. The system was administered through approved societies and industrial insurance companies.74 The contribution-based scheme did not help those permanently unable to work or who could not find employment, and those injured or made sick on the job were now explicitly a ‘preferred status’ group for the state. The rate of benefit was generous in 1911, but between the wars, it was inadequate, as it did not increase in line with the rising costs of living. It was less than unemployment benefit, the war pension and workmen’s compensation, and many recipients appealed to the Poor Law for additional cash benefits.75 Welfare for disabled ex-servicemen Disabled ex-servicemen had a long tradition of special esteem in the eyes of the state. Elizabeth I, for example, professed to being ‘troubled whensoever she takes the air of those miserable creatures’.76 A national pension scheme for disabled ex-servicemen was established in 1593, and until 1679, cash benefits were administered locally by ‘a treasurer for maimed soldiers’ out of local rates.77 James II and his advisers wanted to create a royal hospital to manifest royal control of ex-servicemen, and after 1680, to rival Louis XIV’s Hôtel des Invalides. The Chelsea and Greenwich hospitals were created, and were a form of insurance as they were maintained largely by deductions from servicemen’s pay.78 They proved unable to accommodate all disabled ex-servicemen, however, and cash payments were paid as outdoor relief according to length or service, severity of injury and the man’s personal record. By 1806, account was taken of how much the debilitating condition had been caused in and by

37

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

service and the man’s circumstances within the mixed economy of welfare.79 Still in 1914, discipline, pay, rank, length of service and severity of disablement determined a disabled ex-servicemen’s right to and rate of cash benefits. Benefits were also determined in terms of one-quarter, one-half, three-quarters and complete incapacity to work, with support provided by many non-statutory groups – established during the Crimean War, the Royal Patriotic Fund, for example, paid pensions to the widows of servicemen until the state began to assume this responsibility during the Second Boer War.80 The First World War demanded a new system of benefits. The necessary recruitment of great numbers of the population to the armed forces made disability a political issue, as is evident in the success of the journal Reveille. In 1918, novelist and playwright John Galsworthy agreed to edit the Ministry of Pensions’ journal, Recalled to Life, for and about disabled soldiers. He renamed it Reveille, and recruited notable contributors including Robert Graves, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Siegfried Sassoon and Edith Wharton. The first issue of August 1918 sold out all 30,000 copies.81 Lack of compensation for disabled servicemen was increasingly seen as a disincentive to recruitment, with civilian recruits tending to have dependants and better incomes.82 Conversely, there was the psychological and material incentive of a ‘land fit for heroes’. As with the education of disabled children at the end of the 19th century, eugenicist fears of declining racial stock in an age when European competitors were challenging British imperial paramountcy added to the impetus to ‘repair’ disabled soldiers, especially after the recruitment for the Second Boer War raised alarms about the physical health of British men.83 Created in December 1916, the Ministry of Pensions assumed civilian responsibility for disablement pensions. Flat-rate pensions were paid regardless of loss of earnings, and to eliminate means testing, were paid according to severity of disablement, ranging from 20 per cent in increments of 10, up to 100 per cent. Child and Attendance Allowances were also made available.84 A total of 1.2 million ex-servicemen, or one-quarter of those who served in the First World War, qualified for a pension.85 In her comparative study of Britain and Germany, however, Cohen said that disablement pensions were woefully inadequate in meeting the welfare needs of ex-servicemen. Public opinion had forced the Ministry of Pensions to pay pensions from Exchequer funding, but pension levels were set low to be acceptable to the Treasury, and in arguing ‘financial stringency’ and in ‘adherence to the principals of

38

The old regime

good governance’, the Ministry tried to limit the state’s responsibility to disabled ex-servicemen.86 Philosophically, there was reluctance on the part of civil servants to engage the state excessively in a difficult social problem.87 The extent of the numbers of disabled ex-servicemen was unknown at the time, but it was definitely massive, and unsolvable to any good effect or positive political outcome – creating a ;land fit for heroes’ was needed, but impossible because of the size of need.88 Cash benefits aside, the state expanded services as well as rehabilitative, medical and employment programmes. While some hospitals closed after outliving their wartime necessity, orthopaedic treatment in hospitals continued. The Ministry of Pensions took on the responsibility of providing artificial limbs, and local pensions committees organised medical help and training opportunities.89 In the 1930s, the Ministry of Labour set up several training institutions to get disabled people into the labour market – nearly 90,000 men were trained under its industrial training schemes between 1919 and 1924. Yet it was recognised that the problem of unemployed disabled ex-servicemen required non-statutory efforts in cooperation with the state. Established in 1919, the King’s National Roll scheme encouraged firms with at least 10 employees to have those in receipt of a disability pension comprising 5 per cent of their workforce by inscribing the name of participating firms on the Roll. From 1921 to 1938, it succeeded in employing an average of 316,000 disabled exservicemen per year, and 80 per cent of disabled ex-servicemen were in fact employed through the scheme.90 The state’s efforts, however, did not come even close to meeting the scale of need, and so non-statutory groups thrived and were vital the relative absence of the state.91 The Central Council for the Care of Cripples (CCCC) created a network of orthopaedic hospitals for severe cases, and local clinics for after-care and diagnoses. These local clinics were often organised by local authorities and voluntary efforts. By 1936, there were 40 hospitals and 400 clinics.92 The CCCC also published The National Cripples’ Journal. Written and sold door-todoor by disabled people, it attempted to gain public recognition of the social and economic problems associated with disability, including unemployment and the need for a state allowance for severely disabled people.93 Several disability groups came together in 1921 to form the British Legion, and it became a powerful voice for disabled ex-servicemen. Funded partly by Poppy Day, the Legion pushed for demarcated employment for disabled ex-servicemen and a relaxing of the rules for

39

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

applying for state pension. In 1914, St Dunstan’s home and training facility for blind and partially-sighted ex-servicemen was founded by the National Institute of the Blind, the Red Cross Society and the Order of Saint John of Jerusalem. Funded privately from the US, St Dunstan’s worked with soldiers of different nationalities teaching braille, typing, poultry keeping and basket making, among other skills, for future employment.94

Conclusion There was little new in the particular ways that the welfare of disabled people was considered in the welfare state. Economic rationality was not an invention of industrial evolution and physicality of labour. Philosophically, the state was much more inclined to participate in the wellbeing of disadvantaged groups after 1945, but considerations of expenditure, the labour force and economic rationally more generally dissuaded it from full engagement with all disabled people before and after the creation of the welfare state. Explicitly religious judgement of disabled people waned somewhat in the three periods under examination in this chapter, but penetrating moral judgements and means testing continued into the 20th century. For example, the Old Age Pensions Act 1908 excluded those who had been admitted to a lunatic asylum, who had been imprisoned within 10 years, who had received a conviction for drunkenness, or who had a ‘spotty’ employment record with periods out of work.95 While there was humanitarian concern for disabled people, statutory welfare outside of the punitive workhouse was intended only to provide a small portion of their overall welfare, with relatives the first and more desirable providers, as reinforced by the Poor Law Act 1930. Statutory provision was often determined by how the disability was acquired, and by sliding scales of severity of disablement. An important change came between 1870 and 1940. While the motives were not always philanthropic, the special needs of disabled children were recognised and addressed through special schools. Partly because of non-statutory efforts, the situation of those disabled through industrial injury was acknowledged in legislation, and cash became a desirable form of statutory provision. The 1.2 million disabled ex-servicemen from the First World War received a pension, albeit a meagre one, and made disability a public issue, with political consequences for government. While central government increasingly took over responsibility for provision in cash from local government, the needs of blind and deaf people were addressed by local services.

40

The old regime

Yet adult disabled people who were not blind, deaf, ex-servicemen or injured on the job had no statutory provision in cash and services beyond the Poor Law. Surely, future provision would correct the exclusion of all those currently excluded. Notes 1 See Turner, D.M. (2012) Disability in eighteenth-century England: Imagining physical impairment, Abingdon: Routledge.

Lewis, J. (1994) The voluntary sector, the state and social work in Britain: The Charity Organisation Society/Family Welfare Association since 1869, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, p 3.

2

Finkelstein, V. (1980) Attitudes and disabled people: Issues for discussion, London: World Rehabilitation Fund, pp 8-11. See also Stiker, H. (2000) A history of disability, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, pp 65, 67.

3

Winzer, M.A. (1993) The history of special education: From isolation to integration, Washington, DC: Gallaudet University Press, p 9.

4

While medical and mental healthcare for disabled people is beyond the purview of this book, a look at asylums and hospitals in the early modern period reinforces some of the major ways that disabled people were treated and perceived. As Beresford has pointed out, there are several similarities in how the welfare of mentally and physically disabled people was and is perceived. Both are subject to speculation about the appropriate location for care in the mixed economy, institution or community, based often on economic rationality. Considerations of both groups are often viewed according to assessment of ‘severity’, and whether there is potential for a ‘cure’. Physical impairments have psychological implications, and mental disablements may involve physical and intellectual impairments. Further, both groups have traditionally been subject to discrimination, and were often lumped together into a general disabled category. Beresford, P. (2000) ‘What have madness and psychiatric system survivors got to do with disability and disability studies?’, Disability & Society, vol 15, no 1, p 169.

5

Jordan, W.K. (1964) Philanthropy in England, 1480-1660: A study of the changing pattern of English social aspirations, London: Allen & Unwin, pp 92-3.

6

Borsay, A. (2004) Disability and social policy in Britain since 1750: A history of exclusion, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 20.

7

King, S. (2000) Poverty and welfare in England, 1700-1850, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p 20; Murray, P. (1999) Poverty and welfare: 1830-1914, London: Hodder & Stoughton, pp 16-18.

8

41

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Laybourn, K. (1995) The evolution of British social policy and the welfare state, c. 18001993, Keele: Keele University Press, p 17.

9

10

Slack, P. (1990) The English Poor Law, 1531-1782, Basingstoke: Macmillan, p 52.

Thomson, D. (1994) ‘“Am I not my father’s keeper?”: families and the elderly in nineteenth-century England’, Law and History Review, vol 12, no 2, p 266.

11

12

King, op cit, p 34.

13

Marshall, J.D. (1965) The Old Poor Law, 1795-1834, Basingstoke: Macmillan, p 23.

Rose, M.E. (1971) The English Poor Law, 1780-1930, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, pp 70-1.

14

Thane, P. (2000) Old age in English history: Past experiences, present issues, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 150.

15

Borsay, A. (1998) ‘Returning patients to the community: disability, medicine and economic rationality before the Industrial Revolution’, Disability & Society, vol 13, no 5, pp 645-63.

16

17 Daunton, M. (1995) Poverty and progress: An economic and social history of Britain 1700-1850, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 463-7.

Porter, R. (1987) Mind-forg’d manacles: A history of madness in England from the Restoration to the Regency, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p 117. 18

Woodward, J. (1974) To do the sick no harm: A study of the British voluntary hospital system to 1875, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp 147-8.

19

Borsay, A. (1999) Medicine and charity in Georgian Bath: A social history of the general infirmary, c. 1739-1830, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 181-6, 233-7. 20

Marland, H. (1987) Medicine and society in Wakefield and Huddersfield, 1780-1870, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 177.

21

Davies, E.T. and Kissack, K.E. (1981) The inns and friendly societies of Monmouth, Monmouth: Monmouth Historical and Education Trust, pp 45-7.

22

Inglis, B. (1971) Poverty and the Industrial Revolution, London: Hodder & Stoughton, pp 26-7, 33.

23

42

The old regime Kidd, A. (1999) State, society and the poor in nineteenth-England, Basingstoke: Macmillan, p 2.

24

Malthus, T. (1807) An essay on the principle of population; or, a view of its past and present effects on human happiness; with an enquiry into our prospects respecting the future removal or mitigation of the evils which it occasions (4th edn), Vol 2, London: J. Johnson, pp 320-4.

25

See Stevenson, J. (1977) ‘Social control and the prevention of riots in England, 1789-1829’, in A. Donajgrodzki (ed) Social control in nineteenth-century Britain, London: Croom Helm, pp 27-50.

26

Harris, B. (2004) The origins of the British welfare state: Society, state and social welfare in England and Wales, 1800-1945, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 45.

27

Checkland, S.G. and Checkland, O. (eds) (1974) The Poor Law report of 1834, London: Penguin, pp 515-16.

28

29

Ibid, p 114.

King, D. (1999) In the name of liberalism: Illiberal social policy in the United States and Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 68.

30

Thomson, D. (1984) ‘The decline of social welfare: falling state support for the elderly since early Victorian times’, Ageing & Society, vol 4, no 4, p 468.

31

32

Borsay (2004), op cit, p 151.

33

Checkland and Checkland, op cit, p 115.

Collini, S. (1985) ‘The idea of “character” in Victorian political thought’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, vol 35, pp 35, 36.

34

35

Lewis, op cit, p 11.

36

Harris, op cit, p 55.

37

Borsay (2004), op cit, pp 151-3.

Francis, D. (1976) ‘Pauper education’, in D. Fraser (ed) The new Poor Law in the nineteenth century, London: Macmillan, pp 75, 83.

38

43

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Lees, L.H. (1998) The solidarities of strangers: The English Poor Laws and the people, 1700-1948, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 277. 39

40

Rose, op cit, p 260.

Anstruther, I. (1984) The scandal of the Andover Workhouse, London: Sutton, pp 84, 134.

41

42

Digby, A. (1978) Pauper palaces, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p 166.

Engels, F. (1958) The condition of the working class in England, Translated from the German by W.O. Henderson and W.H. Chaloner, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, p 280 [originally published in 1845].

43

44

Borsay (2004), op cit, p 44.

45

Checkland and Checkland, op cit, p 114.

46

Wright, op cit, p 736.

47

Borsay (2004), op cit, pp 28-30.

Webb, S. and Webb, B. (1929) English Poor Law history. Part Two. The last hundred years, London: Longmans, Green, p 140.

48

49

Harris, op cit, pp 56-7.

Himmelfarb, G. (1981) Poverty and compassion: The moral imagination of the late Victorians, New York: Knopf, p 312.

50

51

Lees, op cit, p 295.

52

Thane, P. (1996) Foundations of the welfare state (2nd edn), London: Longman, p

36. Harris, J. (1992) ‘Political thought and the welfare state 1870-1940: an intellectual framework for British social policy’, Past and Present, vol 135, no 2, p 116.

53

Thane, P. (1984) ‘The working class and state ‘welfare’ in Britain, 1880-1914’, Historical Journal, vol 27, no 4, pp 877-8.

54

44

The old regime Fraser, D. (2009) The evolution of the British welfare state: A history of policy since the Industrial Revolution (4th edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 182-3, 209.

55

Spryi, J. (1988) Heidi, London: Award Publications Limited, pp 12-43 [originally published in 1872]. 56

57

Borsay (2004), op cit, pp 106-7.

Anderson, J (1969) A record of fifty years of service to the disabled from 1919 to 1969 by the Central Council for the Disabled, London: Central Council for the Disabled, 59; Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1979) Provision for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, p 33.

58

Sutherland, G. (1990) ‘Education’, in F.M.L. Thompson (ed) The Cambridge social history of Britain, Vol 2, Social Agencies and institutions, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 168.

59

Hurt, J.S. (1988) Outside the mainstream: A history of special education, London: Batsford, pp 148-50.

60

Wheatcroft, S. (2013) Worth saving: Disabled children during the Second World War, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp 6, 13; Humphries, S. and Gordon, P. (1992) Out of sight: The experience of disability, 1900-1950, Plymouth: Northcote House, p 66.

61

Pritchard, D.G. (1963) Education and the handicapped, 1760-1960, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, pp 220-1.

62

Anderson, J. and Pemberton, N. (2007) ‘Walking alone: aiding the war and civilian blind in the inter-war period’, European Review of History, vol 14, no 4, pp 459-79.

63

64

Rooff, M. (2013) Voluntary societies and social policy, Abingdon: Routledge, p 208.

Reiss, M. (2005) ‘Forgotten pioneers of the national protest march: the National League of the Blind’s marches to London, 1920 and 1936’, Labour History Review, vol 70, no 2, pp 135-6, 142, 153.

65

Victor, C.R. (1997) Community care and older people, Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes, p 118. 66

Bourke, J. (1996) Dismembering the male: Men’s bodies, Britain, and the Great War, London: Reaktion, p 44.

67

45

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 68

Reiss, op cit, pp 134-6, 142.

69

Anderson and Pemberton, op cit, pp 467-9.

Bartrip, P.W.J. and Burman, S. (1983) The wounded soldiers of industry: Industrial compensation policy, 1833-1897, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 34.

70

Bolderson, H. (1991) Social security, disability and rehabilitation: Conflicts in the development of social policy, 1914-1946, London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, p 14.

71

72

Ibid, pp 13-14.

Sainsbury, S. (1993) Normal life: A study of war and industrially injured pensioners, Aldershot: Avebury, p 8.

73

Whiteside, N. (1987) ‘Counting the cost: sickness and disability among working people in an era of industrial recession, 1920-39’, Economic History Review, vol 40, no 2, p 230.

74

75

Bolderson, op cit, p 61.

DHSS (Department of Health and Social Security) (no date) ‘History of war pensions’, Unpublished.

76

Hudson, G.L. (2012) ‘Disabled veterans and the state in early modern Britain’, in D. Gerber (ed) Disabled veterans in history (2nd edn), Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, p 117.

77

78

Ibid, p 137.

79

DHSS, op cit.

80

Bolderson, op cit, p 15.

Koven, S. (1994) ‘Remembering and dismemberment: crippled children, wounded soldiers and the Great War in Great Britain’, American Historical Review, vol 99, no 4, p 1167.

81

82

Sainsbury, op cit, pp 6-7.

Jones, H. (2014) Health and society in twentieth century Britain (2nd edn), Abingdon: Routledge, p 22.

83

46

The old regime 84

Bolderson, op cit, p 23.

Winter, J.M. (2003) The Great War and the British people (2nd edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 273.

85

Cohen, D. (2001) The war come home: Disabled veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp 4, 16.

86

87

Ibid, p 16.

88

Ibid, p 11.

Guyatt, M. (2001) ‘Better legs: artificial limbs for British veterans of the First World War’, Journal of Design History, vol 14, no 4, p 312; Anderson, J. (2011) War, disability and rehabilitation in Britain: Soul of a nation, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p 46.

89

Kowalsky pointed out that the unprecedented scale and ambition of the scheme made government presence in the welfare of disabled people more desirable. It also attracted public attention to the welfare of disabled people, and shifted the perception of the unemployment of disabled people because of physical deficiency to a social injustice. Kowalsky, M. (2007) ‘“This honourable obligation”: the King’s National Roll scheme for disabled ex-servicemen, 1915-1944’, European Review of History, vol 14, no 4, pp 573-8.

90

Cohen said that philanthropic efforts protected the state from the ire of exservicemen as the inadequacies of voluntary efforts could hardly give rise to a protest movement. Cohen, op cit, p 190.

91

92

Anderson (1969), op cit, pp 8-9, 29.

93

Anderson (2011), op cit, pp 26-7.

94

Ibid, p 49.

Webster, C. (1988) The health services since the war, Vol 1, Problems of health care: The National Health Service before 1957, London: HMSO, p 398.

95

47

THREE

Promotional welfare, 1948–63 Timeline: developments in statutory welfare for disabled people, 1948–63 1946

The work participation emphasis of the National Insurance Act and the Industrial Injuries Act excludes most disabled people.

1948

The National Assistance Act replaces the Blind Persons Act 1920. Statutory welfare for disabled people and blind and deaf people is made the responsibility of local authorities under the direction of the Ministry of Health.



The Children Act creates a special place for child services compared to other PSS groups.

1951

Ministry of Health Circular 32/51 outlines the range of services local authorities may offer disabled people.

1952

Ian Macleod becomes Minister of Health.

1956

The Piercy Committee calls for increased funding for local services for disabled people.

1957

The Boucher report recommends greater local efforts in providing residential care, home visits and coordination of all local domiciliary services.

1959

The Mental Health Act accelerates the move toward noninstitutional statutory services.



The Younghusband report advocates community-based social work.

1960

Local authority services schemes for disabled people are made mandatory by the Ministry of Health.

49

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 1962

Peter Townsend’s The last refuge describes the abject lives of disabled and elderly people in statutory residential homes.

1963–64

The Douglas-Home government considers selective cash benefits for the general classes in advance of a general election.

Introduction For many, the great optimism about the 1943–48 welfare state settlement seemed to promise the end of the exclusion of disadvantaged groups. Notwithstanding such great expectations, did a familiar reality remain in the subsequent 15 years? For disabled people, was it the old regime in the New Jerusalem? Overshadowed by both the creation of the welfare state and the enthusiasm for change in the mid and late 1960s, it has been assumed that there was little development in statutory welfare for disabled people in this period.1 There has also been little investigation of the idea that the state, the House of Commons, the media or the Conservative governments did not ‘discover’ disabled people until the mid-1960s. This was a period of ‘promotional welfare’ – statutory services for disabled people were to promote a disabled person’s ability to participate more fully in all aspects of life and support, not supplant non-statutory efforts.2 From the Blind Persons Act 1920, promotional welfare was to alleviate destitution with employment training, braille lessons, home visits, and if necessary, residential accommodation. The National Assistance Act 1948 expanded this focus to include disabled people, and Ministry of Health Circular 32/51 outlined a wider range of outdoor services that local authorities could offer, such as recreational opportunities, transportation and home adaptations. Promotional welfare was important to the welfare state’s division between systems of welfare and work. Full employment, the right to work and the obligation to earn the right to benefits were part of the new welfare state settlement. Local authorities were to train and rehabilitate disabled people to return to the labour force. For those unable to work, promotional welfare was to provide humane residential care and a wide range of outdoor services superior to those previously offered under the Poor Laws. Spending on welfare as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) increased in this period, and with Britain’s future industrial superiors like West Germany and Japan still recovering from the war, the overall economic climate was supportive of growing the welfare state. So, too, was the Conservatives’ commitment to full employment

50

Promotional welfare, 1948–63

and government control of a ‘stop-go’ economy. Public dissatisfaction with austerity and rationing, as well as the ideological tendency towards the beneficence of the free market and the ineffectiveness of control over the economy, did not dissuade the Conservatives from continued control and planning. And rolling back the welfare state was unlikely because of electoral consequences and the perspectives of important figures such as Harold Macmillan. The Conservatives committed first to maintenance of the welfare state, and then controlled expansion from 1957 on. In opposition during the Attlee governments, the Conservatives had attacked the high costs of health and welfare administration.3 In 1952, Rab Butler, Chancellor of the Exchequer, asked for an enquiry into the economic feasibility of the NHS. The Guillebaud Committee, headed by Claude Guillebaud, Iain Macleod’s economics tutor at Cambridge, concluded in February 1956 that NHS spending was not out of control, and that inflation and new services, not waste, were responsible for rising costs.4 In addition, the political price of rolling back the freeat-point of delivery, tax-funded NHS ensured its preservation. There was no positive retreat from spending on health and welfare in 13 years of Conservative governments. Economic growth, commitments to government control over employment and the economy, and the maintenance of the NHS did not mean an expansion in statutory welfare for disabled people, however. A strong overall economy helped maintain high employment levels, allowing Conservative governments to try to maintain a world power role as well as the welfare state, but social welfare was a low priority and subject to a tight grip on increased expenditure. Even the NHS was subject to growing Treasury hostility until 1957.5 The welfare of disabled people may have been addressed as part of the Conservative philosophy of the social services assisting only those in the greatest need, but new expenditure on such a low priority group was improbable in a period of reluctance to expand the welfare state. The Ministry of Health did not have sufficient power at Whitehall to take advantage of the overarching economic growth, nor the gradual expansion of social services as a percentage of GDP from 1957 to 1964, to try to expand PSS. The responsibility for 300,000 private and council a year was transferred from the Ministry of Health to the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in 1951, and notwithstanding responsibility for the NHS, the Minister of Health was not a Cabinet portfolio between 1952 and 1962. The Ministry of Health had greater responsibilities, and before the spotlighting of personal welfare by the Mental Health Act 1959 and Minister of Health

51

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Enoch Powell’s March 1961 ‘water tower’ speech, it was unlikely that it would seek funding aggressively for PSS.6 Social spending departments did fight the Treasury during this period, and as Hill pointed out: Still old Tory Aristocrats focused on International and Colonial Affairs. A rising young Conservative like Iain Macleod recognized the fact so few politicians were interested in social policy represented a quick route to Ministerial office. Once in office, politicians like Macmillan, Macleod, and Eccles saw themselves as Champions of their own department, with reputations to make by advancing social policy.7 Macleod did not choose to attempt to advance the welfare of disabled people, despite his personal and family experience with disability.8 Shortly after his appointment, his wife was hospitalised with meningitis. She also had polio, and was paralysed from the waist down before making a recovery to walking with assistance. Macleod suffered from an arthritic shoulder and ankylosing spondylitis (the irreparable fusion of the vertebrae), and was never without a pillow at the Ministry of Health. The condition eventually rendered him unable to turn his neck upward or sideways.9 Notwithstanding his own chain-smoking, he was set on alerting the public to the links between smoking and lung cancer, and was critical of the unattractive and conspicuous artificial limbs provided by the Ministry. Yet Macleod, a modest junior minister, wanted to be the first Minister of Health not to pass any legislation as he thought a period of consolidation was needed. He sought for the state to create better partnerships with voluntary agencies, and was interested in particular in the newly founded Multiple Sclerosis Society (MSS), the Family Planning Association and the League of Hospitals Friends, especially through his wife’s involvement.10 In the early 1950s, the Ministry of Health and the Conservative Research Department (CRD) did not want to attempt new PSS legislation because major reform of local government was expected.11 It was also unlikely that a Minister of Health would choose to fight the Treasury for a low priority group with little public or political capital. There was genuine humanitarian concern and the belief that the state would increasingly take on the welfare of disabled people at some indeterminate future time. There was also the view that both statutory welfare and control of the economy supported private enterprise.12

52

Promotional welfare, 1948–63

That said, however, economic stringency and other convictions made new statutory provision for disabled people unlikely. There was a widespread belief that formal and informal non-statutory welfare was more desirable and that the focus should be on employment for all disabled people in time of labour shortages. Many also thought, as did Macleod, that the welfare state needed to be left alone to work effectively.13 Further, disability did not threaten individual safety or property like youth crime, nor did it yet arouse a public ‘moral panic’, like the death in 1945 of Dennis O’Neill at the hands of his abusive foster parents. British society was becoming more liberal in the 1950s, with growing opposition to the death penalty, the prospect of legalising homosexual relations in England and Wales, the move for abortion reform, and the questioning of traditional beliefs and institutions. The development in France of phenothiazines (antipsychotic drugs) and the pharmaceutical revolution allowed for more effective outpatient treatment and fuelled anti-institutional arguments.14 Yet these liberal attitudes did not alter the perception that formal and informal non-statutory welfare was appropriate for disabled people, and nor did they result in calls for the state to quickly take on a greater role in their welfare.

The shallow spot in solidarity: disabled people and the welfare state settlement Disabled people were a vital part of the war effort, as state and society came to see disabled people in terms of their utility and rehabilitation for the purposes of work. Baldwin identified the often-celebrated wartime solidarity that helped lead to the welfare state: ‘The bombing raids’ indiscriminate destruction, blighting Bloomsbury as thoroughly as Brixton, prepared the ground psychologically for a wider sharing of risk.’15 During the Blitz, however, disabled people and elderly frail people were forced from air raid shelters out onto the streets – they were seen as a logistical problem, a hazard to the health of others, and were accused of sapping the resilience of the Blitz spirit. There were shallow spots in solidarity. Disabled people were defined less by direct consideration of their situation, and more by their comparative exclusion from the welfare state settlement. Compared with other PSS groups, as well as exservicemen and the industrially injured, disabled people lacked the requisite qualifiers for significant inclusion in statutory provision at the time. In general, those whose physical impairment came not as a result of combat or industrial injury had no political profile, and no

53

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

meaningful public or emotional sentiment derived from the experience of war: in both media and public opinion, there were others who more deserved support through their wartime sacrifices. Compared with blind people, ex-servicemen and industrially injured people, disabled people also had no tradition of statutory provision before the First World War other than the Poor Law. They also had little established representation outside government, such as the NLB.16 Nor was there representation inside government and the House of Commons – take, for example, Eleanor Rathbone’s outstanding individual efforts and the Family Allowances Act 1945.17 The wartime evacuation of children and separation from their families – as well as the death of Dennis O’Neill at the hands of his abusive foster parents in 1945 – increased awareness of their welfare, and concerns about child deprivation after the dismantling of the Poor Law led to calls for new system of children’s welfare. As such, children gained an early advantage in PSS with the 1946 Curtis Committee on the Care of Children.18 The Committee’s recommendations, which were realised in the Children Act 1948, created a new programme for statutory childcare. The Committee’s most significant recommendation was the establishment of separate children’s departments in local authorities in England and Wales. The Act separated childcare and the social insurance system, recognised the need for specially trained social workers to deal with children separated from their families, and in allocating responsibility for child services to the Home Office, helped ensure the primacy of children’s concerns in comparison to other PSS groups in the 1950s and 1960s.19 It also directed a move from residential to community (foster) care, another area where children’s services improved faster than those for other PSS groups. As discussed in this chapter, concurrent discussions about disabled people had comparatively limited ambition. The National Insurance Act 1946 and the Industrial Injuries Act 1946 excluded those disabled people unable to sustain permanent full-time employment. The former introduced flat-rate benefits in exchange for flat-rate contributions, but its mandatory labour participation emphasis condemned the unsuccessful self-employed and the unemployed to lower levels of benefits or National Assistance. The Industrial Injuries Act, designed to accommodate the high risks involved in certain dangerous occupations by pooling risk, was an extension of existing tort law and workmen’s compensation that introduced six-month injury benefits, benefits thereafter based on degree of disablement instead of payments based on loss of earnings, as well as death benefits

54

Promotional welfare, 1948–63

for dependants. Medical examination assessed ‘loss of faculty’, and pensions were paid as a percentage of the full amount of disablement. The pension was also not linked to capacity to sustain employment: it was possible to have both gainful employment as well as a pension. Like disability benefits for ex-servicemen, a Constant Attendance Allowance was payable to those who required care during the day or night.20 Conversely, there was no tradition in statutory welfare or legal precedent for the welfare of disabled people to be the direct and particular concern of government. The explicit objective of the Beveridge report, on which the above-mentioned Acts were based, was a large-scale reform of the social insurance system. The labour participation bases of these schemes excluded most disabled people from the welfare state settlement.21 For disabled people without adequate National Insurance contributions, the National Assistance Board (NAB) provided cash payments. In keeping with the insurance principle, rates were set low and decreased depending on other benefits and assets, so that the claimant’s total income remained near the subsistence line as an incentive to attain employment. Additional small payments were available to those with dependents and those chronically unable to work, as well as for exceptionally debilitating conditions such as blindness or tuberculosis. Emergency and exceptional one-off payments were also made. NAB had full discretion, and effectively became the Poor Law guardians of the welfare state. This tradition carried the stigma of the Poor Law beyond 1945, and caused many disabled people not to apply for benefits for which they were entitled. For social services, the Welfare Services Act 1947 conferred responsibility on local authorities, and like the National Assistance Act 1948, carried the Poor Law tradition of localism into the welfare state. Part Three of the National Assistance Act defined the responsibilities of local authorities for the care of elderly and disabled people including blind and deaf people. It was mandatory for local authorities to provide accommodation for elderly and chronically disabled people, and temporary accommodation for those in urgent need. They were also to create services as outlined by the Minister of Health, including home visits, workshops and hostels, and the compilation of a register of disabled people in their jurisdiction. Local authorities were given the option to prepare a scheme for exercising their responsibilities and to submit it for ministerial approval. Services for disabled people continued to be the responsibility of local authorities as established by the Local Government Act 1929.

55

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Indeed, a compulsion to destroy the Poor Law dominated the forming of the Act, and distracted attention from tangible realities, including the nature and scope of services that local authorities could realistically provide.22 Little thought was given to how such goals could be achieved, or how local government should administer their duties. As evident in opinions within the Ministry of Health in the 1950s, no thought was given to how local authorities might deal with the end of the Poor Law.23 Later criticisms of Beveridge’s Voluntary action (1948) aside, one could argue that his comments on the welfare of disabled people, as well as their timing in relation to the overall settlement were, as Brown put it, ‘not the product of clear thinking on the needs of the groups they were to serve so much as the almost casual outcome of the tidying-up of the social service scene after the major reorganisation had taken place.’24 That said, Beveridge recognised the need for nonstatutory efforts and expertise to do what the state could or would not do, what today would be called building ‘social capital’.25 The needs of disabled people were dealt with under the heading ‘The needs that remain in a social service state.’ Given the circumstances of the period, Beveridge thought this an opportunity ripe for voluntarism: The physically handicapped people of Britain present a problem large in scale, distressing the degree of the suffering of individuals, and still more distressing in the deficiency of provision to alleviate suffering.... The fact that with so much legislation and so much expenditure the provision in both these fields [referring here to tuberculosis and mental illness] should be unsatisfactory is a striking illustration of the need of something beyond legislation and money for curing social ills.26 From the welfare state settlement via the 1950s to the early 1960s, formal and informal non-statutory welfare were viewed as the correct and primary contributors to the welfare of disabled people. The Attlee governments were no exception. There was no compunction about leaving those disabled people who were not exservicemen or industrially injured outside of statutory welfare other than National Assistance.27 The NLB protested that blind people could receive vastly different benefits based on the cause of loss of sight: combat, industrial injury or other.28 While blind people had privileged status among other physically disabled people, Labour rejected a general blindness allowance under the same rationale that made greater provision for disabled people improbable. Labour feared that a general

56

Promotional welfare, 1948–63

disablement allowance would betray the contributory basis of National Insurance, and subscribed to a hierarchy of deservedness among disabled people that was common at the time.29 These considerations were expressed in a 1948 Ministry of National Insurance letter to the head of the NLB: There is of course no more reason why a born-blind person should be given the same pension afforded to a war-blinded person than there would be for giving a born-crippled person the pension afforded to a war crippled person. The effect would be that every blind adult would be entitled, irrespective of means, to a pension of at least 45s [shillings] a week.30 For Labour in power, there was also no change from the opinion of the wartime government: ‘The [coalition] government decided against the payment of a handicap allowance on the ground that any such concession would clearly have to extend to all disabled persons, and this would cut at the basis of the National Insurance provision for sickness.’31 There is no extant evidence that Labour began to cost proposals for greater statutory provision until the late 1960s, but it is almost certain that statutory planners were afraid of what they would have seen as unacceptably large expenditure on a massive and unknown group. The fact that any major provision for disabled people might have been financially undesirable could not have escaped wartime planners as it did not escape concerned parties in the 1950s, or the Lloyd George governments in leaving the welfare of some 750,000 ex-servicemen from the First World War largely to philanthropic bodies.32 It is reasonable to assume that this unknown but no doubt massive cost was also the reason for Labour leaving disabled people largely to non-statutory welfare. With the future of voluntary activity in great question, the Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey 1941–43 was one of several opinions at the time stating that personal welfare should become the special territory of non-statutory agencies.33 Notwithstanding the anti-voluntary disposition of some Labour figures, the Party recognised the necessity and persistence of voluntary efforts in the postwar world.34 As with Beveridge, this was continuity with, not a great change from, welfare before the welfare state. The only legislation directly addressing the welfare of disabled people was Part Three of the National Assistance Act, and Sections 29-30 in particular.

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Sections 29-30 dealt with the functions of local authorities’ welfare services for blind, deaf and elderly people and disabled people. Section 29 stated that local authorities should exercise their powers under this section, as directed by the minister. Section 30 permitted local authorities to employ and subsidise non-statutory bodies to execute its Section 29 duties. With its interwar advances in statutory welfare and public esteem, terms for blind people were immediately made mandatory, while local authorities were encouraged to develop schemes for deaf and elderly people and disabled people in line with the permissive terms of the Blind Persons Act 1920. Section 29 merely listed a massive range of services that local authorities could offer, such as workshops, aid in marketing handicraft products, day and social centres, home helps and recreational outings. In the absence of a genuine desire to develop statutory services, the Ministry of Health may have thought that detail could fill the void. Disabled people, one of the neediest groups in an unprecedented period of expansion of statutory welfare, were relegated effectively to Part Three of the National Assistance Act. This seems strange when one considers what appeared to be ambitious wartime attitudes expressed even before victory at El Alamein and Stalingrad, as Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, said in January 1942: [The government] have decided to prepare as soon as possible comprehensive measures for the rehabilitation, training and resettlement of disabled persons generally, for the introduction as soon as possible after the end of the war … these schemes will make provisions for disabled persons of all categories, irrespective of the cause of their disability. The Minister without Portfolio and I are now engaged in consultation with the other ministers concerned, in an active investigation into the best means of carrying these decisions into effect.35 The power of Bevin and the trades unions, however, directed the terms of the Tomlinson Committee on the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of the Disabled and the subsequent Disabled Persons Employment Act 1944. Rehabilitation of disabled workers was emphasised, but only in so far as it did not compete with able-bodied workers. As such, Industrial Rehabilitation Units (IRUs) and disablement registers were established, and by 1950, 900,000 had registered.36 These programmes, however, only improved the welfare of a very small fraction of disabled people. While an examination of employment-based welfare for disabled people

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is beyond the remit of this book, it is again important to note that the welfare of disabled people in this period was often seen in terms of work because of the employment of disabled people during the war, wartime labour shortages, the need for a large workforce for postwar reconstruction, and the desire to limit social welfare expenditure.

Make do and mend: provision in services The overarching trend in the development of services from 1948 to 1964 was the move from residential to community care. The idea of community care was inherited from before the First World War by the welfare state, and from the beginning of the NHS, hospitals could only manage costs through outpatient care.37 With little direction under the National Assistance Act 1948, local authorities originally focused on residential care. A growing disenchantment with institutions and the development of interest in disabled people led to a mutually reinforcing desire for community-based care and the prevention of social exclusion. Disabled people, however, were not a priority for the Ministry of Health, and there was not yet sufficient pressure to force government to expand services. In March 1949, the Ministry’s new Advisory Council on the Welfare of Handicapped Persons was divided into four sub-committees, and the ‘Cripples Council’, as it was known, dealt with disabled people.38 The programme of study for the sub-committees comprised local authorities’ compilation and maintenance of a classified register, an advisory service, recreation and social centres, and providing household aids and amenities. Sheltered employment, home work programmes and the marketing of products created by disabled people were also mandated. Consistent with the full employment emphasis of the early 1950s, the Advisory Council was almost wholly concerned with getting disabled people into work. While responsible for studying the overall welfare of disabled people under Section 29, the Cripples Council chose to focus mostly on the day-to-day difficulties of epilepsy. The Advisory Council and the Cripples Council were later accused by Dennis Vosper, Minister of Health, of being narrow and limited in their interests.39 The Council recommended little beyond the need for the Ministry to produce a model scheme for local authorities, and to outline a range of potential services. Circular 32/51 was the product of the Cripples Council’s recommendations and the concern about the near total absence of local sheltered employment provision. Notwithstanding the very small numbers of disabled people in local-based sheltered employment, IRUs

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and Remploy in the 1950s, it was thought throughout the decade that they would employ large numbers. Only four local authorities in England and Wales had schemes of any sort before the issuing of the Circular. This indicated the Ministry’s readiness to review schemes for deaf and disabled people, encouraged cooperation with voluntary bodies because of their special knowledge and experience, and urged greater provision for blind people. Consistent with the hierarchy of welfare for all disabled people, it provided two model schemes as appendices, one for deaf people and one for disabled people, and stated that it was not mandatory to provide both. The model schemes for deaf people in Scotland, and England and Wales, were expansive lists of all things a local authority might do under Sections 29–30.40 The disabled people’s scheme was comparatively paltry, and focused solely on employment. The original recommendations of the Advisory Council included some mandatory services for all disabled people regardless of their particular disablement. An April 1949 Treasury Circular insisted that Exchequer expenditure must be economised, and that local authorities must be discouraged from additional expenditure. The Ministry of Health opted to adjust the phraseology to create emasculated versions (their emphasis) of the Council’s models, and any use of ‘all’, ‘should’ and ‘must’ were removed in subsequent substantially weaker drafts, to make the Circular vague and permissive.41 Circular 32/51, as proposed by the Advisory Council, was not radical, but it was greatly diluted by Ministry officials. There was also some reluctance from local government to include any serious provision in the Circular.42 While there were some genuine reservations about impinging on local authorities at the time, this particular decision against mandatory terms, and expenditure-based arguments against greater progress in general, were often shrouded by guaranteeing the inviolable freedoms of local government.43 Notwithstanding its permissiveness, Circular 32/51 seems to have stimulated local authorities to create schemes. Fifty-two local authorities produced schemes in 1952, and 86 out of the 146 authorities in England and Wales had done so by 1954.44 There is no extant evidence that the Ministry of Health rejected any schemes, and some were no doubt paltry or misleading about what was actually being done. Circular 32/51, however, highlighted the welfare of all disabled people, even if local authorities chose not to exercise any responsibilities. Speaking in May 1953, Macleod said it was inadequate that only one-half of local authorities had submitted schemes, and while recognising their

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strained finances and shortage of personnel, asked them to make a start in any way they could.45 By the end of 1955, 101 out of 146 local authorities had approved schemes, with an additional 10 in 1956. Many local authorities worked with voluntary organisations to organise home visits, and offered a range of services such as holidays and recreational centres, handicrafts and the marketing of handicrafts. Several offered home alterations and provided adapted vehicles. An important part of the information attained and reported on by the Ministry of Health in 1955 and 1956 was the feeling, in both local authorities and the Ministry, that these sorts of activities were only a temporary phase before greater statutory provision.46 Indeed, one gets a strong sense of this when reading documents from the period. The state would eventually take over the welfare of all disabled people, as mentioned in the Ministry of Health’s 1958 Annual Report: The voluntary societies have laid the foundations on which the state is building a scheme, which is fine in conception and should be most valuable to the community. The societies still need, however, the support of the public to enable them with their long and valuable experience to assist and, when necessary, to stimulate the state scheme in order to bring it to its full fruition. The period of transition from voluntary to State control must necessarily be a difficult one, and it is urgent that the support which has been given to societies in the past should not be withdrawn when their need is so great.47 This opinion about a great, if gradual, transition in the mixed economy of welfare for disabled people was continually mentioned in the mid and late 1950s. The 1961 Annual Report said that the 1959 Younghusband report ‘stimulated a fresh attitude to the needs of the handicapped’, and that ‘comprehensive community care’ was the eventual objective for statutory welfare.48 The Younghusband report stressed that the welfare of vulnerable individuals within PSS groups should be viewed within their larger environment, and that the state should provide what assistance was required beyond what was provided by formal and informal voluntarism.49 Also mentioned was the need for services for disabled people to catch up those for blind and deaf people, and the new desire of local authorities to create services instead of contracting local voluntary groups.50

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Local authority schemes were made mandatory in 1960 as an attempt to release NHS hospital beds, and most local authorities already had schemes.51 By 1962, there were some statutory services for disabled people offered in nearly every locality in England and Wales. The rationale behind mandatory schemes evinces a move from residential and medical considerations of disability to those of community and social integration, as well as belief in a shift of responsibility from the voluntary sector to the state. Services for disabled people were in need of the most development compared with those for blind, deaf, elderly and homeless people, and tended to follow that for blind people: compile a register of names, make contact, offer advice and information, and provide venues for social interaction and recreation. The widespread ignorance about the prevalence of people with disabling conditions, and the functional limits they can impose, was a major factor in slow growth, however. Staff shortages, lack of local authority enthusiasm and the often-unknown number of disabled people contributed to slow development. Smaller jurisdictions such as the Isle of Ely and Isle of Anglesey offered little or nothing, with the Red Cross providing meagre services. Services in Rochdale were provided by a single welfare officer who focused on home visits and adaptations, social days and classes in crafts in conjunction with the local education department.52 More ambitious local authorities took the initiative in the absence of direction from the Ministry of Health. The Home Counties tended to have well developed programmes.53 Sheffield had work and rehabilitation centres and provided transportation. Leeds also provided free transport and focused on fighting social isolation with opportunities for meals, hairdressing and recreation.54 Durham County Council formed a local voluntary association for the welfare of disabled people.55 Nottingham had an extensive set of services for disabled people, but this was not a new development as there had been an unusually strong tradition of this from 1908.56 Two welfare officers in Coventry arranged for domiciliary care, and worked with the local housing department and city engineer’s department to create suitable accommodation. There were annual trips to the seaside, and regular social and recreational opportunities were provided by local non-statutory groups, such as the Coventry branch of the MSS. Essex developed a strong set of services through financial support and cooperation with local government and the Red Cross. For Lancashire, community work with disabled people was a major factor in moving the emphasis from administration to onthe-ground social work by 1960.57

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By 1958, it was thought that both statutory and non-statutory services were improving, and that statutory services would continue to expand, although these services only reached a small portion of disabled people in each locality. Indeed, Shah and Priestley’s biographical study has shown that some disabled people received no sort of statutory services.58 By 1964, however, there was a range of statutory services in communities where none may have existed before. There was also an emerging interest in understanding the social and functional day-to-day needs of disabled people. While chiropody services were authorised in 1959 and meals-on-wheels in 1962, there was an increasing sense in the localities of the lack of direction from central government, and a desire among local government and voluntary groups to create more vigorous and better-subscribed services.

Voluntary organisations and disabled people: a ‘golden vein’ In 1965, the Central Council for the Disabled (CCD), formerly the Central Council for the Care of Cripples (CCCC), reported to the Ministry of Health on the overall welfare of disabled people in 34 localities.59 The report aimed to present the problems facing local authorities and the role of voluntary organisations. It concluded that local authorities had done well to compile up-to-date registers, but that they did not have adequate funding and trained personnel. Local voluntary groups were also said to be doing good work, but lacked both trained and untrained personnel. The report also identified territorial variance, the need for direction from the Ministry of Health, as well as the existence of some much-needed services and an overall desire to improve and expand their range. At the national level, several non-statutory groups were concerned with the welfare of disabled people. The British Rheumatic Organisation (BRA) wrote letters to The Times expressing the need for greater consideration of how disabled people could be employed.60 The National Cripples Reform League (NCRL), later the Physically Disabled Persons League (PDPL), corresponded with the Ministry of Health and the Common Wealth Party, and made contacts with disability groups in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa and the US.61 The PDPL released a pamphlet in 1952 with ambitious suggestions for the time, including a national disability allowance to replace National Assistance for all disabled people unable to work.62 The British Epilepsy Association and the Muscular Dystrophy Association were founded in 1951 and 1954 respectively. The Spastics Society

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formed in 1963 as an amalgamation of the British Council for the Welfare of Spastics and the National Spastics Society, to promote medical research, treatment, education, employment training and the overall welfare of those 75,000 people with cerebral palsy.63 The Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled helped arrange employment training and community contacts for disabled people, and the Polio Research Fund raised funds and organised discussion seminars.64 The Spastics Society called the representation of and community services for disabled people a ‘golden vein’ for voluntary activity within the welfare state.65 In an area where the state did not intend to make great inroads, it seems that voluntary groups did not fear a loss of their traditional strengths in adaptability, freedom of direction, offering opportunities for active citizenship, and drawing attention to social need. With the welfare state settlement of the 1940s, the CCCC, as with voluntary groups in general, was initially unsure about how to proceed.66 With the establishment of the NHS, many non-statutory bodies responsible for local services for disabled people thought that their work was over, and that it would or should be assumed by the state.67 It was feared that the increasing opportunities in the public sector would entice talented young people away from voluntarism, and that the public would cease to make charitable contributions, preferring, instead, to pay taxes. Voluntarism was at odds with universality, and some postwar surveys indicated that a vast majority thought that philanthropy would become superfluous in the new welfare state. The CCCC, however, quickly found that local authorities required expertise and efforts in the absence of adequate personnel and funding. It surveyed developments of local authority provision, and submitted evidence to the Piercy Committee, as it did to the Tomlinson Committee in the 1940s. The CCCC also served as a facilitator between local government and voluntary groups, and encouraged local authorities to create or improve schemes.68 After a 1951 research trip to Copenhagen and the International Society for the Welfare of Cripples Conference in Stockholm, as well as a brief survey of progress made in the year after the release of Circular 32/51, CCCC’s development officer concluded that with the lack of direction from central government, it was only pressure from voluntary groups that made local authorities provide services.69 Nonstatutory groups, and the CCCC in particular, had a vital role in the overall welfare of disabled people and in creating awareness of their situation. There was some pressure on the government in the 1950s

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to improve services for disabled people, but it was not of the intensity and sophistication of that from the mid-1960s on. Statutory services from 1951 to 1964 moved from an emphasis on residential care and selective services to community care and services ‘to enable each handicapped person to live a life which is as nearly normal, and as full of interest and satisfaction, as his disability permits’.70 Yet services on the ground developed slowly and unevenly, as there was no guidance from the Ministry of Health on how to achieve more complete promotional welfare.

‘Discovering’ disability There was little pressure on government for greater statutory provision in the early 1950s. While there are scattered Hansard references from 1949 to 1954 dealing predominantly with Remploy, industrial rehabilitation and invalid tricycles,71 disability was scarcely mentioned in The Times, and nearly all coverage discussed employment and rehabilitation for ex-servicemen. Important changes in the perception of disabled people began in the mid and late 1950s, however, as independent enquiries and the Mental Health Act 1959 raised the profile of disabled people. There was a new and promising desire to improve the inadequate statutory welfare for disabled people under the welfare state settlement, to level up services with other groups, and to bend the contributory principle to assist disabled people as a ‘gap group’ via new provision in cash. Created in the winter of 1952–53, the Piercy Committee was designed as a Tomlinson Committee for the 1950s to review rehabilitation and resettlement in line with the NHS and recent medical advancements.72 Yet it was clear before its appointment that the Committee would examine a larger range of disability issues.73 Both the scope of enquiry and the delegates selected to the Committee concerned Rab Butler. In letters to Walter Monckton, Minister of Labour and National Service, Butler said that the Committee could not include doctors or the representatives of voluntary or philanthropic bodies, as it would no doubt ‘be full of the most ambitious and extensive plans that would embarrass ministers and the Exchequer’.74 Butler also warned that for the same reason it could not be comprised solely of civil servants from concerned departments, as Macleod wanted.75 Macleod’s proposed membership was also implausible for Monckton, as he thought it would make the Committee vulnerable to criticism both inside and outside the House of Commons.76 The eventual formula included two MPs, one TUC representative and officials from the Ministries of Education,

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Health, Labour, Pensions and National Insurance, and the Scottish Office. The view from Whitehall was that disability needed study, but analyses could not recommend new legislation or expenditure, and there was little desire for increased expenditure on disabled people in the early 1950s. Younghusband said that 1955 was the turning point for interest in social work for disabled people.77 The independent enquiries of the mid-1950s confirm a concurrent uptake of disability within government. Concerned that elderly and disabled people were taking up too many hospital beds, the Ministry of Health commissioned the Boucher report in 1954-55 as a nationwide survey of local services.78 Expressed in Ministry of Health Circulars 14/57 and 57/86, the report recommended greater local effort in providing residential care, home visits and coordination of all local domiciliary services.79 It emphasised the need for more cooperation between local government and voluntary groups, better publicising of services for elderly people, and the need to move from residential to community care.80 Seen as an uncontroversial point after the Guillebaud report, it posited that a much needed expansion of local services was made impossible by the absence of significant funding from central government. This was the first major call for an Exchequer grant to fund local authority services, and to be made available for all disabled people, regardless of particular disablement. Other independent enquiries augured well for progress in statutory welfare for disabled people. Gradual changes in perception throughout the 1950s led to independent reports, which in turn, furthered interest in local services and personal welfare. As Webster has argued: Ministerial proposals for the future development of the health service suggest that by the beginning of 1959 community care had become established as the significant priority. Direct influences accounting for the rising importance of community care are not difficult to find. The slow and intangible changes in practice and thinking amongst those responsible for serving and representing the various client groups, found expression in a plethora of official reports.81 The Exchequer increased loan sanctions for local authorities in 1956 and 1957 in response to local authorities’ requests, as identified in the Phillips report.82 The 1956 Guillebaud report recommended specifically a 50 per cent Exchequer grant for local government residential

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provision for groups under Section Three of the National Assistance Act. The 1956 Piercy report recommended a general grant for services for Section 29 groups, and emphasised the need for community-based statutory services.83 The Ministry of Health Committee formed by Vosper to study Piercy’s recommendations offered particularly forwardthinking recommendations: an Exchequer grant for local services for all groups of disabled people, a unified department of health and social services, the need to consider the changing needs of all disabled people throughout the life cycle, and how to improve the situation of disabled housewives.84 The Piercy report and the above-mentioned Ministry of Health Committee questioned the claim that meaningful progress was being made on the ground. In the 13 December 1957 House of Commons debate on the Piercy report, Labour MPs made several points about disabled people.85 Edward Evans, Labour MP for Lowestoft, pressed for mandatory terms and Exchequer funding: The National Assistance Act has been on the Statute Book since 1948. Unfortunately, at that time the obligations were not made mandatory on local authorities. They have not been made mandatory since. Succeeding Ministers of Health have not felt that the time is opportune. When we have an indictment like that from a responsible body it should make us think. No less than 30 local authorities have not submitted schemes. There is every inducement for their not doing so because there is no direct grant for these services.86 MPs offered examples of local government services, local government– voluntary collaborative projects, and eight years before DIG, ‘hard cases’ in their constituencies. ‘I have here a whole lot of these cases cited’, began Percy Collick, Labour MP for Birkenhead: They are representative of a very much larger number. Mr B is aged 55. He has been crippled with arthritis and rheumatism, particularly in his back, for a number of years. He lives with his wife in what my informant describes as a “dreadful cellar” of a condemned house for which he pays 6s a week. He receives £3 5s National Health Insurance for himself and his wife. The only supplementation they have received from the National Assistance Board was 35s for trousers and jacket. My informant says: “I am sure they

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would have been very worthy people if circumstances could have been different.” That poor soul carried his cross long enough. Since I had this report the poor man has passed away.87 Many MPs despaired at the superior services available to blind and deaf people, as expressed by Evans: The Institute of the Blind has gadgets for blind workmen, blind students, and blind housewives. The National Institute for the Deaf has illuminated bells so that a deaf man can know whether anyone is ringing his bell. There are a good many other like those and there are household gadgets as well. I wonder how many Hon Members could peel a potato with one hand? One takes a wooden block on which there are three nails, sticks the potato on, peels, and then turns the potato around.88 There were also criticisms of the absence of a Treasury official on the Piercy Committee or in the House of Commons debate. Notwithstanding some movement for change, constraint in expenditure prevented new provision in personal welfare. As Webster put it: Despite formidable backing from major independent inquiries such as the Guillebaud Committee, The Phillips Committee on the elderly, The Piercy Committee on the disabled, and the Royal Commission on mental illness, as well as mounting public indignation over the plight of the elderly, the disabled, the mentally ill and the mentally handicapped, it proved impossible to achieve a real increase in capital outlay on facilities for these groups, even in the latter part of the decade.89 Macmillan, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, slashed local health and welfare spending between 1955 and 1957 despite the protest of Robin Turton, Minister of Health. Derek Walker-Smith, Minister of Health, was also unable to attain any significant Treasury funding to fulfil the recommendations of these enquires.90 Further, Section 29 groups were not as politically well poised as housing projects to receive a similar increase in funding, even with Macmillan’s steady expansion of the NHS after the 1959 General Election. Like Circular 32/51, however,

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the Piercy Committee and report, as well as the other independent enquiries of the period, served to underscore the situation of disabled people. In general, the January 1958 resignation of Peter Thorneycroft, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and his two junior ministers, Enoch Powell and Nigel Birch, allowed social expenditure to continue to grow as a percentage of GDP. With both Parties rethinking the flat-rate insurance scheme from 1958 and the increased emphasis on planning for future spending, there was the chance of new legislation or a significant increase in funding for Section 29 groups. Further, as discussed in next chapter, the Conservatives tended to be more willing than Labour to bend the contributory principle for selective aid for those previous neglected by the welfare state. There are few resources at the Labour History Archive and Study Centre (LHA) for the 1950s and early 1960s in comparison to those at the Conservative Party Archive (CPA) over the same period. Discussion of disability and disabled people in Labour quarters may have escaped extant documentation, and it is possible that disabled people were not discussed because of faith in the success of the welfare state settlement, and the validity of contributory principle in particular. Disabled people, however, were mentioned in Tony Lynes’ condemning internal report on the state of National Assistance. Lynes identified that those disabled people on National Assistance who were not blind or suffering from tuberculosis were very likely poorer than they were before the war.91 And Richard Titmuss said that the 1959 rate of National Assistance benefits compared unfavourably with the Poor Law disregards of 1943, 1932 and 1904.92 The fear of a ‘demographic time bomb’ of increasing numbers of elderly people caused Labour to consider the subsistence needs of those on National Assistance and the definition of poverty.93 The Labour Research Department (LRD) was also aware of many foreign disablement programmes, including a full pension for disabled people and plans to end the means test in New Zealand.94 Yet there is no extant evidence the LRD planned any new provision for disabled people in their reconsiderations of superannuation and National Insurance, very likely because of unwillingness to betray the contributory principle. The Mental Health Act 1959 attracted attention to PSS in general, and disabled people indirectly. It attempted to address concerns about NHS costs by moving mentally disabled people from mental institutions into community care, although this often meant local authority residential homes.95 The Ministry of Health issued Circular 15/60 to implement the Act.

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Mandatory local services for mentally disabled people, blind and deaf people were extended by the Ministry of Health to disabled people. Following on from measures introduced after the Phillips report, local authorities were invited to submit plans for projects that would require future loan sanctions. In 1962, local authorities were asked to submit 10-year plans for the development of services. In fuelling the rebellion against institutions and its restriction of personal freedoms, the Act made a case for better outdoor services for disabled people. So, too, did the overall positive feelings associated with community care, with its mix of socially progressive connotations and sense of restoring a past golden age free from state intrusion. Peter Townsend’s The last refuge (1962), a powerful stimulant for Britain’s particular rediscovery of poverty, caused some concern before its publication. Anticipating that the book would contain criticisms of local authority homes for elderly and disabled people, the Ministry of Health immediately began to formulate Circular 11/61 in advance of its release.96 It is probable that Townsend’s May 1960 articles in The Times, revealing problems with statutory residential homes for elderly and disabled people, had become known.97 This concern manifested itself in letters to Titmuss asking for any indication of the book’s release date.98 Circular 11/61 stated that local authorities could be subject to inspections and fines at the judgement of the Ministry, and that the number of occupants should not exceed the limit in the registration certificate. The CCA, the Association of Municipal Corporations (AMC) and several local authorities pushed for more detailed standards for facilities and services in these homes, but the Ministry of Health had already decided against this when considering homes for mentally disabled people in 1959.99 There is no archival evidence to suggest that the Ministry of Health’s warning to local authorities was ever exercised, or that serious inspections were carried out, even toward the end of the period: ‘By the 1960s inspection could amount to no more than a cup of tea with matron every five years.’100 Townsend showed, in considerable detail, how the Ministry of Health’s insufficient direction had affected life in homes for Section 29 groups. These homes were often old workhouses, and The last refuge revealed that the Poor Law and its edifices – the actual and symbolic bastilles of the Poor Law – had not been felled by the welfare state: At a time when we stand perhaps on the threshold of a new era in social policy, we are in danger of being stigmatised by future generations as grudging, indifferent and parsimonious

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to those among us who are unable, because of chronic illness, disability, poverty, loss of family or inadequacy of housing, to stand up to the rigours of a competitive society. We look back in horror at some of the cruelties perpetrated in the 1860s, just as our descendants, a hundred years hence, will look back with horror at some of the cruelties we perpetrate today. Possibly the ultimate test of the quality of a free, democratic and prosperous society is to be found in the standards of freedom, democracy and prosperity enjoyed by its weakest members.101 There were only 850 welfare officers in England and Wales as local authorities had no powers to develop a general welfare service. Home helps were almost non-existent as the extent of most welfare officers’ work was to get people into residential care, even though some of those admitted could live at home. Relations between voluntary organisations and local authority homes were often tense. While people in residential homes did not live in horrific or unsanitary conditions, little was done for their social and psychological needs, and the homes were sombre and austere. Most troubling was that death had become a way of life, and that the failure to create any society of residents made individual deaths go unnoticed. For disabled people in particular, Townsend appealed for clarity in determining the roles of state residential homes and provision in cash.102 He also thought that families were the best providers for the emotional and overall welfare of the individual, and should have their efforts supported by statutory provision. As discussed in the next chapter, disabled people therefore became a major part of Britain’s rediscovery of poverty in the mid and late 1960s. In 1962, CRD’s study of social security in the Common Market mentioned the possibility of a national invalidity pension in its abject comparisons with continental welfare programmes.103 In reaction to a 1963 conference resolution, CRD studied the possibility of disabled people being included in a National Insurance scheme that would be non-contributory for groups in severe need. The idea was eventually abandoned as it was thought it would raise insurance contributions above an acceptable level.104 In 1963 and 1964, the Ministries of Pensions and National Insurance and Health began to consider new cash provision for disabled people because of mounting pressure about gap groups. Earlier calls for new provision in cash tended to be anomalous and infrequent.105 An Attendance Allowance for disabled people under National

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Insurance was considered, but not pursued under the rationale that ex-servicemen deserved more than industrially injured and disabled people; local authority services could do more for their welfare; and fear of betraying the contributory principle. Further, the option of a Constant Attendance Allowance under National Assistance would not cost less than keeping disabled people in hospital beds.106 There is evidence that the Ministry of Health was in favour of an Attendance Allowance for disabled people in the lead-up to the 1964 General Election. The group formed to consider pensions and cash benefits for PSS groups found the idea favourable as a way to target genuine and widely identifiable social need. To be seen as doing something for elderly people under the attendant care of family members in an election year was an additional incentive.107 The combination of public sympathy, pressure and the desire to selectively address genuine need did not, however, compel the Douglas-Home government to include a Constant Attendance Allowance for disabled people in their election manifesto because of the scarcity of statistics on the potential number of applicants, personnel and financial costs, and administrative complications. It is notable that the scheme considered for disabled people had the same qualifying criteria as that for ex-servicemen and industrially injured people.108 For the first time, disabled people were considered in an election year, and the lack of cash benefits compared with ex-servicemen and industrially injured people was recognised and considered for redress.

Conclusion Progress on the ground was slow. There were at least some statutory services for disabled people in every locality in England and Wales by 1962, but most of their welfare was provided informally. Families, friends, communities and self-reliance were far more important to disabled people than a welfare state that initially wanted little to do with their welfare. There was also the traditional fear and distrust of the Poor Law’s workhouses that tainted state assistance in the eyes of needy groups.109 In both continuing its traditional contributions, and adapting to the presence of newer statutory welfare efforts, voluntary efforts were vital. Further, this chapter has evinced that welfare on the ground was not a sum total game: government and voluntary bodies worked together, and as argued in the following chapters, statutory and non-statutory efforts for disabled people increased concurrently throughout the welfare state, but not always in cooperation. Disabled people were a low priority group within overall public expenditure

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on health and welfare, and other than the NHS, Ministry of Health programmes were not important at Whitehall. From the settlement of the 1940s, disabled people received little consideration as a PSS group compared with children and elderly people. There was also little non-statutory pressure to force government to act or to change the widely held perception that non-statutory welfare was desirable for disabled people. Nor was there sufficient humanitarian concern within government to shift the view of the welfare of disabled people away from economic rationality. Yet it was in this period that perceptions and ambitions began to move ahead of legislation and on-the-ground reality, and there were discernible changes beginning in the mid-1950s. The overall spotlighting of personal welfare by the enquiries of the 1950s and the Mental Health Act 1959 garnered attention indirectly for disabled people. The last refuge made a powerful argument for new provision, and disabled people were part of the growing concern about the welfare of all physically and mentally disabled people. This manifested itself in the House of Commons and the media, but interest was limited, and disability was a low priority issue compared with superannuation and institutionalism. Further, the desirability of statutory provision in cash for disabled people began to emerge in the early 1960s. The Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance addressed the idea of compensation for those out of work for extended periods because of non-industrial injury. The Douglas-Home government considered a Constant Attendance Allowance for disabled people under National Insurance in response to pressure in an election year. Disabled people were not discovered overnight at some indeterminate point in the mid-1960s, however. From the beginning of the welfare state, they were an identifiable group within both major political parties, social ministries and local government. In the longue durée of statutory welfare for disabled people, 1948–63 was an important transition period from the Poor Law, workhouse and the centuries-old concept of liable relatives to the state engaging with this increasingly discernible group. Major changes in perception, or the potential for significant policy development, did not occur in the welfare state’s first 15 years. That said, there were activities, attitudes and ideas in this period that were not inventions of the mid and late 1960s: • cash benefits beyond National Assistance emerged as an objective, and a non-contributory disability allowance was considered; • some parties were aware of international schemes;

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• there were calls for the levelling up of statutory provision for disabled people with other PSS groups, as well as ex-servicemen and industrially injured people, and personal welfare was beginning to receive more attention; • there was some pressure activity by non-statutory groups; • under the idea of promotional welfare, disability was increasingly seen as a social issue, and not solely as a medical one; • the view that the welfare of disabled people would come under the increasing responsibility of the state did exist, and grew stronger throughout the period; • those concerned with the welfare of disabled people began to envision more comprehensive plans rather than smaller and disparate types of provision. The greater intensification of these developments helped lead to the movement for change in the mid and late 1960s. Notes Sainsbury, S. (1995) ‘Disabled people and the Personal Social Services’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare: Past, present and future, London: University College London Press, pp 184-5; Borsay, A. (2004) Disability and social policy in Britain since 1750: A history of exclusion, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 189-91; Bridgen, P. and Lowe, R. (1998) Welfare policy under the Conservatives, 1951-1964: A guide to documents in the Public Records Office, London: Public Records Office, p 263; Younghusband, F.E. (1978) Social work in Britain, 1950-1975: A follow-up study, Vol 1, London: George Allen & Unwin, p 207.

1

2

Sainsbury, op cit, pp 184-7.

Boxer, A. (1996) The Conservative governments, 1951-1964, New York: Longman, p 10.

3

Timmins, N. (2001) The five giants: A biography of the welfare state (2nd edn), London: HarperCollins, pp 205-6.

4

5

Bridgen and Lowe, op cit, pp 41-50.

6

Timmins, op cit, pp 211-12.

Hill, M. (1993) The welfare state in Britain: A political history since 1945, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, p 61.

7

74

Promotional welfare, 1948–63 That said, the CRD Health and Social Services Committee, headed by Macleod and Michael Fraser, were concerned that the imposition of prescription charges in 1952 would adversely affect the circumstances of disabled people. CPA, CRD 2/30/10. Fraser to Butler, 8 February 1952; Health and Social Services Committee, 19 February 1952.

8

9

Shepherd, R. (1994) Iain Macleod: A biography, London: Pimlico, p 82.

10

See Fisher, N. (1973) Iain Macleod, London: Deutsch.

Ramsden, J. (1980) The making of Conservative Party policy: The Conservative Research Department since 1929, London: Longman, p 155.

11

Lowe, R. (2004) ‘Modernizing Britain’s welfare state: the influence of affluence, 1957-1964’, in L. Black and H. Pemberton (eds) An affluent society? Britain’s post-war ‘golden age’ revisited, Aldershot: Ashgate, p 49.

12

See, for example, CPA, CRD 2/27/12. Note on hospital service, 26 January 1951; Raison, T. (1990) Tories and the welfare state: A history of Conservative social policy since the Second World War, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp 36-7.

13

14

Timmins, op cit, pp 210-11.

Baldwin, P. (1990) The politics of social solidarity: Class bases in the European welfare state, 1875-1975, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 15-16.

15

Reiss, M. (2005) ‘Forgotten pioneers of the national protest march: the National League of the Blind’s marches to London, 1920 and 1936’, Labour History Review, vol 70, no 2, pp 133-65.

16

Pedersen, S. (1995) Family, dependence, and the origins of the welfare state: Britain and France, 1914-1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp 349-50.

17

Thane, P. (1996) Foundations of the welfare state (2nd edn), London: Longman, p 244.

18

TNA, MH 55/2636. Memorandum for the General Information of the Advisory Committee on the Health and Welfare of Handicapped Persons, April 1957. In an attempt to restore the balance of the Home Office’s ‘repressive’ and ‘non-repressive’ duties, the Committee thought that the Home Office, which had recently lost responsibility for the Factory Acts, should control child services instead of the Ministry of Health. Not only were children now under the care of a higher profile ministry than

19

75

Disability and the welfare state in Britain elderly and disabled people, but the Act’s failure to address delinquency ensured that the need to address the issue would overshadow other potential areas for reform. For example, child delinquency distracted concerned parties from the issue of child abuse until the early 1970s. Further, the report established a cautious approach to unified services at the cost of destroying existing relationships in childcare. Parker, R. (1995) ‘Child care in the personal social services’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare: Past, present and future, London: University College London Press, p 174; Gladstone, D. (1999) ‘Renegotiating the boundaries: risk and responsibility in personal welfare since 1945’, in H. Fawcett and R. Lowe (eds) Welfare policy in Britain: The road from 1945, Basingstoke: Macmillan, p 40; Means, R. and Smith, R. (1985) From Poor Law to community care: The development of welfare services for elderly people, 1939-1971, London: Croom Helm, p 130. Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance, Report of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance for the year 1963, Cmnd 2392, 1964, 3-10, 42-6.

20

See Hyde, M. (1996) ‘Fifty years of failure: employment services for disabled people in the UK’, Work, Employment and Society, vol 10, no 4, pp 683-700.

21

Brown, M. (1972) ‘The development of local authority welfare services from 1948-1965 under Part Three of the National Assistance Act 1948’, DPhil, University of Manchester, pp 16, 18, 22.

22

Local authorities, voluntary groups and the Conservatives made the same evaluation. CPA, CRD 2/31/1. Report on the problems of old people, 30 April 1951.

23

24

Brown, op cit, pp 14-15.

McKay, J. (2011) ‘Voluntary politics: the sector’s political function from Beveridge to Deakin’, in M. Oppenheimer and N. Deakin (eds) Beveridge and voluntary action in Britain and the wider British world, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp 81-2.

25

Beveridge, W. (1948) Voluntary action: A report on methods of social advance, London: George Allen & Unwin, pp 243-4. 26

MRC, MSS.154/3/SP/1/7. Note on Sickness and Unemployment Benefit, Labour Party, author unknown, undated, probably 1958.

27

LHA, GS/BLI/41. T.H. Smith [NLB] to Phillips [Secretary of the Labour Party], 24 October 1949.

28

76

Promotional welfare, 1948–63 LHA, GS/BLI/20. Smith to Phillips, 6 January 1948; LHA, GS/BLI/41. Smith to Phillips, 24 October 1949; LHA, GS/BLI/58. Smith to Phillips, 31 May 1950.

29

30

LHA, GS/BLI/58. Smith to Phillips, undated.

LHA, GS/BLI/20. National Insurance for the blind, Report made to Morgan Phillips, 6 January 1948.

31

Cohen, D. (2001) The war come home: Disabled veterans in Britain and Germany, 1914-1939, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp 4, 28-9.

32

See also Bourdillon, A.F.C. (1945) Voluntary social services: Their place in the modern state, London: Methuen, pp 29, 111.

33

Deakin, N. and Smith, J.D. (2011) ‘Labour, charity and voluntary action: the myth of hostility’, in M. Hilton and J. Mckay (eds) The ages of voluntarism: How we got to the big society, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 69-93.

34

35

377 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1942) 391-2.

Anderson, J. (2011) War, disability and rehabilitation in Britain: Soul of a nation, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p 47.

36

Webster, C. (1996) Health services since the war, Vol 2, Government and health care, the National Health Service, 1958-1979, London: HMSO, p 109.

37

The Mental Health Sub-Committee was added later. Circular 87/48 made it clear that provision for disabled people was the least priority of three original groups. The Council’s mandate was until 31 March 1957, but did not meet after the Piercy Committee began its deliberations. TNA, MH 57/515. National Assistance Act 1948, Ministry of Health Circular 87/48, 7 June 1948; Dennis Vosper to Cecil Oakes, 12 February 1957.

38

39

TNA, MH 57/515. Vosper to Oakes, 12 February 1957.

TNA, LAB 20/871. ‘Welfare services for handicapped persons other than the blind and partially sighted’, Ministry of Health Circular 32/51, 28 August 1951; ‘Welfare of the deaf, cripples, etc. Papers relating to the preparation of schemes by local authorities’, undated, 1951.

40

TNA, MH 57/500. Williams to Wilkinson, 8 March 1950; Wilkinson to Williams, 24 March 1950.

41

77

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 42

TNA, MH 57/500. CCA to Ministry of Health, 27 March 1951.

TNA, MH 57/500. Carruthers to Russell Smith [on Cripples Committee], 28 May 1951; Note on press conference at Birmingham, 25 August 1951; Note for Minister on Circular on welfare services for handicapped persons (other than the blind), 28 August 1951.

43

TNA, MH 55/2636. National Assistance Act 1948, Schemes under Section 29 for the welfare of handicapped persons of the ‘general classes’ and of the deaf and dumb, 12 June 1957.

44

‘Welfare of disabled. Authorities urged to submit schemes’, The Times, 30 May 1953.

45

Ministry of Health, Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1954, 1955, Cmd 9566; Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1955, 1956, Cmd 9857.

46

Ministry of Health, Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1958, 1959, Cmnd 806.

47

Ministry of Health, Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1961, 1962, Cmnd 1856.

48

49

Younghusband, op cit, pp 204-9.

Ibid; Ministry of Health, Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1959, 1960, Cmnd 1550.

50

TNA, MH 55/1965. Report on rehabilitation of the sick and injured (Prepared by the Standing Medical Advisory Committee for the Central Health Services Council and the Ministry of Health), July 1959.

51

52

Brown, op cit, pp 153-5, 251.

TNA, MS 55/2242. Development Officer report [Middlesex], November 1952; TNA, MS 55/1035, Development Officer report [Kent], November 1952.

53

54

TNA, MS 55/2242. Development Officer report, February-March 1958.

TNA, MS 55/2242. Meeting of Development Committee [Durham County Council], 23 January 1957.

55

78

Promotional welfare, 1948–63 TNA, LAB 20/672; Borsay, A. (2002) ‘History, power and identity’, in C. Barnes, G. Mercer and M. Oliver (eds) Disability studies today, Cambridge: Polity Press, pp 98-9.

56

57

Brown, op cit, pp 174-6, 197-200, 252, 278-9.

Shah, S. and Priestley, M. (2011) Disability and social change: Private lives and public policy, Bristol: Policy Press, p 26.

58

CCD (Central Council for the Disabled) (1965) Survey of the welfare of the handicapped, London: CCD.

59

T. Williams [Chair, BRA] and S. Nevillerolfe [Secretary-General] (1952) ‘Employment of the disabled’, The Times, 19 June; Williams, T. (1952) ‘Employment of the disabled: need for a new approach’, The Times, 27 October.

60

TNA, MH 55/1033. Copy of Honourable Secretary’s report to be delivered at First Annual Meeting of the NCRL, undated, probably February 1949; TNA, MH 55/1033. NCRL to Attlee, 14 March 1950; CWP II: 33/32/7. Bevan to NCRL, 6 September 1951.

61

Other suggestions were more research, complete local authority registers, greater education and rehabilitation programmes and access to private and public transportation. Messer, F. (1952) A charter for the physically handicapped, London: Physically Disabled Persons League.

62

‘New hope for spastics in 1965’, Southern Evening Echo, 31 December 1964; TNA, MH 154/90. Notes for meetings with officers of Spastics Society, 11 May 1965; Notes of a discussion with representatives of the Spastics Society, 11 May 1965.

63

Millard, J.B. (1970) ‘Voluntary organisations’, Rheumatology and Physical Medicine, vol 10, no 8, pp 446-8.

64

TNA, MH 154/90. Note for the Permanent Secretary’s meeting with Dr Wheeter [Spastics Society], 11 January 1966.

65

Anderson, J. (1969) A record of fifty years of service to the disabled from 1919 to 1969 by the Central Council for the Disabled, London: Central Council for the Disabled, p 35.

66

67

TNA, MH 55/1035. CCCC, Development Officers report for the year 1949.

79

Disability and the welfare state in Britain TNA, MH 55/1035. ‘Welfare services for the physically handicapped’, undated, probably November 1952.

68

69

Ibid; TNA, MH 55/1035. Development Officers report, August-September 1951.

Ministry of Health, ‘Health and welfare, the development of community care: plans for the health and welfare services of the local authorities in England and Wales’, 1963, Cmnd 1973.

70

Mobility and access were discussed in this period. Pressure from the Invalid Tricycles Association very likely caused the Conservatives to mention more vehicles for ex-servicemen with severe disabilities in their 1959 General Election Manifesto. Woods, B. and Watson, N. (2004) ‘In pursuit of standardisation: the British Ministry of Health’s model of the 8F wheelchair, 1948-1962’, Technology and Culture, vol 45, no 3, pp 540-68; CPA, CRD 2/27/19. ‘Invalid tricycles’, 6 October 1959.

71

Webster, op cit, pp 112, 117-19. Unfortunately, the absence of extant evidence on its deliberations at TNA prevents an archival investigation of the Piercy Committee.

72

73

TNA, MH 55/2158.

74

TNA, MH 55/2158. Butler to Monckton, 30 October 1952.

75

TNA, MH 55/2158. Butler to Monckton, 14 February 1953.

TNA, 55/2158. Monckton to Macleod, 29 November 1952; Monckton to Macleod, 16 January 1953.

76

77

Younghusband, op cit, p 204.

Ministry of Health (1957) Report on services available to the chronic sick and elderly, London: HMSO.

78

Local Authority Services for the Chronic Sick and Infirm, Ministry of Health Circular 14/57, 7 October 1957.

79

Parker, J. (1965) Local authority health and welfare services, London: George Allen & Unwin, p 125. 80

81

Webster, op cit, p 119.

80

Promotional welfare, 1948–63 Report of the Phillips Committee on the economic and financial problems of the provision for old age, 1954, Cmd 9333.

82

Ministry of Health (1957) Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1956, Cmnd 293.

83

TNA, MH 55/2636. Advisory Committee report on the health and welfare of handicapped persons, First Meeting, 1 May 1957; Advisory Committee report on the health and welfare of handicapped persons, Fourth Meeting, 4 December 1957.

84

85

579 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1957) 1619-713.

86

579 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1957) 1632.

87

579 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1957) 1672-3.

88

579 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1957) 1633.

Webster, C. (1988) The Health Services since the War, Vol. 1, Problems of Health Care: The National Health Service before 1957, London: HMSO, 222.

89

90

Webster (1996), op cit, p 119.

MRC, MSS.154/3/SP/1. ‘A review of National Insurance’, Labour Party Study Group on Security and Old Age, July 1960.

91

92

Titmuss, R. (1960) The irresponsible society, London: Fabian Society, pp 8-9.

MRC, MSS.154/3/SP/1. ‘Consequential effects of introducing a National Superannuation scheme: Sickness and Employment Benefit’, Labour Party Research Department Study Group on Security and Old Age, February 1958.

93

MRC, MSS.154/3/SP/1. ‘New needs in welfare’, Labour Party Research Department, March 1961.

94

Thomson, M. (1998) The problems of mental deficiency: Eugenics, democracy, and social policy in Britain c. 1870-1959, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p 295.

95

TNA, MH 154/416. ‘Registration and inspection of disabled persons’ and old persons’ homes’, 3 January 1961.

96

81

Disability and the welfare state in Britain TNA, MH 57/632; Townsend, P. (1960) ‘Too many petty restrictions’, The Times, 17 May; Townsend, P. (1960) ‘Case for greater public control’, The Times, 18 May.

97

98

TNA, MH 57/632.

99

TNA, MH 57/632; TNA, MH 57/633.

100

Sainsbury, op cit, p 187; Ministry of Health Circular 21/62, 13 September 1962.

Townsend, P. (1962) The last refuge: A survey of residential institutions and homes for the aged in England and Wales, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p 438.

101

102

Ibid, pp 95-6, 139, 233-4, 257, 342-70.

TNA, T 227/1482; CPA, CRD 1/30/20. Report on social security and the European Common Market, 21 February 1962.

103

104

CPA, CRD 2/30/17. Conference Resolution, 30 September 1963.

TNA, MH 55/1033. NCRL to Attlee, 14 March 1950; TNA, BN 103/19. Liverpool and District Disablement Advisory Committee to Ministry of Labour and National Service, 30 August 1959.

105

106

TNA, BN 103/19.

107

TNA, BN 72/177. R.S. Swift to Anthony Barber, 6 July 1964.

TNA, BN 72/177. Minutes of Sixth Meeting of Steering Committee, 10 April 1964.

108

Gorksy, M. (2012) ‘Creating the Poor Law legacy: institutional care for older people before the welfare state’, Contemporary British History, vol 26, no 4, p 449.

109

82

FOUR

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 Timeline, 1964–69 1964 October

General Election: Labour (317), Conservatives (304), Liberals (9). Peggy Herbison becomes Minister of Pensions and National Insurance.

November

The Houghton Review of Social Security begins. The Official Committee on the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped is created. IMF loan.

1965

Public expenditure continues to expand amidst balance of payment crises.

May

Megan du Boisson and Berit Thornberry found the Disablement Income Group.

December

The poor and the poorest is published, to be followed by the creation of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

1966 February

General Election: Labour (364), Conservatives (253), Liberals (12), Republican Labour (1).

Spring

After recognising poverty among workers in 1964 and 1965, the TUC begins to discover the problems facing chronically sick workers.

Summer

DIG is responsible for a series of questions in the House of Commons in which Herbison comes under unprecedented scrutiny about the lack of statutory provision for disabled people.

83

Disability and the welfare state in Britain June

Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance Working Group on cash benefits for the disabled is created.

August

Department of Social Security is created.

December

Shelter is created. Range of pressures that affected the Wilson government’s limited resources for social spending continue to increase.

1967

DIG begins to receive regular media coverage.

May

Peter Townsend’s speech, ‘The disabled in society’.

June

DIG falls into financial crisis and is rescued by £1,000 in private donations.

July

Judith Hart becomes Minister of Social Security.

November

Devaluation.

1968

Disabled people become a regular topic in the media and in the House of Commons

July

Seebohm report on PSS.

November

The DHSS is established. Richard Crossman becomes Secretary of State for Social Services.

1969 January

Crossman announces an Attendance Allowance for severely disabled people in the White Paper on Superannuation and Social Security.

May

Megan du Boisson dies.

Introduction For 15 years after their exclusion from the welfare state settlement, concern for disabled people was limited to a small number of groups and individuals. While public and parliamentary pressure began to

84

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69

develop in the late 1950s and early 1960s, their welfare was still largely considered only indirectly, via more politically expedient issues. It was in the mid-1960s when the comparatively small and latent concern broke the surface at various points in the policy-making nexus. All of the often-mentioned reasons for the discovery of PSS groups in the 1960s may have played some role in the emergence of disabled people: the influence of the American Civil Rights Movement; the waning of confidence in bureaucrats and professionals in the 1950s; the permissiveness of the 1960s and increased willingness to offer help to those whose misfortune was partly self-inflicted, such as drug abusers; a reduction in seeing traditionally marginalised groups as moral failures; and how real and perceived affluence made it more possible to address unmet need, concentrate on uncommon social and personal problems and destroy the Poor Law boundary between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor. As Paul Johnson said on his resignation as editor of New Statesman in 1970, the liberalising changes of the 1960s were tangible and undeniable: ‘We no longer terrorize homosexuals. We no longer force mothers to bring unwanted children into the world. We have made it easier to end wrecked marriages. We have begun the true liberation of women. Children by and large get a better deal.... We no longer murder by the rope.’1 This chapter suggests four reasons for the emergence of disabled people into policy decisions: powerful pressure group activity and public awareness; the proliferation of increasingly sophisticated pressure in the House of Commons; a desire within both parties to look further down the queue to selectively address need in a period of affluence; and an honest recognition of how the settlement of the 1940s had failed a large and needy portion of society. Disabled people were pervasively recognised, and it was widely and rapidly accepted that their welfare should and would increasingly come under the remit of the state. Energy and optimism accompanied Labour’s 1964 election manifesto and the new government. Much of the excitement after 13 years of Conservative rule came from Wilson’s crafted persona and comments, as described by Morgan: He offered a no-nonsense, classless style associated with modernisation and the therapeutic qualities of the application of science to government. He frequently invoked the spirit of John F. Kennedy, if not indeed of Franklin D. Roosevelt, with talk of a “new frontier” and his “first hundred days” of purposive action.2

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Notwithstanding Labour’s continual struggle against resorting to devaluation and its traditional internecine quarrelling, the ideas of national minimums and social justice expressed in the manifesto were in line with Crosland’s The future of socialism (1956) and the Party’s enduring objective of national minimums in health, welfare and education. The split in the Party during their long period in opposition had many consequences, including union problems and failure to come up with a modernisation programme, but the manifesto seemed to be in line with both revisionist thinking after Crosland, and more traditional thinking that stressed the primacy of nationalisation. There was a general agreement within Labour that the ultimate goal of statutory welfare was the alleviation of hardship and the correction of social need.3 Looking forward from 1964, and retrospectively, the Party’s overall humanitarian sentiment of 1964 to 1970 included the extension of statutory welfare to underprivileged groups. Indeed, Labour had suggested that it would create a guaranteed income state through the tax system that would eliminate the need for an application for benefits. For disability, war and industrial disability pensions were mentioned in the manifesto, probably because of TUC pressure on behalf of industrially injured workers, and like 1945, Labour had a sufficient majority after the 1966 General Election to greatly expand statutory welfare. There were some deterrents, however. The expansionary budget of 1963 augured well for increased statutory provision for the most needy, but this was undermined by balance of payments and sterling crises even before devaluation in 1967. Existing cash benefits tend to be preserved by government in such periods for fear of public opinion, but new provision in cash and services are not often introduced. Further, the pre-devaluation years did not include many cuts, but they did not bode well for disabled people because of existing priorities and competition between spending departments. The costs of public investment had also raced ahead of figures set out in the National Plan. Wilson’s tenuous minority government of 1964–66 struggled especially with limited resources for increased social spending because of growing pressure and demands that increased in intensity, sophistication and variety through the decade. Pressure groups began to use the media to deliver stinging criticisms of the inadequacy of statutory welfare through hard cases. Labour, and the government in general, had no experience in dealing with this new tactic, and only began to adapt in the early 1970s.4 ‘Newer’ groups, however, might be denied additional provision as they were seen as threats to the welfare state settlement. Spending on disabled people, a group partly outside the labour market, was difficult

86

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69

to justify as a support to increasing productivity and private enterprise, and would have been inimical to Labour’s focus on planning in line with Macmillan’s ‘new approach’. While the causes of this realisation were indigenous to different countries, the rediscovery of poverty was an international phenomenon in the early 1960s. It was the product of the growing chorus of dissenters who doubted the confidence of the 1950s in the abolition of want, as well as the redefinition of poverty from absolute to relative, and the contributions of outstanding individuals such as Peter Townsend and sociologist Vilhelm Aubert in Norway.5 In the US, it was a result of rural desertion for urban centres, especially by poor African-Americans, and the activities of the Civil Rights Movement. There was also Michael Harrington’s The other America: Poverty in the United States (1962), the ‘Great Society’ project of President Johnson, and the social focus of President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy before their assassinations.6 Britain’s rediscovery of poverty hit full stride with the publication of Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend’s The poor and the poorest (1965). It was inextricable from PSS groups now seeking greater inclusion after falling through the gaps in the settlement of the 1940s. The poor and the poorest led directly to the creation of the Child Poverty Action Group, and while it did not deal directly with disabled people, and was published after the creation of the Disablement Income Group, the treatise effectively, if not explicitly, argued for DIG, and Townsend and Abel-Smith were quick to take up DIG’s cause. In its analyses of large numbers of families, and elderly and unemployed people in need, The poor and the poorest focused the attention of government and the media on improving the situation of PSS groups.7 Richard Titmuss, Tony Lynes, Brian Abel-Smith and Peter Townsend were deliberate in trying to change the policy-making climate by exposing comfortable myths about the munificence of the welfare state with the evidence they collected in the late 1950s and early 1960s.8 More generally, the rediscovery of poverty shifted momentum from the reluctant collectivism of ‘13 wasted years’ to democratic socialism and a reduction of inequality. Disabled people were recognised, and in a very short period, became an unquestionably worthy target for new statutory provision. This chapter examines how and why this conviction came about: • In what ways did DIG, and the influence of Megan du Boisson in particular, help establish disabled people as a public and political issue?

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

• How, and why, did the TUC, Labour, the House of Commons and the media discover disabled people seemingly overnight after almost 20 years of neglect? DIG was highly influential, but were there other practical or intellectual reasons? • Was there no new provision for disabled people in the mid and late 1960s because of Labour’s fear of betraying the contributory principle, or because of financial expediency? • How did the idea of non-contributory schemes fit with Conservative priorities and convictions? • Why, and in what particular ways, did Parties within government come to see disabled people as ‘deserving’ of increased statutory welfare? Cash benefits emerged alongside services in this period. This chapter analyses the creation of the Attendance Allowance announced in the 1969 White Paper on Superannuation, and what sort of future cash schemes were being discussed in what quarters. It is the first archivalbased analysis of disabled people in the deliberations of the Seebohm Committee on the future of the social services. What role, if any, did disability issues play in the Committee’s deliberations? Alternatively, as the rediscovery of poverty brought much attention to the PSS, was disability largely or wholly ignored in favour of traditionally more esteemed and politically expedient PSS issues? By the autumn of 1964, both the intellectual climate and more tangible structures were in place for an exploration of the welfare of disabled people. Labour’s commitment to review social services and the influence of the rediscovery of poverty seemed promising. So, too, did the commitment to the continued expansion of the welfare state compared with the reluctance of the 1950s and early 1960s. There was also the focusing of attention on PSS that would begin with the appointment of the Seebohm Committee. Disabled people were discovered only to a limited extent in 1964 and 1965. Their profile as a group deprived unfairly of adequate statutory welfare was increasingly established within government, both major political parties, the House of Commons and the media from 1966. This perception was pervasive by the end of the decade – largely because of DIG.

Disablement Income Group DIG was the first organisation aspiring to speak for all disabled people. In its first three years, 1965–67, it was responsible for the emergence of disability in the media, and began to gain the support and

88

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69

collaboration of politicians from both major parties. Its direct exertions on government and individual MPs established the welfare of disabled people as an issue in the House of Commons: DIG appealed directly to individual members for support and representation in the House of Commons, informed individual members on potential questions to be raised, and sponsored amendments.9 While concerned originally with disabled housewives, DIG’s primary goal was the establishment of a non-contributory national disability income. Other goals were special allowances for those disabled people in extraordinary need, such as disabled housewives and those with severely incapacitating disabilities, and establishing both domestic and international research networks for economic and social study into disability issues. Historians of social policy often focus on central government and its process of policy-making as the actions of government in the face of social problems, as well as the creation of statutory provision, and institutions, in response, tend to attract their attention. It was the great expansion of statutory welfare in the 1940s that made social policy a dedicated area of scholarly enquiry. Many non-statutory groups emerged as part of the rediscovery of poverty, and their activities both added strength to the overall movement for change and dissolved the line between statutory and non-statutory actors and groups. Recipients of statutory welfare, as well as those who had been excluded from statutory welfare, were not passive. It was through groups such as DIG that dissatisfied parties could express frustration with unfulfilled promises and press for new and increased provision. DIG was both of and for disabled people, and it was always conscious of and determined to retain this identity. It was created by two disabled people and the three people who occupied its most powerful position of spokesman – Megan du Boisson, Mary Greaves and Peter Large – were disabled. A 1967 constitutional amendment ensured that DIG would maintain a minimum of 25 per cent disabled membership as it expanded.10 As evident in the records of the Coventry branch, however, it struggled to attract much-needed non-disabled members, especially for their donations and fundraising potential. Most local notables recruited to serve on local executives – as well as supportive MPs, including Alf Morris, DIG patron and creator of the CSDP – were disabled or had a disabled family member. As DIG expanded in the 1970s and took on increasing professional capacities as a research body and consultant for legislation, it inevitably appeared to be more intellectual and able-bodied and less ‘grass roots’ and disabled, and as with all single-issue pressure groups, support was broad and diverse. Yet it was not that non-disabled people involved with DIG had self-

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

serving motives for participation – take Townsend and Abel-Smith, for example, and the other tremendous demands on their time. Enlarged public support and membership can be a pyrrhic victory for a single-issue group as it increases the potential for personal and ideological fracturing, as well as disagreement about tactics, that can threaten the group’s unity and effectiveness. It can also threaten to dilute its founding precepts and resolve. For DIG, however, the reality was that stimulating public support was vital to its goals, and with its original objectives remaining largely unaltered between 1965 and 1975, enlarged public support was beneficial. In its early years, DIG relied greatly on donations and the proceeds of fundraising initiatives as they accounted consistently for one-half of DIG’s annual income, with other fundraising from local branches comprising an additional one-quarter.11 While there was a favourable political and social climate, and in comparison with the 1970s, there was no acute anxiety caused by foreboding economic indicators, pressure groups faced several challenges particular to the period. The Wilson governments were restricted economically, and pressure groups had to compete with one another for attention and resources. There was also competition for public and social esteem, especially in election years, with the government’s heightened sensitivity to public opinion. The study and deliberations of the Seebohm Committee, however, provided an exceptional opportunity for competing groups to influence the future of social services. Statutory welfare for disabled people was determined by the indirect affects of legislation with other foci and goals; the National Assistance Act’s 1948 myopic obsession with destroying the Poor Law and workhouses caused many disabled people to be moved into NHS chronic sick wards. Disabled people could not rely largely or wholly on the impetus of the state, but rather on the efforts of non-statutory organisations and outstanding individuals to stimulate statutory efforts. Megan du Boisson DIG was the personal response and enterprise of Megan du Boisson, a self-identified ‘disabled housewife’, who, in the early stages of multiple sclerosis, discovered the abject state of statutory welfare for disabled people. DIG was launched with a Guardian article in May 1965 appealing to interested parties to start regional chapters. Also appearing in The Scotsman, the article summoned a tremendous response, and was the impetus for Margaret Blackwood to create DIG Scotland.12

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Du Boisson was honorary spokesman, the most important position in DIG. Changes in leadership marked the major stages in DIG’s development and activities between 1965 and 1975, partly because of temporal coincidence with outside events, but also because of the position’s wide-ranging influences and duties. Du Boisson was responsible for communication between National DIG and its regional branches by way of a monthly personal newsletter, was the first to be interviewed by print media and to appear on television or radio, and the first to meet with politicians. Du Boisson, Greaves and Large all filled the role of the classic charismatic leader, and their beliefs and particular interests had a strong influence on establishing direction for DIG under their respective tenures. Du Boisson’s original preoccupations in particular determined the objectives, tactics and specific areas of contention that DIG greatly expanded on, but never abandoned. In the early days of the organisation, public and political awareness about the lot of disabled people and the insufficiency of statutory welfare was itself an end, as well as a means, to increased statutory provision. DIG almost failed the challenge of consolidation, a common problem for non-statutory groups at the time, when it fell into financial crisis in early 1967. In an extended half-page interview in The Times appealing for £1,000 needed to rescue the organisation, du Boisson unleashed her favourite arguments that would form the basis of DIG’s platform, which is worth quoting at length here: DIG’s files are crammed with cases of Dickensian poverty and wretchedness. The National Health Service seems an irrelevance, Social Security a black joke.... Look, those who can’t continue in gainful employment through no fault of their own they’re simply discarded by the state, unless you consider that some corner of a geriatric ward is “adequate provision”.... If a housewife who’s living with her husband becomes disabled, she is never entitled to apply to the Social Security, however shockingly her circumstances decline, or how badly paid her husband may be. So she may be forced into a hospital, or an approved “home”. Her children could be taken into the care of the local authority, which means that the taxpayer pays £8 per week per child. It’s almost as though there were a conspiracy to prevent her living in her own house, being a good wife and mother, and enjoying a normal as life as she can ... a man who’s completely disabled could get, under Industrial Injury Compensation, maximum benefits amounting to £20 12s 0d. Yet if he

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has exactly the same degree of disablement, and his injury is “non-industrial”, he’ll get nothing more than sickness benefit and an dependant’s allowance adding up to a grand total of £8 7s 0d.... The attitude of a society toward its handicapped members shows what its values really are. And in disability provision, even Turkey and Spain are ahead of Britain ... [take] the horrible case of one family I know in Norfolk. The mother has Disseminated Sclerosis, she’s almost completely paralysed, can’t walk, control her bladder or use her hands. She needs constant care. There are 5 children aged 14 to 3. The husband had no alternative but to give up his job to look after them all.13 This was the first time that public attention was directed to how the treatment of disabled people was perhaps the most abject failure of the welfare state. DIG always sought to appeal to common sentiments. The lack of statutory provision for disabled people was blamed for the break-up of families, the orphaning of children, and the incarceration of disabled people in hospitals. Indeed, in Ken Loach’s harrowing Cathy Come Home (1966), a film watched by 12 million, the Ward family’s descent through the cracks in the welfare state into poverty, condemned housing, dreadful statutory accommodation, homelessness and eventual dissolution begins with the husband’s injury at work. DIG also used paltry provision to shame Britain with unfavourable foreign comparison to provoke a response from nationalist affection for the welfare state. It also frequently employed troubling hard cases from local branches. Notwithstanding DIG’s excellent reputation for accurate information, it did not stick Gradgrind-like to the facts, like CPAG.14 It appealed to reason, emotion and the favourable social and intellectual currents of the period. Du Boisson’s primary goal was the establishment of a non-contributory national disability income. Other goals included targeted cash benefits for disabled people in extraordinary need, such as those with severely incapacitating disabilities and disabled housewives, and establishing domestic and international research networks for the social and economic study of disability issues. If fulfilled, these proposals would add up to the reversal of the postwar settlement’s exclusion of disabled people. Du Boisson died in a car accident on the way to DIG’s Fourth Annual General Meeting in May 1969. Notwithstanding DIG’s successes in the 1970s, records from after her death do not have the same bracing and optimistic feeling, and DIG lost its original leader and founder

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who had determined the programme and direction of the organisation. The rise of DIG under du Boisson’s tenure as spokesperson had been impressive, with DIG expanding to 26 branches between May 1965 and May 1967, and reaching 46 branches and 6,000 members by May 1969.15 DIG’s second capacity as a local advisory and representative body also expanded greatly. While successes in the House of Commons were yet to come, for the first time, disabled people were a public and political issue. DIG had achieved rapid success among pressure groups in their dealings with the media, as explained in DIG’s 1968 Annual Conference programme: Anyone familiar with the paraphernalia of the public relations world, with the inordinate amount of highpressure activity and expense which is poured into publicity campaigns, with the very healthy independence and objectivity of our press and broadcasting, cannot fail to be struck by the number of direct and indirect articles in the newspapers and radio and television programmes on the DIG theme.... How, one may ask, did DIG – a newcomer without resources and established contacts – get publicity which is the dream of any PRO [public relations officer]? Three main reasons suggest themselves. The first was the relative novelty of DIG’s appeal – a new and different organisation asking for something which is obvious when one comes to think about it. The second was the soundness of DIG’s cause and the fundamental justice of what it seeks which have commended themselves to tough realistic journalists and producers, as well as readers, listeners and viewers. The third was DIG’s voice, the voice of Megan du Boisson. In her the disabled have an advocate who, without any professional training, without any previous experience, without, initially, the detailed knowledge she now possess of our social security system, found her way direct to the Minister of Social Security, to MPs, on both sides of the House and in all parts of the UK, and to the very Heart of Fleet Street and Broadcasting House.16 DIG did not begin as a professional organisation, but was, in its early years, unusually media-savvy for a new and amateur organisation. It helped define disabled people in politics and for the public by

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highlighting paltry statutory provision in a period where the poverty of ‘gap’ groups was being rediscovered. The media Media advocacy for increased statutory welfare for disabled people began in this period, and was vital to creating the opinion that the social and economic problems that accompanied disablement could and should be alleviated by increased statutory provision. DIG-related articles often featured in The Guardian in the period, but also across the political and populist/specialist spectrums: The Times and The Sunday Times, The Sun, the Daily Mirror, The Morning Star, The Observer and the Daily Echo.17 Sporadic coverage of hard cases in The Times and the social commentary magazine New Society, as well as references to disabled people as ‘a deprived group in an affluent society’, began before DIG.18 There was also the personal story of Lady Hamilton, leader of the CCD, and her struggle with tuberculosis.19 Regular and increasing coverage of disability issues in The Times began with reports on DIG rallies, and DIG gained much supportive coverage. The description of DIG’s 1967 march to Number Ten, however, suggests that the public image of disabled people had not yet been transformed from victims to unjustly unacknowledged citizens: A long procession of the crippled, halt, lame, and maimed sailed slowly on wheel-chairs or hobbled on crutches down Whitehall yesterday afternoon, like a wounded snake, to present a petition to the Prime Minister.... More than 200 of these improbable crusaders assembled in Trafalgar Square yesterday. Crutches were stacked in litter bins and there was a brigade of parked wheel-chairs. They had come from Penzance and the Hebrides and everywhere in between. There were two men in iron lungs on wheels, another strapped to a bed like a New Testament scene.20 As offensive as this article now seems, ‘Cripples hobble to No 10’ contained elements of DIG’s publicity programme including lack of statutory provision for disabled people or any basic statistical information, and that statutory welfare for disabled people in Britain lagged behind many European countries. Covering a London march of blind people in the New Statesman, Donald Gould compared statutory welfare for disabled people and blind people with the comparatively generous cash allowances for industrially injured people.21 Calls for

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The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69

levelling up of cash benefits for all disabled people began to be a consistent media theme in this period. New Society emerged as a powerful outlet for information and advocacy, and DIG defined its particular areas for discussion about the welfare of disabled people. In the ‘Society at Work’ section, writings on the problems of disabled living, disparate statutory provision in cash for different categories of people with disabilities, and the desirability of a national disability income regularly appeared.22 Many of the arguments in support of new cash provision featured in New Society included the move from statutory residential accommodation to independent living, and how disabled people were left out of affluence more than any disadvantaged group. Tony Gould, a disabled ex-serviceman, contributed articles on hard cases.23 Selwyn Goldsmith, an architect and author of Designing for the disabled: A new paradigm (1963), a detailed design guide for special homes for disabled people, went so far as to compare statutory accommodation for disabled people in Britain, and ‘other professedly liberal societies’ like the Netherlands and the US, to those in apartheid South Africa.24 The International Year of Human Rights was 1968, and this emphasis began to figure in DIG’s appeals to various areas of government.25 DIG’s campaigning also helped lead to Jack Ashley’s July private member’s bill (Ashley, MP for Stoke-on-Trent South, was one of DIG’s vice chairmen and the first totally deaf MP), proposing the creation of a disablement advisory committee to make recommendations to the Secretary of State for Social Services. DIG championed its merits in the media throughout the year, but the exciting prospect of having a Cabinet minister informed by a disablement committee was defeated with the bill’s second reading in January 1969.26 In 1969, James Prior’s (Conservative MP for Lowestoft) unsuccessful private member’s bill received much coverage, and several editorials were highly critical of the government’s failure to support it, and the lack of statutory welfare for disabled people as the greatest group of ‘forgotten poor’.27 Prior’s bill featured frequently in the almost daily coverage of disabled people in January and February 1969. Townsend blasted Richard Crossman’s (Secretary of State for Health and Social Services) DHSS for its paucity of knowledge about disability, foreign schemes and the latest advancements in social science and social medicine.28 There were also many editorials and articles condemning Crossman’s failure to create new provision and the government’s longstanding refusal to appoint a Royal Commission on disabled people. The emergence of disabled people as a gap group worthy of public and media advocacy was largely the result of DIG’s activities. In its first

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four years, DIG was responsible for widespread public awareness of disability issues as the most important non-statutory group for providing content for radio, television and print media of disability issues. By spring 1969, DIG-related articles were being published in national and local dailies and weeklies. DIG also featured on numerous BBC radio and television programmes, including the World Service.29 It had a remarkable degree of control over media content, in both articles about disability and the organisation itself. It was also deliberate in planning press releases and associated activities in response to its own events and the release of government reports. DIG headquarters in Surrey sent detailed memoranda to local branches about what to say to local media during national events like the annual summer rally and parliamentary sit-in, and the annual October ‘Help the Disabled Week’. DIG made disability an issue, and furthered its coverage and profile as the recognised authority with expert responses. It had helped create a climate for public and political discourse about disability issues where there was none before. This was an achievement when one considers the unglamorous nature of welfare compared to other areas, and the competition for what little welfare coverage there was with groups like CPAG, whose topics had existing coverage and histories of greater political and public esteem.30 Largely because of DIG, it was in this period that disabled people began to compete with other casualties of the welfare state for public and political attention.

Remembering ‘the forgotten poor’ For the concerned parties here, the approach to disabled people was progressive, but also in keeping with the general conservatism of the welfare state. The desirability of services waned in this period with the faith in universalism and bureaucracy, and DIG helped bring the possibility of new cash provision from some indeterminate future into the foreground. Labour and the contributory principle While Labour was split between universalism and a degree of selectivity, targeted cash benefits for disabled people fited with emerging definitions of equality and social integration: redistribution through Income Support, the avoidance of institutionalism and social isolation, the removal of the stigma attached to cash benefits with the change in name to Supplementary Benefit in 1966, and integrative support for those whose physical condition distanced them from an ordinary

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level of participation in social and economic life.31 Cash benefits were also the focus of pressure groups like CPAG and DIG. Labour could ease pressure and gain presentational advantage with provision in cash. Judith Hart (Minister of Social Security) was responsible for Labour’s first engagement with the welfare of disabled people.32 Two of the five internal policy papers commissioned by Hart in autumn 1967 examined ‘the congenitally disabled’ and the possibility of an Attendance Allowance.33 A report on the future of social policy said that disabled people should receive more in the expansion of Supplementary Benefit than the more difficult to define category of ‘fatherless families’, but the contributory basis of National Insurance prevented additional provision.34 An Attendance Allowance for people with severe disabilities was recommended as it could simply be paid in addition to Supplementary Benefit without the difficulty of an insurance qualifier. The report on the Allowance, which was planned for autumn 1970 and never completed, indicates DIG’s early influence: ‘Provision of new benefits for contingencies which have already occurred is not normally a feature of an insurance scheme, but it would be impossible to exclude from eligibility for a new attendance allowance those whose need for attendance arose before 1970, when it is these very people whose plight has demanded Government action.’35 Hart also began a short-lived initiative within the Ministry to look into the possibility of creating factories to provide light work for those with partial disabilities, but it was quickly abandoned as it was pointed out that it would impinge on the responsibilities of the Ministry of Labour. Notwithstanding criticisms before and after its dismantling in 1988, the newly founded DHSS gave more power to health and social issues at Whitehall, especially as Secretary of State for Social Services was a Cabinet portfolio.36 Disability, however, was at the wrong end of the priorities table for Crossman. While Crossman relied heavily on AbelSmith as his senior adviser,37 he generally did not value non-statutory input into statutory welfare, and within the DHSS, was paranoid of civil servants conspiring against his personal goals for reform.38 He was yet to see through his prized superannuation scheme, and was far less receptive to DIG than Hart. After many unrequited overtures, he did entertain deputations from Coventry and National DIG in 1969.39 Notwithstanding the massive, frequent reports on disability provided to him by Abel-Smith, disability was not as important as other areas: DIG is not mentioned in Crossman’s 1969 engagement diary, but it contains reference to appointments with many groups concerned with personal welfare, health and employment including the Coventry Trades Union, the TUC, Coventry Cathedral Association, Coventry

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Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, societies of mentally disabled people and visits to health centres.40 DIG had occasional meetings with DHSS staff in 1968, and submitted to Crossman in advance its comments on the need for a Constant Attendance Allowance. The 1969 White Paper on Superannuation and Social Insurance was a disappointment, however, as it announced a small Attendance Allowance for people with severe disabilities on completion and analysis of the Office of Population and Census Surveys (OPCS), very likely in 1971 or 1972, and did not address the status of those chronically unable to earn such as disabled housewives and those with congenital conditions. Yet the Attendance Allowance was significant as the first divergence from the contributory principle that was necessary for a more expansive allowance to alleviate the extra costs of disabled living. There is no extant evidence to suggest that Labour Cabinets of the 1960s ever engaged in dedicated discussion about disability, but discussions about elderly people and how non-contributory cases might fit with an income guarantee scheme reveal the reluctance to betray the contributory principle.41 For a government concerned with industrial and economic growth, new provision for disabled people, a group partly outside the labour market, was not seen as a support to these objectives. Disabled people were also a new issue. There was the pending implementation of the Seebohm report and superannuation and social insurance had priority. With other spending commitments both before and after the 1967 sterling crisis, it was unlikely that the Wilson governments would take on disability in a significant way. Labour’s 1970 election manifesto, however, mentioned a Constant Attendance Allowance and an earnings-related invalidity benefit, and of particular note was the mention of disability in relation to family poverty. For Labour, disability was a problem that could be dealt with after more pressing issues. The Conservatives and selectivity The view that disabled people were a particularly needy group largely excluded from the postwar settlement existed under the Conservative governments of 1951–64. The developments in Conservative thinking in the late 1960s were ones of new expediency and strengthened conviction. For the latter, there was the definite sense that disabled people and poor elderly people were the final groups not addressed by the welfare state, and there is much evidence of this opinion in Conservative quarters.42

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Further, the persisting identification of disabled people as a group in great need fits well with the Conservative philosophy of targeting such groups in redistributive efforts, and their focus on selectivity from the early 1960s. The change of the mid and late 1960s came in the belief that central government should be responsible for at least part of the welfare of disabled people, unlike the 1950s, where most in the Party felt that it should remain the responsibility of local government, nonstatutory bodies and families and communities. From 1964 on, there is no extant evidence of opposition to the idea that the state should take on increased responsibility for the welfare of disabled people. This view was strengthened by short-term expediency in the mid and late 1960s. In 1967 and 1968, Party committees on the future of social welfare began to prepare a platform for the next election. By this time, the efforts of DIG had made disabled people a parliamentary and public issue. While some concerns were voiced about the costs of maintaining existing social welfare and funding new selective projects, none within the Party argued against some sort of future cash provision, even if only a small Attendance Allowance for the most severely disabled people.43 It is curious that the commitment in principle to increased provision for disabled people was not considered by the Advisory Committee on Policy as a way to attack a void in Labour’s social security programme as both DIG and Tory MPs in the House of Commons did with good effect. In addition to improving the welfare of an underprivileged group, it was also seen as a rear-guard action to deflect potential criticisms of future Conservative social welfare platforms.44 The Conservatives knew that there were now political consequences for not engaging with disabled people. The Conservatives were not entirely comfortable with circumventing the contributory principle to provide special allowances for disabled people and elderly poor people, but were more willing than Labour to do so in favour of some combination of selectivity and shortterm political expediency. Some Conservatives never strayed from the opinion that ex-servicemen deserved greater provision for their wartime sacrifices than industrially injured people or disabled people.45 Indeed, Keith Joseph (Secretary of State for Health and Social Services) expressed this opinion to an angry DIG town hall meeting in 1971.46 Yet in the late 1960s, moved most likely by the highlighting of this inequality by DIG, many Conservatives began to think that the levelling up of provision for disabled people with that of industrially injured people was a just correction of the postwar settlement. This may also have been because the Conservatives, unlike Labour, had comparatively little fear of offending the TUC. It is reasonable to

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think that a Conservative social welfare reappraisal at this time would revisit the possibility of a disability pension, as discussed in the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance shortly before the Party lost the 1964 General Election. Trades Union Congress As part of the corporate state, study of the TUC in addition to central government and DIG affords better coverage of the full landscape of policy formation. Trade unions operate independently as distinct entities and collectively through the TUC, with the General Council the most powerful component. Policy committees advise the General Council, and send their own people to meet with ministers. The TUC enjoyed some ubiquity as unions not only operated collectively on a national level, but independently on a local or professional basis. There was also the TUC’s symbiotic communion with Labour, and its influence in social- and economic-oriented ministries. Further, pressure groups were active in trying to win over individual and federations of producer groups such as the TUC and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI), to better exert pressure on government. It is for these reasons that the TUC was important to how the welfare of disabled people was perceived. The TUC had a long tradition of representing disabled workers under the principles of tort law and in compensation after the Workers Compensation Act 1897. Indeed, TUC pressure was partly responsible for forcing the Conservative–Liberal unionist government of 1895– 1905 to create the Act.47 Trade unionists also sat on the disablement committees of the Ministry of Labour/Employment and Productivity and local authorities. From the welfare state settlement to 1964, the TUC’s interest in disability was limited to the representation of workers’ claims under the Industrial Injuries Act 1946 and programmes for their rehabilitation. The TUC and its SIIWC (Social Insurance and Industrial Welfare Committee) in particular monitored the activities of the Ministries of Labour and Health on sheltered workshops and Remploy.48 By the mid-1960s, the TUC had sufficient influence to make disabled people into a serious issue. There was the steadily increasing numbers of union members in the 1950s, strike action from 1957 onwards – especially after the 1960 strike revived Labour’s need for some union agreement on incomes and industrial policy at a time when industry needed modernisation – and the Conservatives’ new attitude toward unions, as expressed in their 1964 and 1966 election manifestos.49

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There was also the recent softening of anti-union attitudes as apparent earlier in the popularity of the films I’m Alright Jack (1959) and The Angry Silence (1960). Like Labour, the TUC began a programme of self-education about the welfare of disabled people. As is evident in House of Commons questions directed at Peggy Herbison (Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, Minister of Social Security) in May 1965, and the first mention of non-industrially injured disabled people in TUC records from 1964 and 1965, it seems that TUC took an interest as it became increasingly aware of the large numbers of people suffering from arthritis, rheumatism and chronic bronchitis.50 This concern manifested itself further in a 1965 Congress motion to ask Herbison for improved income maintenance and services for those not covered by Nsational Insurance. Herbison’s subsequent suggestion of a chronic sickness allowance at a November 1965 meeting of the Ministerial Committee of Social Services was quickly dismissed.51 Replying to the TUC in January 1966, Herbison stated that the existing terms of National Assistance provision were adequate, and that any move to include disabled people unable to work under National Insurance would unravel the contribution-based scheme. The TUC pressed further for the inclusion of non-industrially injured disabled people in the National Insurance scheme under the Industrial Injuries Act 1946, while Labour’s 1963 document, ‘New frontiers for social security’, expressed the change of attitude that prevailed under Hart’s tenure as Minister of Social Security. Rather than clinging to the position that National Assistance/Supplementary Benefit was adequate, and refusing to betray the contributory principle, Labour generally approved of the idea, and assured the TUC that disabled people were an important consideration for the Seebohm Committee.52 There is little archival evidence related to the TUC and disability in the mid and late 1960s, but extant files include early indications of two issues that would become more important in the early 1970s: the quota scheme and the state of welfare of disabled people. Affiliated unions urged the TUC to press for an increase from 3-4 per cent as a workforce quota, and to pressure Labour for tougher sanctions against employers in violation of the quota.53 Before 1964, the General Council, which was obliged to adhere to the quota as it consistently employed approximately 110 clerical and support staff, began to monitor its number of registered disabled workers every week instead of every two or three weeks, as was practised previously.54 There was also the widespread objection to the long-existing rumours that ongoing talks between employers’ associations and the

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Ministry of Labour, as well as the desire for a reduction within some government ministries, might result in a reduction of the quota to 2 per cent. Writing in 1966, the Secretary of the SIIWC stated that the overall welfare of disabled people had become a ‘constant preoccupation of the general council.’55 In a time of low unemployment, it is probable that this advocacy to assist disabled people was viewed by unions as that for a small group that did not threaten employment for able-bodied workers. Conversely, disabled people were a ‘new’ group, and there were no consequences for organised labour not taking on their cause in a more significant way. The idea and image of disabled workers also did not fit the steely self-image of the unionised industrial worker, and unions were slow to warm to non-traditional forms of labour that were not physically laborious and presented a cheap alternative to shop floor work.56 Disabled people in the House of Commons Notwithstanding the new focus on cash and more comprehensive schemes such as a national disability income, discussion of services and topics of the scattered and particular type of the 1950s continued. If one takes questions and discussions in the House of Commons as a reflection of the concerns and preoccupations of the ‘reading classes’ and the public more generally, disability’s changing profile in the House of Commons in the late 1960s is telling. In the House of Commons and several ministries in the 1960s, broader interest in disability increased simultaneously with the particular interest in cash. Concern for cash and services were not negatively related; rather, the overall take-up of disabled people as a political and policy issue led to the diversification and intensification of questions about all disability topics. Concern for disabled people in the House of Commons from 1964 to 1969 changed from curiosity to agitation. Disabled people were chanced on in 1964 and 1965 via discussions on planned increases in pensions and earnings-related sickness and unemployment benefits.57 Questions were tabled about unemployed disabled people and potential solutions. This was fundamentally unremarkable and little different from the sort of questions asked in the 1950s, but the questions of 1964 and 1965 also asked about what general categories of disabled people tended to be unemployed, and what were their most common physical conditions.58 Like the TUC, arthritis and rheumatism were discussed in relation to industrial injury compensation, and this seems to have developed curiosity about chronic disability and National Assistance expenditure. How many people on National Assistance suffered from

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The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69

debilitating physical conditions?59 What provision was there for those with chronically debilitating conditions who were not injured on the job, and how many of these people were there?60 The curiosity about chronic conditions caused by industrial injury led to a more general one about chronic conditions and unemployment. While DIG was not responsible for the beginning of discussions about disabled people in the House of Commons, it was responsible for the proliferation of the intensity, sophistication and volume of written and oral questions. Disabled people were rarely mentioned between December 1964 and December 1965 in questions more concerned with the aforementioned physical conditions than the idea of an entire class of non-industrially injured disabled people. DIG sought eventually to be the first organisation to represent all disabled people, but in its first year, it was concerned primarily with disabled housewives. It was responsible for a series of questions in January and February 1966 in which Norman Pentland, Under-Secretary of State for Social Services, and Douglas Houghton, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, were asked why there was no provision for the housewives of chronically injured men outside National Insurance, and why there was no ‘civilian pension’ for all disabled people regardless of the cause of their disablement.61 Increasingly critical advocacy began in earnest in the summer of 1966, and became a regular topic alongside child poverty and social welfare in general for the remainder of the decade. Disability-related questions, however, were not as frequent as questions about social security and superannuation, institutional reform in health and social welfare or the welfare of children. Yet pressure was sufficient to compel the government to begin considering some sort of new provision for disabled people. In accord with DIG’s programme, and often led by DIG patron Ashley, the government was routinely criticised for lack of quantitative information on disabled people, and the great disparity between cash benefits under the National Insurance Industrial Injuries scheme and National Assistance/Supplementary Benefit rates for Section 29 groups. Both Herbison and Hart could respond only by saying that the OPCS was still in its early stages, and that additional provision for disabled people or more particular groups was under review by the Seebohm Committee.62 It is significant that some Labour backbenchers were highly critical of their government’s lack of progress on disability provision, and as with CPAG’s ‘The poor get poorer under Labour’ campaign, this is another indication of how progressive parties were dissatisfied with the gradualist approach of the Wilson governments in social welfare. Herbison and Hart’s use of the

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OPCS’s analysis as a delaying tactic reinforces that Labour saw disabled people as a new group that could be dealt with after existing priorities in superannuation, poor elderly people and children and families. The evident changes in attitudes in the House of Commons over this period were the recognition of the social and economic difficulties of those with disabilities irrespective of the cause of disablement, and that the existence of separate schemes for those injured at work and those not was an unjust and uncorrected oversight of the settlement of the 1940s. The Prime Minister was among several MPs who took up the cause of a disabled constituent in need of employment.63 There is, however, some evidence that Labour ministers continued to believe that war or industrial injury was a more deserving way of becoming disabled, whether philosophically or because of concern about the great costs and complications of an unbiased national disability income.64 Notwithstanding the great break with the past, as presented by the media and others in 1970, discussion of disability in the House of Commons in this period also demonstrates the unrevolutionary nature of the CSDP as a selection of ideas offered by individuals in the mid1960s, and from the failed private members’ bills in 1968 and 1969. In addition to Ashley’s private member’s bill, there were two other major attempts to legislate for disabled people in 1968 and 1969. Gordon Campbell, MP for Moran and Nairn, and a disabled exserviceman from the Second World War, initiated a debate on 15 March 1969 regarding provision for disabled people, and revised Ashley’s bill in an attempt to make it more acceptable to government.65 The idea of a disablement commission, as advanced by DIG and others in the period, failed to get the bill past the second reading. Prior’s private member’s bill, the ‘Disabled Persons’ Pensions and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill’, proposed housing and building access regulations and the extension of the Industrial Injury Attendance Allowance to disabled people. It received strong opposition backing, and it was suggested that its terms were the sort that the Conservatives themselves would want to create, but it failed to get a second reading.66 In particular, the costly non-contributory national disability allowance caused the government to undermine it.67 Established by Ashley and Morris in 1968, the newly created All-Party Disablement Group used disability organisations to inform the House of Commons about the situation of disabled people, and is evidence of the growing curiosity about the welfare of disabled people both inside and outside Westminster. Yet compared to other areas of health and social welfare, the political and electoral consequences of not supporting new disability provision in

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the House of Commons were not strong enough to force MPs to support these bills. Questioning ‘blood money for added risks’ There was no singular change, or multiple pervasive changes, in government attitudes toward cash or services as disabled people came under the purview of four groups: the Houghton Ministerial Committees on Social Services and the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped; the Official Committee on the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped; and a Pensions and National Insurance Working Party on the possibility of an Attendance Allowance. In the mid and late 1960s, the overall increased take-up of disability issues at Whitehall was the sum total of different ministries’ and committees’ engagements with their particular concerns. The Ministry of Labour began serious investigations into violations of the Disabled Persons Employment Quota, and the Department of Education and Science was particularly concerned with the special education and the situation of disabled school leavers.68 Access issues received attention in the media,69 and Goldsmith’s widely discussed Designing for the disabled inspired much dedicated work within government toward public and household adaptations.70 The quantity and variety of records at The National Archive (TNA) from this period lends to an understanding of the diversity of government take-up. Ministerial committees The mandate of the Ministerial Committee on Social Services was the development of cash benefits for those groups that had not experienced an increased standard of living from the general rise in spending power in the 1960s. The ‘elderly, disabled people and families with children’ were to be granted ‘a fair share of prosperity’.71 Humanitarian concern for gap groups, however genuine, was tempered by more tangible and expedient concerns as apparent in the Committee’s organisational plan. The ‘chronic sick and handicapped’ were included with elderly people in a smaller interdepartmental ministerial committee that received reports from an official committee largely made up of staff from the Ministry of Health. This breakdown of duties owed much to the relatively low take-up of disabled people at the ministerial level between 1964 and 1966. This was cyclical as the relegation of the chronic sick and handicapped from the main committee was born

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out of its comparative low priority, and this led to its continued low priority status. The Ministry of Health knew that the grouping of disabled people with elderly people was a way to avoid any major engagement with disabled people, and fought unsuccessfully to have a separate body solely examine disabled people.72 The Houghton Review of the Social Services under the first Wilson government afforded little time for disabled people, and explicitly forbade the Ministerial Committee from comment on existing legislation, but this was not because of lack of recognition at the official level. It is very likely that this relative exclusion was because of Labour’s priorities, and that disabled people were seen as a threat to the contributory principle. New provision for disabled people, as championed by DIG from 1965, came too late to disrupt the Committee’s priorities of children and elderly people that had been set in the early 1960s. Yet it is significant that the need for cash benefits for disabled people had been recognised at Whitehall, and disabled people were beginning to compete with children and elderly people for statutory resources. It is also probable that the Ministerial Committee, as with the Ministry of Health in the 1950s, was aware of the poor state of local statutory services for disabled people, and did not want it to become fully known inside or outside government. With almost no exception, extant files show that the Ministerial Committee on the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped, as well as the Ministerial Committee on Social Services, were concerned exclusively with elderly people.73 Disabled people were engaged only indirectly when the Ministerial Committee on Social Services discussed the possibility of a non-contributory allowance for those on National Assistance for extended periods.74 Similarly, papers from the Ministerial Committee on the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped indicate a reluctance to accept the idea of a group of people who were continually unable to work because of a debilitating physical condition, as handwritten and typed correspondence of the Official Committee often have quotation marks around ‘chronic sick’. The only detectable change in perception came in the mere recognition of the chronic sick as a welfare category. Official committees The general terms set out for the Official Committee on the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped were vague, and its more specific terms of reference were fashioned to disallow discussion of any sort of new

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cash benefit. The Official Committee was also instructed to find ways of improving services to offset the demand for cash benefits.75 Both the creation of the separate ministerial and official committees and their terms of reference served the greater interest, particularly with the hysteria over youth crime and delinquency at the time, of protecting the primacy of the Home Office Affairs Committee and the Working Interdepartmental Committee on Children.76 Disabled people were grouped with elderly people, another group of traditionally greater esteem and concern, especially at the time because of the pressure of demographic concerns and their political power under a slender majority government. This was also before the National Plan forced the second Wilson government to try to push more elderly people into the workforce.77 The Houghton Review of Social Services had decided that disabled people would remain at the back of queue. It is difficult to resist a comparison to the similar motives for and exclusion of disabled people in the welfare state settlement. Working parties Knowing that disability was not a priority of the social services review, Houghton created a small Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance group to look into the possibility of new cash benefits. This was an admission to, and recognition of, the need for increased statutory provision for disabled people. Increasing pressure was also a motivation as Houghton directed the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance to create the group after persistent letters from du Boisson in the spring of 1966.78 The group’s mandate was to study and report on the feasibility of a highly selective cash allowance, and its creation was very likely motivated by a desire to say that the problem was being studied and no new cash provision could be created until more information was collected, as was done constantly against questions about cash benefits in the House of Commons. Scarcity of information before the release of the OPCS survey was also used in response to criticism about lack of progress at a time when it had been decided that no new major provision could be introduced until the early 1970s, after the complete of pension reform.79 The 1966 Working Party on a severe Attendance Allowance was to collect information in an attempt to ‘break the back’ of the problem of disabled people. Following du Boisson’s suggestion, the group began learning about disability provision by requesting information on Swedish schemes.80 Sweden was the basis for du Boisson’s early demands for a programme of national disability allowances. From the

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1930s, Sweden was often seen as having the most advanced social policy through William Childs’ Sweden: The middle way. In 1962, Dutch sociologist Piet Thoenes called a welfare state verzorgingsstaat, ‘a form of society characterized by a system of government care on a democratic basis, that – while maintaining a capitalist mode of production – guarantees the collective social well-being of its subjects.’ This idea gained some popularity at the time, and Thoenes’ thesis was translated into English in 1965. International observers looked often to Sweden as the ideal welfare state.81 The Swedish system was simple. As in Britain, a temporary sickness allowance of one year in Sweden was paid to individuals unable to work because of injury. After one year and the assessment of a physician, the allowance could continue to be paid if the individual was still incapacitated. If the individual was deemed chronically unable to work, he/she would be given a lifetime disability pension paid at a lower rate than the temporary disability allowance. Disabled housewives were subject to a three-level scale of incapacitation based on the ability to perform household duties. Severe incapacitation led to a full disability pension, where less serious incapacitation would be judged at one-third or two-thirds of the full rate. Those deemed at the age of 16 never able to work because of congenital disablement could also receive the lifetime pension. Claims for the disability pension in Sweden were assessed by a special committee within the National Insurance fund, including two highly qualified physicians. There were also small subsidiary allowances for constant attendance and care of disabled children. All programmes were funded by National Insurance. It is difficult to say what impact this information may have had on the Working Party as its subsequent report dealt exclusively with a severity allowance. In this area, it seems that the Swedish system of a complete helplessness attendance allowance influenced the Party. Both before and after receiving the information from Sweden, the Working Party struggled with questions of assessment, scope, a cut-off point based on level of helplessness, and whether or not there should be a flat rate or sliding scale for those receiving the allowance. In order to restrict the potentially massive and costly size of Britain’s first non-contributory disability allowance, the Working Party argued that helplessness – defined in a manner similar to Sweden as a total dependence on others ‘arising from his [sic] inability, to perform the normal functions of life’, instead of any particular physical condition – would be the qualifier. Using degree of physical disability as a measure for receiving a severity allowance, as was done with ex-servicemen and industrial injury, was difficult, as it could include those with disabling conditions who were

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able to work, and elderly pensioners whose disability was a result of ageing. The small group of ex-servicemen who qualified for the 100 per cent exceptionally severe disablement allowance included only 900 out of approximately 300,000. Similarly, for the industrial injuries scheme, the numbers were 800 out of 200,000, or 0.4 per cent.82 This was also the reasoning behind an exceptional severity allowance based on total helplessness. It was thought that a 100 per cent Constant Attendance Allowance for disabled people, if limited to an extremely small number, was the politically expedient and practical option for disabled people before more ambitious attempts at comprehensive income schemes.83 The Working Party also learned from an extraordinary 75-page A3 briefing by a Mr Sladden at the Ministry of Health. The major difficulty for the government, as expressed in this document and throughout all records of the Working Party’s deliberations, was mounting House of Commons and public pressure about disabled people at a time when cash provision for them did not fit with the greater priority of the new contribution-based scheme. It was again, in this way that a severe disability allowance was seen as the only possible option for those away from work for long periods. Despite recognition of mounting pressure, there was also the belief that excluding the great number of long-term sick was vital to the contribution-based scheme, and whether it was genuine or not, that they would benefit from improvements to National Assistance.84 Some were convinced that calls for cash provision could be assuaged by improved local services, but by January 1967, it was decided that a severe Attendance Allowance would be introduced.85 This decision was also linked to the move to undertake a longer-term project, the OPCS survey, rather than a short-term study, as requested by DIG.86 A quick survey was undesirable as it would reveal large numbers of disabled people in need, and give ammunition to DIG and other concerned parties.87 DIG contributed to the deliberations of the Working Party through 1966 and 1967, and the direct pressure brought on the Working Party in summer 1966 was amplified by the concurrent blitz in the House of Commons.88 One of DIG’s most effective presentations, and one that was becoming increasingly difficult to disagree with, was the gap in provision between an industrially injured disabled person and a disabled person not injured ‘on the job’. It is difficult to say how those in the Working Party thought about the philosophical validity of this disparity as it was viewed in an entirely practical manner: the costs of such a levelling-up would be ‘astronomical’.89 Pressure aside, there is the indication of a genuine desire to at least ‘close the gap’,90 and the

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widespread questioning of the continued paying of ‘blood money for added risks’ at the heart of the welfare state settlement.91 The Treasury urged that no allowance should be introduced. There was the explicit recognition that special provision for ex-servicemen and industrially injured people was becoming increasingly difficult to justify, and that such an allowance would meet a real social need. Yet the Treasury maintained that an allowance was inimical to an earningsrelated scheme, and that a severe Attendance Allowance was the worst sort of measure as it would give inadequate help to very few people. There was also concern that the ‘extreme narrowness’ of the measure would lead to stronger pressure for further provision from deserving but excluded disabled people, and reception for the scheme would be poor. As it was put: ‘any welcome for the scheme would be drowned out by complaints of those who got nothing from it.’ The excuse to be offered was the lack of statistics and the pending OPCS survey. The Treasury also feared the wrath of DIG as the scheme had no provision for disabled housewives.92 The terms of the scheme, as expressed in the 1969 White Paper on Superannuation and Social Insurance, included a £4/week allowance for those in need of 24-hour attendance. It is telling that the lower of two rates for Attendance Allowances for ex-servicemen and industrially injured people, paid to those who required only day or night attendance, was £4 10s. It would reach an estimated 50,000 people at a cost of £10 million plus administration. Claims were to be handled by a DHSS central board, and it was estimated that half would be rejected. Three-quarters of recipients would be over 65, and the allowance would be paid in addition to all pensions. Perhaps most notable was the inclusion of a corresponding allowance under the Supplementary Benefit scheme for the congenitally disabled without contribution records. That said, the scheme was meagre, especially when compared with the concurrent announcement of a National Insurance Invalidity Pension for those who had an adequate contribution record.93 The honest humanitarian desire to aid a disadvantaged group in a period of affluence should not go unmentioned, as expressed by H.B. Lewin of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance in his comments on the aforementioned 75-page report: In approaching this cluster of questions connected with long-term sickness there are obviously some difficult problems and priorities to sort out. If we are planning for a world in which, to quote the Chancellor of Duchy’s

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speech in the debate on February 23, “The social aim of a high-wage economy is far more than an ultimate safeguard against poverty or hardship. It is the positive maintenance of contemporary living standards throughout life against all hazards”, then it seems to me that we cannot look at these problems simply on the basis that National Assistance (even in an improved form) is a satisfactory answer.... We ought therefore not to judge possible course only according to the numbers of people it would keep off assistance, but also – perhaps even more – according to what they would do for the generality of people who had been hard hit by sickness in one form or another and were suffering a severe reduction in their standard of living as a result.94 The idea of cash benefits for disabled people was not invented in the mid and late 1960s, but this was the period when it emerged as a topic for serious enquiry and an objective at least on a par with services. Poverty was increasingly seen as relative not absolute, and as part of the welfare state’s drive toward a fairer if not more egalitarian future, this seemed to promise future cash provision as compensation for the extra costs of disabled living. Cash would both help level up the relative living standards of disabled people with non-disabled people, and redress absolute poverty.

The Seebohm Committee and report The original mandate of the Seebohm Committee was the reduction of youth crime by the creation of an efficient family service. The Seebohm report made three recommendations: the creation of local authority social services departments (SSDs) to organise the efforts and resources of social workers and to create a single door for those in need; families or individuals to be addressed by a single ‘generic’ social worker; and that local authorities should work cooperatively with formal and informal non-statutory providers to assist PSS groups. Vulnerable children were the most esteemed PSS group from the settlement of the 1940s through the 1960s. Unlike disabled and elderly people, delinquent children and problem families could be ‘prevented’ by early intervention. Troubled children and families also attracted much public attention because of the desire to protect the vulnerable, and they tended to distil the public’s fear of youth crime into a powerful force for change.

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While services for disabled and elderly people continued to develop slowly under the National Assistance Act 1948, the drive for new policy for children was more compelling and commandeered additional attention for children. The Ingelby Committee was commissioned in 1956 to study the idea of a children’s service because of mounting concerns over juvenile delinquency and problem families. The subsequent Children and Young Persons Act 1963 focused on the prevention of child abuse and family strife, and also opened the door to greater progress in the PSS, not least in how it helped mollify the Poor Law attitude against the state attempting to influence the affairs of the family. Further, in not establishing a children’s service, the Act ensured further study. The 1964 Kilbrandon report in Scotland, and the recommendations of Labour’s Longford Group through its pamphlet Crime – A challenge to us all, evinced the great anxiety about youth crime and the need for the social control function of the PSS to be strengthened against it. As such, there was less emphasis on the social assistance function of PSS for disabled and elderly people. Notwithstanding the primacy of children’s services, there was a growing sentiment that the state should assume more responsibility for the welfare of all PSS groups, and other social policy trends in the 1960s suggested that disability issues might be considered in the Committee’s reappraisal of PSS. The move away from residential accommodation meant more disabled people in the community requiring services. Disabled people, elderly people and children were part of the social integration function of PSS: there was a renewed emphasis on viewing individuals in the wider scope of family and community, and the welfare of most disabled people was provided informally. There was also the concurrent emergence of disability as a public and political issue, and the possibility that the performance of local authorities since 1948 would be put under serious scrutiny for the first time. The Committee recognised that combating the isolation of many disabled people needed increased efforts at detection before any meaningful change could take place, but it was elderly people instead who became a concern, alongside children and families. Every effort was made to justify the importance of better provision for elderly people within the mandate of a committee created to study family services: It was difficult to argue a close link between old people and family services. For the most part these were separate. The Ministry [of Health] were well aware of the need to move away from institutions, not only on social grounds

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but on the more economic grounds that geriatric wards in hospitals were much more expensive than small housing units.... The main argument was not that old people’s services were closely linked with family services. It was rather that old people’s services were not closely related to any other service.95 One would think that a desire to improve services for elderly people would lead to improved provision for disabled people, as both groups faced similar issues and challenges and were paired together under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948. Improving services for disabled people, or even making increased provision for detection services, was not a priority. What little mention there is of disability in extant files from the Committee’s deliberations contrasts sharply with the alarm about elderly people. It seems that there was a wilful ignorance to the situation of disabled people, and the desire to downplay any need for new provision makes strange reading: The two categories of patients about whom most concern was expressed are the elderly and mentally ill: the elderly because of their frailty, the fact that so many live alone and the burden on relatives which can be very heavy; and the mentally ill because they are often returned [from hospital] to the environment where they became disturbed in the first place and because their behaviour presents more problems to family and neighbours than that of the physically sick.... Although a variety of services are available for disabled and chronic sick one of the chief hazards they face seems to be the danger of being forgotten. Their plight is usually not dramatic – it is long term.96 As with the Ministerial Committee on Social Services, it seems that the Seebohm Committee also made an effort to present local services for disabled people under Section 29 as well developed.97 How can the Seebohm Committee’s seeming indifference to the welfare of disabled people be explained? Simply, the Committee’s priorities were established before disabled people became a political and policy issue. By 1967, when disabled people were receiving regular attention in the media and the House of Commons, the Committee had already completed its deliberations and the report was being drafted. If any of the Committee members had a personal interest in or experience with disability, it was not manifested in the report. The

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Committee was no doubt familiar with the pharmaceutical and medical advancements that could improve and extend the lives of disabled people, but with other commitments, disabled people were not a subject for dedicated enquiry. It is probable that it was also aware of the financial, philosophical and political consequences of recommending closing the gap between provision for disabled people with that for industrially injured people and ex-servicemen.98 It is unlikely that disability was a motivator for the creation of the DHSS. In 1967 and 1968, local authorities in England and Wales spent £43.8 million on residential accommodation for elderly disabled people, and £7.9 million on non-residential services for disabled people.99 There were only 7,096 disabled people in local residential accommodation.100 Further, available statistics from the NAB on Section 29 groups are revealing about the focus on elderly people. In 1965, 69 per cent (or 1,377,000 people) on National Assistance were elderly poor people, while disabled people made up 14 per cent (287,000).101 These figures greatly understate the large numbers of unemployed disabled people, and the Seebohm Committee must have become at least generally aware of the scope of the problem during its period of deliberation. It is probable that it was thought that a unified PSS body designed for families and elderly people would trickle down to disabled people. There was also the input of non-statutory groups.102 DIG was in its nascent stages when the Committee invited evidence from disability groups in January 1966, and may have been contacted at some unknown future date. It is probable that the Seebohm Committee’s deliberations were of only peripheral interest to DIG as cash benefits were explicitly outside the Committee’s purview, and DIG was at the time focused on direct pressure on individual MPs and media coverage.103 Unfortunately, no records survive of DIG’s submissions at TNA or the Warwick Modern Records Centre (MRC), and there is no extant evidence on how the input of other disability groups may have influenced the Committee’s thinking. It may have been that the Seebohm Committee’s decision not to engage with the issue of disabled people was partly because of a fear of costs and personnel requirements. It was in this regard that the disparity between increased provision for disabled people in a February draft of the 1968 Social Work (Scotland) Bill, and the comparatively small mention of disabled people planned for the Seebohm report, was a cause for concern. The Scottish Bill gave local authorities power to subsidise non-statutory residential accommodation for disabled and elderly people, and gave local authorities a long list of services to be

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provided, as well as temporary accommodation and cash benefits for anyone in ‘extraordinary circumstances’.104 The Seebohm Committee and Kenneth Robinson, Minister of Health, were concerned that this would lead to calls for similar provision in England and Wales.105 There were several unsuccessful attempts to have William Ross, Secretary of State for Scotland, remove Clause 12 of the bill that contained most of these new provisions. Section 10 of the Seebohm report dealt with disabled people. In a report about family services, it is not surprising that much of the discussion focused on recent improvements in the education of blind and deaf children. For disabled people, there was recognition of the efforts of voluntary groups, and the need for services to keep pace with the recent ‘prominence’ of illnesses such as multiple sclerosis and chronic bronchitis. In discussing the state of play on the ground, there was only brief mention of regional disparity. For those whose conditions were not chronic, a greater emphasis on coordination between medical practitioners and the Department of Employment and Productivity was recommended. Relegated to one sentence, permanently incapacitated disabled people were offered nothing more than the promotional welfare of the 1948 National Assistance Act: ‘For them, the greatest achievement of the social service department may be to bring some positive interest to their lives, and some relief to their families, by for example, providing occupational therapy, home helps, sitters-in, day centres or assisting with holidays.’ Many reactions to the Seebohm report were heavily critical of the absence of recommendations for increased disability provision. At the outset of the Committee’s deliberations, CCD was concerned primarily with access and household aids, the sort of smaller concerns that prevailed in the 1950s. The organisation’s reaction to the 1968 report reflects the broad change in attitudes about the desirability of significant increased statutory provision in the late 1960s. In mentioning DIG and their campaign, the tone of CCD’s comments in demanding the immediate introduction of a disability allowance is militant compared to that of three years previous. So, too, were the ambition and range of demands including better transportation and access, and criticism of the Ministry of Health’s failure to chase up laggard local authorities and to correct the ‘intolerable’ state of territorial variance. The CCD also pointed to the Committee’s demarcation between provision for elderly and disabled people.106 The absence of recommendations for new disability provision was also roundly criticised by the National Association of Probation Officers and the Institute of Social Welfare.107

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The Seebohm report has been criticised for three major failings: the weakness of its recommendations and underpinning theoretical approach; unresolved complications in the duties of specialist and nonspecialist social workers and the power of central and local government; and the peculiar methods by which it arrived at its conclusions.108 Its neglect of the welfare of disabled people is another failure. The short-term impact of unified SSDs was unfavourable for many disabled people. The overall generalisation worked to replace personnel trained in dealing with particular debilitating physical conditions with more generalised social workers.109 Further, the primacy of children’s services and the implementation of the Children and Young Persons Act 1969 continued to divert personnel and funds away from disability provision.

The disabled in society There was no new legislation for services in the mid and late 1960s with the concurrent deliberations of the Seebohm Committee and the subsequent reorganisation of the social services. Had developments on the ground at all accelerated after the slow progress of the 1950s and early 1960s? The Ministry of Health’s absentee landlordism continued to allow great territorial disparity on the ground: Southwark spent an average of £51 12s on each of its 6,040 registered disabled people, while the Isle of Wight spent 16s per person on its approximately 300 registered disabled people.110 Local residential accommodation for disabled people specifically was rare as local authorities had been preoccupied almost exclusively since 1948 with homes for elderly people. Some disabled people were housed in residential accommodation for elderly people, and public and political backlash against this led to the development of Cheshire Homes that housed 1,700 disabled people in England and Wales by 1970.111 The general rebellion against institutional segregation in the 1960s did not lead directly to the CSDP’s increased focus on non-institutional welfare – the vast majority of disabled people lived at home. The 1966 Official Committee’s report was the first major attempt to assess the situation of disabled people, and revealed much about this nebulous group. It estimated 310,000 to 1.5 million people disabled people, with the more precise number close to the upper end of the range. On the ground, there was a shortage of trained staff and social workers, and this led to an inability to detect local need. The report understated need as the Treasury edited subsequent drafts to exaggerate

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the quality and quantity of local services to allay calls for new cash benefits, and to prevent local authorities asking for increased funding.112 The report is therefore not an accurate indicator of the state of local services as of 1965. The reaction to the report within government marked an important development in the perception of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare. Unfortunately, with little extant documentation on what particular attitudes the Ministerial Committee may have had about disability, their reaction to the report is unknown. The Ministerial Committee held pensions as the priority, and felt that any disability allowance could come only after pension reform was completed.113 It seems unlikely that the report would have affected this position when one considers the later attitudes of the Seebohm Committee towards such new provision for disabled people. At the very least, however, the report brought information to the attention of the Ministerial Committee, and in so doing made a strong argument against the welfare of disabled people remaining largely outside statutory responsibility. In laying out the original mandate of the Official Committee, the Ministerial Committee expressed the view that the non-statutory agencies might be capable of assuming responsibility for the welfare of disabled people.114 The report, in conjunction with outside pressure, made this position untenable, and the observable shift is important. This was very likely the last time that a statutory body would say that the state was an inappropriate location for at least some portion of the welfare of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare. Delivered to the Royal College of Surgeons on 5 May 1967, Townsend’s speech, ‘The disabled in society’, concluded that a great disparity existed between the desire of disabled people for increased socioeconomic inclusion and the segregative practices of society.115 The ensuing 23-page pamphlet helped fill the need for reliable information on the current state of statutory provision for disabled people, as apparent in New Society through 1967 and 1968. Based on 211 respondents, the three-year research project completed by Townsend and Sainsbury at the University of Essex examined services, income, housing and employment.116 In pointing out the absence of provision for disabled housewives and the difference between a man on industrial injury benefit and a similarly incapacitated person not on industrial injury benefit, the short section on income added little to what had been expressed by DIG.117 Townsend’s discussion of services, however, is of value as a critical extra-governmental analysis of activity on the ground in the late 1960s.

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Townsend estimated that at least 1.5 million people of all ages, or 3 per cent of the population, were disabled, including 450,000 exservicemen, 200,000 through industrial injuries and 205,000 disabled people.118 These figures are inaccurate, however, as they were derived from Ministry of Health and Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance Annual Reports119 – the Ministry of Health no doubt understated the number of disabled people, and most localities had no form of detection service,120 and Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance estimates did not include those who did not receive a cash benefit. Estimates from the Ministry of Labour are similarly unreliable, as at least one-third of disabled people were not on the employment register.121 Townsend’s sample showed that the welfare of industrially injured people and disabled people were still largely the responsibility of informal care. Indeed, in his speech at the 1967 Labour Party Conference, he said that the Attendance Allowance for ex-servicemen and industrially injured people should be extended quickly to disabled people before greater reforms were introduced.122 Sixty-nine per cent of respondents were cared for by relatives, neighbours or friends, and 21 per cent received no statutory or formal voluntary assistance of any sort. Twenty per cent used voluntary organisations for social opportunities, and an additional 10 per cent for home visits. Despite voluntary and local statutory efforts, as well as the relative ease with which a social centre could be created compared with other more costly forms of provision, social centres for those who were not ex-servicemen reached only a tiny fraction of this population.123 Townsend’s thesis about social exclusion was underscored by the 15 per cent of disabled people who lived totally alone and the 33 per cent who were alone during the day. Also identified was a large latent demand for laundry services, chiropody and optical and dental provision. Statutory services, however, were not altogether absent, as 30 per cent had home helps, 13 per cent were paid regular visits by nurses, 25 per cent received regular chiropody services, nearly one-half had experienced some sort of domiciliary assistance, and 84 per cent had been visited by a welfare officer within the last 12 months. This was no doubt an improvement on the state of play assessed by the Piercy Committee in 1956, but again, it overstated the range and frequency of local statutory services as the survey was conducted exclusively in London, Middlesex and Essex. Statutory welfare prescribed different provisions according to sex. A total of 700,000 disabled people were in regular employment, but because of the demarcation of duties under the post-war settlement

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– local welfare to local authorities under the Ministry of Health and employment and training to the government’s national system – the vast numbers of recipients of local services were unemployed disabled women, while employment services were directed toward men. Despite arguments in favour of statutory provision supporting family care, statutory care in the community was often seen as undesirable because it would replace women carers of disabled people.124 Disablement registers tended to be dominated by women, while representation of employment-related hard cases by MPs on behalf of disabled constituents all involved men. It was this reality of continued isolation, unemployment and absence of provision in cash and services under the post-war settlement that led to DIG’s efforts on behalf of disabled housewives.

Conclusion There was nothing inevitable about the emergence of disabled people. The fertile liberalising mindset of the 1960s and the conviction to alleviate the comparatively poor lot of gap groups formed the backcloth to more tangible reasons for the establishment of disabled people in the policy and public minds. As Addison said in discussing ‘peace time revolutions … the comparative peace and growing prosperity of the second half of the century were more powerful solvents of tradition than the Battle of the Somme or the Blitz’.125 Driven on by groups like DIG and CPAG, the great change in perception about the welfare of needy groups was one of them. The reviews of social services and the attention paid to PSS especially were influential, but disability did not count as seriously in these reappraisals as other groups with more political and public esteem. DIG was responsible for establishing disabled people as an issue in the media and building on an emerging profile in the House of Commons. Du Boisson’s personal leadership, as well as DIG’s shrewd presentation of the stark facts about disabled people in relation to greater realities of the period, created a national disability movement out of an under-represented needy group. It was not paradoxical that central government’s neglect of disabled people and non-statutory bodies concerned with disability led to the creation of DIG. One should also not underestimate the honest curiosity about gap groups that led to the discovery of disabled people by the TUC and the House of Commons, or the genuine humanitarian desire within both parties to address the oversights of the settlement of the 1940s. As public and political pressure increased, so, too, did Labour’s take-up of

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disabled people, despite the Party’s reluctance to betray the contributory principle, and the unknown cost of a national disability income in the absence of reliable statistics. Conversely, increased statutory provision fited well with the Conservatives’ traditional emphasis on statutory welfare targeting the neediest. That said, and despite the important psychological gains of recognition and representation, disabled people did not receive new cash provision. Beveridge recognised the problems of attendant relatives, but neither the welfare state settlement, nor the Attlee governments, chose to address them.126 The Wilson governments of the 1960s were similar as the announcement of a severe Attendance Allowance in 1969 was merely a stopgap measure to appease calls for reform and to alleviate mounting pressure. The emergence of disability came too late for a government with greater priorities, and the Seebohm Committee similarly excluded disabled people. In this manner, the period was little different from the 1950s, as governments left the welfare of disabled people largely to National Assistance/Supplementary Benefit, local services and non-statutory welfare. Yet with the representative gains made by DIG and through the media, disabled people could now begin to compete with other PSS groups for statutory welfare. Provision in cash for disabled people was largely unheard of before 1965. Without subscribing to the idea of a ‘collective train’ or ‘escalator’ to equality during the welfare state, it became widely accepted in this period that some sort of cash provision was needed and desirable alongside services, and that this was an area to be dealt with after the major reorganisations of the 1960s. As part of the rediscovery of poverty, the welfare of disabled people also disproved illusions that the welfare state was universal, or that it realistically could be, even in a period of largely unquestioning commitment to its growth. Townsend said of the development of services for disabled people under Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948, ‘The Ministry of Health later spoke of steady progress and tried to reassure the public, although from the vantage point of history the attitude adopted by the department will be seen as grudging.’127 Disability services did not immediately benefit from the increased commitment to community care and the PSS in general because of the Seebohm Committee’s deliberations and report. Disability was not in the Committee’s original purview; it was formed in response to anxieties about PSS in the early 1960s – children and families, and the ‘demographic time bomb’ – and disability did not begin to become a major public issue until 1966 and 1967.

120

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69

The plight of disabled people as expressed by DIG did not catch the conscience of the country as dramatically as youth crime through Alex and his droogs in A clockwork orange128 or the industrial urban poor through Friedrich Engels and Mary Barton. Yet for the first time, and with notable rapidity, disabled people had emerged as a public and policy issue, and become accepted as a group worthy of the welfare state’s redistributive efforts. Concern for disabled people continued to develop, and began to take tangible form in the legislation of the early 1970s. Notes 1

Johnson, P. (1970) New Statesman, 26 June.

Morgan, K.O. (2001) Britain since 1945: The people’s peace (3rd edn), Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 239.

2

This may be seen as consistent with traditional Labour thinking as expressed in Tawney, R. (1931) Equality, London: George Allen & Unwin. Tawney thought that social welfare for society’s most unfortunate members could build a foundation of equality of opportunity.

3

Thane, P. (2000) ‘Labour and welfare’, in D. Tanner, P. Thane and N. Tiratsoo (eds) Labour’s first century, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 109.

4

Only in the late 1960s did the phenomenon become international through conferences and information sharing. For the contributions of European academics, including those in France, Germany and Norway, see Sinfield, A. (1968) The long-term unemployed: A comparative survey, Paris: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, pp 35-54.

5

Harrington, M. (1962) The other America: Poverty in the United States, New York: Macmillan.

6

Abel-Smith, B. and Townsend, P. (1965) The poor and the poorest: A new analysis of the Ministry of Labour’s Family Expenditure Surveys of 1953-54 and 1960, London: Bell, p 49. 7

Banting, K. (1979) Poverty, politics and policy, Britain in the 1960s, London: Macmillan, pp 69-70.

8

9

730 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1966) 4.

121

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 10

MRC, MSS.108/3/1. DIG Third Annual General Meeting, 5 October 1968.

MRC, MSS.99 Box 5 of 5. DIG and DIG Charitable Trust. Combined income and expenditure account, 12 months to 31 December 1970, undated, probably spring 1971.

11

Presented by Sue Macgregor, this programme examined the life of Megan du Boisson and her creation and building of DIG. Participants included Megan’s husband, Bill du Boisson, journalist Mary Stott, Margaret Blackwood, Berit Thornberry and Mary Greaves of DIG, Richard Crossman and Keith Joseph. Du Boisson, M. (1973) ‘A story of our time’, BBC Radio Four, 22 February, presented by Sue Macgregor.

12

The article succeeded as sufficient donations were received to save the organisation. The DIG Charitable Trust was founded to fund study into disablement issues in support of the main political wing of DIG. Charles Robinson, interview with Megan du Boisson, ‘DIG in danger’, The Times, 3 May 1967.

13

Whiteley, P.F. and Winyard, S.J. (1987) Pressure for the poor: The poverty lobby and policy making, London: Methuen, pp 32, 132; Seyd, P. (1976) ‘The Child Poverty Action Group’, Political Quarterly, vol 47, no 2, p 190. 14

MRC, MSS.108/3/1. DIG Third Annual General Meeting, 5 October 1968; MRC, MSS.108/3/2. DIG Fourth Annual General Meeting, 10 May 1969.

15

16

MRC, MSS.108/3/1. DIG Third Annual General Meeting, 5 October 1968.

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. DIG was also featured on numerous BBC radio and television programmes including the World Service, and DIG Newcastle appeared on ITV. DIG Fourth Annual General Meeting, 10 May 1969.

17

18

‘Working for the disabled’, The Times, 16 October 1964.

19

Ibid.

20

Howard, P. (1967) ‘Cripples hobble to No 10’, The Times, 31 May.

21

Gould, D. (1967) ‘Starving the sick’, New Statesman, 12 May.

See, for example, Johnston, K. (1968) ‘How to help the disabled’, New Society, 25 April.

22

122

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 Gould, T. (1966) ‘Six of the disabled’, New Society, 5 May; Gould, T. (1966) ‘The visit’, New Society, 20 October.

23

24

Goldsmith, S. (1967) ‘A village for handicapped’, New Society, 8 June.

MRC, MSS.108/3/1. DIG speech by Megan du Boisson to be delivered to the 27th Conference of Women Members of Local Government Authorities of England and Wales, 3 November 1968.

25

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. Reasons for a Disablement Advisory Committee, undated, probably between July and December 1968; Notes for members on the Disabled Persons’ Pensions and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill (Mr J.L. Prior): Second Reading, 21 February 1969, undated.

26

‘Disabled seen as forgotten poor’, The Times, 5 October 1968. Du Boisson was later credited by Crossman for the invention of this term. Du Boisson, M. (1973) ‘A story of our time’, 22 February, BBC Radio Four.

27

28

Townsend, P. (1969) ‘The disabled’, The Times, 22 January.

29

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. DIG Fourth Annual General Meeting, 10 May 1969.

Two studies of the media in the mid-1970s concluded that social policy received little media coverage compared to crime, sex and politics. In 1975, social security and welfare totalled only one-third of the social policy content that formed 3-4 per cent of content in the national press. For 1976, Golding and Middleton said that CPAG received more coverage than any other pressure group, with 5 per cent of all stories on social security and welfare. DIG also had to compete with amassing fears about pensions and a ‘demographic time bomb’. Golding, P. and Middleton, S. (1982) Images of welfare: Press and public attitudes to poverty, Oxford: Robertson, pp 59, 61, 68, 71. Mcquail, D. (1977) Analyses of newspaper content, London: HMSO, p 217.

30

Webb, A. (1980) ‘The personal social services’, in N. Bosquanet, and P. Townsend (eds) Labour and equality: A Fabian study of labour in power, 1974-79, London: Heinemann Educational, pp 280-5.

31

There is no mention of disabled people in the files of the Labour Party in this period before Hart’s tenure. A DIG delegation met with Hart some time in autumn 1967, very likely after Hart had included disability topics in the Ministry of Social Security’s interim policy papers. It is difficult to say if DIG directly, or media content influenced by DIG, generated her interest. MRC, MSS.108/3/1. DIG Third Annual General Meeting, 5 October 1968.

32

123

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 33

LHA, GS/HART/13/38. ‘The new interim strategy’, 29 November 1967.

A November 1968 Government Actuary forecast suggested that contributions for the year would be £48 million less than expected, and envisioned an uncertain future with the increasing number of pensioners. Closely related to financial constraints was the problem with justifying increased Supplementary Benefit to congenitally disabled children beginning at age 16 who had never, and could probably never, amass contributions from earnings, and adult disabled people who did not have a sufficient record of contribution. It was felt that expanding Supplementary Benefit to these groups would ‘stretch the “insurance” principle’ and ‘lead sooner rather than later to completely undermining the insurance basis of the scheme’, as it would allow other groups incapable of making earnings-related contributions – such as elderly people without National Insurance pensions and those who in 1948 were too old to enter the scheme – to stake their claim. Take, for example, the idea that a disabled child unable to work at 16 could receive benefits based on the record of their father: ‘one cannot defensibly single out those whose chronic disablement dates from childhood from the rest of the chronically disabled. And to give the generality of chronically disabled adults who are not entitled to sickness benefit on their own insurance records a right based on someone’s else’s record would destroy the insurance basis of sickness benefit and thus of the whole scheme.’ Ibid; LHA, GS/HART/13/38. Riddelsdell to Hart, 20 November 1967.

34

LHA, GS/HART/13/38. ‘Introduction of a “Constant Attendance” type of allowance in the autumn of 1970 for the “Civilian Disabled’”, Legal and administrative issues, 29 November 1967.

35

36

Hennessy, P. (2001) Whitehall (2nd edn), London: Pimlico, p 422.

Thornton, S. (2009) Richard Crossman and the welfare state: Pioneer of welfare provision and Labour politics in post-war Britain, London: I.B. Tauris, pp 167-8.

37

38

Hennessy, P. (1989) Whitehall, London: Secker & Warburg, pp 496-7.

39

MRC, MSS.108/3/1. Crossman to Guiton, 25 September 1968.

MRC, MSS.154/8/9. Pocket diary, Richard Crossman, 1969. Chronically disabled people were seldom mentioned in reports on the state of local government-run home helps, increases in sickness benefit expenditure and mental subnormality. MRC, MSS.154/3/DH/44/57-60, 124-40; 45/16-43; Abel-Smith to Crossman, undated, August 1969. The only indication of Crossman’s regard for disability was in an August 1969 memo from Abel-Smith stating that the DHSS would soon provide information on their disablement scheme and its costs. MRC, MSS.154/3/DH/46/51-4.

40

124

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 41

See TNA, CAB 134/2536.

See, for example, CPA, ACP 3/15 (68) 48. Conservative’s women’s handbook, 1969, and 1969 social services policy research department paper. As Grigg argued for 1945 to 1964, the Conservative Party Women’s Organisation cared only for issues that affected women and that were linked to non-statutory welfare. It seems that their new concern for disabled people is evidence of the widespread awareness of the group in the late 1960s. It may also have had something to do with DIG’s presentation of the disabled housewife. Grigg, F.N. (1997) ‘Spheres of influence: women in the British Conservative Party’, PhD, Harvard University, p 336.

42

CPA, ACP (67) 38. Social priorities: Report of Working Group on selectivity and private provision in the social services, 14 July 1967.

43

44

CPA, CRD 3/24/8. ‘Policy progress’, 2 August 1968.

45

CPA, CRD 4/7/84. ‘Old people: cash and care’, undated, probably July 1968.

MRC, MSS.99 Box 2 of 2. DIG meeting at Church House, Westminster, 23 June 1971, Reply to Joseph by Stewart Lyon.

46

Bartrip, P.W.J. and Burman, S. (1983) The wounded soldiers of industry: Industrial compensation policy, 1833-1897, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 199-201.

47

Remploy employed 5,714 disabled people in 1952 and 6,200 in 1960. MRC, MSS.292B/149.93/146.92/4.

48

Simpson, B. (1973) Labour unions and the party, London: George Allen & Unwin, p 114; Gilbert, D. (1996) ‘Strikes in postwar Britain’, in C. Wrigley (ed) A history of British industrial relations, 1939-1979: Industrial relations in a declining economy, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, pp 152-3.

49

50

MRC, MSS.292B/841.44/1.

51

TNA, CAB 165/278.

52

MRC, MSS.292B/149.93/5.

53

MRC, MSS.146.9/1-7.

54

MRC, MSS.292B/149.93/5.

125

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 55

TNA, AB 70/7.

Wrigley, C. (2003) British trade unionism since 1933, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p 29.

56

702 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1964) 21; 713 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1965) 2.

57

713 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1965) 69-70; 714 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1965) 217.

58

59

721 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1965) 166-7.

60

703 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1964) 1036-7.

Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1981) A charter for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, pp 82-3.

61

62

730 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1966) 1211-3.

63

TNA, LAB 43/107.

751 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1967) 1399-400; 762 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1968) 874-6.

64

65

758 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1969) 1256.

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. Notes for members on the Disabled Persons’ Pensions and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill (Mr J.L. Prior): 2nd Reading, 21 February 1969, undated.

66

TNA, CAB 151/106. Notes for ministers on the Disabled Persons’ Pensions and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill (Mr J.L. Prior): 2nd Reading, 21 February 1969, undated.

67

68

See TNA, BA 19/166; ED 50/94; HO 361/103.

Hay, R. (1967) ‘A garden for the disabled’, The Times, 23 May; Hay, R. (1967) ‘Gardening for the disabled’, The Times, 3 June; Adrian, L. (1968) ‘Wheeler deal’, Spectator, 5 April; Adrian, L. (1968) ‘Film fans’, Spectator, 5 June.

69

Even before Designing for the disabled: A new paradigm, there was a great deal of dedicated effort, both inside and outside government, to living aids and architectural design for disabled people. Some of the schemes have an astonishing level of detail,

70

126

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 such as the ‘wheelchair kitchen’ designed by CCD’s Kitchen Studies Unit. TNA, DSIR 4/3723; HLG 118/165. TNA, CAB 165/552. Ministerial Committee on Social Services, Terms of Reference, 16 November 1964.

71

72

TNA, PIN 23/448.

Further, Circular 14/65 invited submission for 5- and 10-year plans, but insisted that elderly people were the priority. Bell, K. (1965) ‘The development of community care’, Public Administration, vol 43, no 4, pp 419-36.

73

74

TNA, CAB 165/606.

75

TNA, CAB 165/419.

76

TNA, CAB 165/552.

77

TNA, CAB 165/145.

TNA, BN 103/20. P.R. Oglesby [Office of the Minister without Portfolio] to R. Dronfield [Private Secretary to the Minister of Pensions and National Insurance], 22 May 1969.

78

TNA, BN 103/20. Du Boisson to Houghton, 22 July 1966; questions to be put to the Swedish Authorities, undated, probably autumn 1966.

79

TNA, BN 103/20. Untitled [responses of Swedish authorities], undated, probably autumn 1966.

80

Childs, W. (1936) Sweden: The middle way, New York: Faber & Faber; Hupe, P.L. (1993) ‘Beyond pillarization: the (post-)welfare state in the Netherlands’, European Journal of Political Research, vol 23, no 4, pp 359-86.

81

TNA, BN 103/20. ‘Possible criteria for an allowance’, undated, probably autumn 1966.

82

TNA, AST 36/1. Hellon, N. (1967) ‘A special allowance for chronically sick and disabled people’, 15 September. 83

84

TNA, PIN 47/115. ‘The long-term sick’, 28 February 1966.

127

Disability and the welfare state in Britain TNA, BN 103/21. ‘Additional provision for long-term chronically sick and disabled people’, undated, June 1966.

85

86

TNA, BN 92/91. Du Boisson to Houghton, 11 May 1966.

87

TNA, BN 103/20. Oglesby to Dronfield, 22 June 1969.

TNA, BN 103/20. The urgency and anxiety created by DIG and parliamentary pressure are clear in correspondence. See Dronfield to Oglesby, 16 May 1969.

88

TNA, T 227/2824. ‘An attendance allowance for chronically sick and disabled people’, January 1966.

89

90

Ibid.

91

TNA, BN 103/23. Riddelsdell to Thorne [Ministry of Health], 24 August 1967.

TNA, T 227/2824. ‘An attendance allowance for chronically sick and disabled people’, 27 March 1968.

92

‘National superannuation and social insurance: proposals for earning-related and short-term invalidity pensions’, 1969, Cmnd 3883.

93

94

TNA, PIN 47/115. ‘The long-term sick’, 28 February 1966.

TNA, HO 330/169. Implementation of the Seebohm report, meeting between Home Office and Ministry of Health, 7 April 1968.

95

TNA, CAB 152/57. ‘Report on the ground on concern for those making transition from hospital or residential accommodation to community care’, 1 September 1966.

96

97

TNA, CAB 152/58.

Take the vehement response to an internal memorandum that criticised the Seebohm report for lack of cash provision for disabled people: ‘This contains a gratuitous attack on war pensions and industrial injuries preference which is outside the committee’s term of reference and with which they were not qualified to deal.’ Confidential internal summary on the Seebohm report for Committee/Departments, undated, probably autumn 1968. TNA, AST 31/40.

98

TNA, HLG 120/160. ‘Departmental responsibility’, Note by Ministry of Health, undated.

99

128

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 TNA, PREM 13/2188. ‘Departmental responsibility for social work’, Note by Ministry of Health, undated.

100

TNA, AST 31/70. Memorandum by National Assistance Board: ‘Constitution and status of Board’, undated, probably March 1968.

101

DIG was probably among the additional 62 unsolicited commentators. 779 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1969) 13. Many disability groups were consulted: British Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled (BCRD), British Epilepsy Association, British Diabetic Association, NLB, National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, National Deaf Children’s Society, British Tuberculosis Association, British Polio Association, British Association for Hard of Hearing, Royal National Institute for the Deaf, Royal National Institute for the Blind, and Royal Association in Aid of the Deaf and Dumb. TNA, AST 36/732.

102

TNA, AST 31/40. Confidential internal summary on the Seebohm report for Committee/Departments, undated, probably autumn 1968.

103

TNA, AST 31/70. National Social Work (Scotland) Bill, Print 36-37, 27 February 1968.

104

TNA, AST 31/70. Social Work (Scotland) Bill, undated, probably March 1968. It was widely accepted that popular measures of the Scottish bill would be adopted by the Seebohm Committee. ‘Social law reform for Scotland’, The Guardian, 8 March 1968.

105

106

TNA, ED 50/838. Reactions to Seebohm report, 19 December 1968.

TNA, CAB 152/45. Initial observations by the AMC, 18 December 1968; TNA, BN 29/2001. The Institute of Social Welfare, Statement of views on the Seebohm report, probably autumn 1968.

107

Lowe, R. (2005) The welfare state in Britain since 1945 (3rd edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 279-81.

108

Similar criticisms about the lack of medical specialisation in the new scheme came from the local level. Initial observations by the AMC, 18 December 1968; TNA, HLG: 120/1236. Preliminary comments on the report of the Seebohm Committee, undated, probably November 1968.

109

110

Topliss and Gould, op cit, pp 78-9.

129

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 111

CPA, CRD 2/27/19.

TNA, HLG 118/644. Meeting of Ministerial Committee on Services for the Elderly, Chronic Sick and Handicapped, 18 January 1966. See also TNA, T 270/2272.

112

113

TNA, CAB 165/419; TNA, CAB 165/606. Crossman to Hart, 17 June 1969.

114

TNA, PIN 23/448. Official Committee: Minutes of First Meeting, 8 April 1965.

Townsend, P. (1967) The disabled in society, London: Greater London Association for the Disabled, p 3.

115

The findings were detailed in Sainsbury, S. (1970) Registered as disabled, London: Bell.

116

117

Townsend (1967), op cit, pp 21-3.

118

Ibid, p 1.

Ministry of Health (1966), Annual report of the Ministry of Health for the year 1965, 1966, Cmnd 3039; Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (1966) Annual report for the year, 1965, 1966.

119

TNA, T 270/2722. This was part of the Ministry of Health’s old effort to convince the public that meaningful progress was being made under Circular 32/51. The Treasury also encouraged the Ministry to overstate what was available for services to allay calls to new cash provision.

120

Sheltered employment schemes involved only 13,700 disabled workers as late as 1978. The unemployment rate among registered disabled people was 9 per cent compared with 2 per cent nationally (The Ministry of Labour Gazette, April 1967).

121

122

Townsend, P. (1975) Sociology and social policy, London: Allen Lane, pp 301-2.

123

The Lancet, 21 March 1964, pp 659-60; Townsend (1967), op cit, p 13.

See Shanas, E., Townsend, P. and Wedderburn, D. (1968) Old people in three industrial societies, New York: Atherton.

124

See Addison, P. (2010) No turning back: The peacetime revolutions of post-war Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 2.

125

130

The emergence of disabled people, 1964–69 126

Thane, op cit, p 99.

127

Townsend (1967), op cit, p 14.

128

A. Burgess (1962) A clockwork orange, London: William Heinemann.

131

FIVE

Cinderella of the welfare state: legislation for disabled people, 1970–72 Timeline, 1970–72 1970 May

The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act is passed.

June

Election: Conservatives (330), Labour (288), Liberals (6), Others (7).

July

Iain Macleod dies. Secretary of State for Social Services Keith Joseph announces that the Constant Attendance Allowance is available to 60,000 families.

1971

Unemployment rises from 700,000 in February to near 1 million in December.

March

Barber’s first full budget announces a £560 million increase in funding for pensions and benefits.



DIG releases report revealing the abject state of British disability provision in comparison to other European countries.

May

First part of OPCS’ study of disabled people is released.

September

Invalidity Benefit, available to those with adequate National Insurance contributions, is announced.

December

Constant Attendance Allowance becomes available.

1972 January

Unemployment exceeds 1 million.

133

Disability and the welfare state in Britain March

‘Dash for Growth’ budget is introduced: public spending continues to increase.



Announcement that the Constant Attendance Allowance is to be broadened to include those needing care day or night.

April

Extended Constant Attendance Allowance and Invalidity Benefit become available.

June

DHSS completes its European report.



DIG publishes Strategy for a national disability income.

September

Media coverage of compensation for thalidomide victims begins. Cabinet begins to consider intervention.

December

Mary Greaves retires from DIG because of illness. Peter Large becomes honorary spokesman.

Introduction With major reorganisation of the social services decided, and the situation of more esteemed ‘gap groups’ examined in the 1960s, the welfare state would now address the poorest sister of solidarity. This period began with the highly publicised passage through Parliament of the CSDP 1970. As the first legislation for all disabled people, it served to raise interest in disability to an unprecedented level. The first assessments of the Act were released in 1973, and so, in this period, the Heath government was largely free from criticisms about its implementation. The period closed with the temporal coincidence of important events in the final months of 1972: a new government study group on future cash benefits for disabled people was founded; Peter Large became DIG’s honorary spokesman; and the Heath government came under intense public scrutiny about compensation for thalidomide victims. The postwar economic situation had been relatively favourable to increasing social welfare expenditure, but there were warning signs that this was in jeopardy. Inflation and unemployment began to rise in the late 1960s. There was also the trend of low industrial productivity and slow growth since the mid-1950s. Social service expenditure, however, grew annually by an average of 17.4 per cent from 1968 to

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Cinderella of the welfare state

1973, and 6.8 per cent under the Heath government.1 The Seebohm Committee’s recommendations were enacted after the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970, and PSS expenditure grew at 5 per cent per annum.2 The Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS) – established in the Cabinet Office in February 1971 to coordinate government policy across departments and to develop coherent overall strategies – encountered the faith within social departments that spending would continue to rise indefinitely. As one member put it: Programmes could go on growing at what they regarded as a ‘natural’ rate, which just happened to be wildly in excess of the rate of growth of the economy. There was a patriotic assumption either that defence cuts would provide; or that public expenditure would go on growing as a proportion of GNP; or alternatively that somehow Allah would provide.3 There were also not yet the inflationary and OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) oil crises of 1973. The welfare state still enjoyed its traditional freedom from crisis-level inflation as a deterrent to social spending, and in general, this period was part of both the ‘golden age of capitalism’ and the ‘long 1960s’, in the underpinning optimism and progressive attitudes of state and society. Despite the warning signs, this climate was conducive to ambitious plans for social welfare. The 1972 expansionary budget indicated increased social expenditure as part of growing the economy and soaking up unemployment, but the only legislation for disabled people in 1972 was the extended Constant Attendance Allowance. As will be discussed, this was such a common conclusion that study of provision for disabled people in both 1971 and 1972 focused on possibilities for 1973 and beyond. Ultimately, any future provision for disabled people would happen in a future period beginning with the 1973 spending round, when the Heath government had to make difficult decisions about priorities. New selective cash provision for disabled people fitted well with the Heath government’s philosophical and pragmatic strategy on social welfare. The Conservatives’ unprecedented dedication to thinking about social welfare while in opposition led to the conclusion that existing provision was to be maintained in the face of public pressure and electoral consequences, with new efforts targeting the neediest groups. They had committed to providing benefits beyond Supplementary Benefit for disabled people, widows whose husbands had not built enough contributions to provide them with a National

135

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

Insurance pension, and those over the age of 80 who had not had the chance to build up insurance contributions after the creation of the postwar settlement. Further, it was incontrovertible by 1970 that disabled people were a major gap in the welfare state, and they now had sufficient public and political representation to ensure that they would not be ignored. However, DIG could embarrass a government at the threshold of European integration with unfavourable comparisons to continental schemes. There was no significant study of disability in the Seebohm reconsideration of social services in the late 1960s, but this was offset partly by the 1969 Attendance Allowance: for the Heath government, a serviceable scheme had already been prepared. Similar to the Family Income Supplement (FIS), a small and selective cash benefit for disabled people did not require great expenditure and targeted genuine need.4 In comparison to formulating a superannuation scheme, a cash benefit for disabled people was simple and uncontroversial. Notwithstanding inevitable calls for greater provision, an Attendance Allowance was also politically expedient in the short term. The death of Iain Macleod was a staggering blow to the government, but it did seem to mean a less restrained approach to spending, and freed the government from Macleod’s electoral pledge to CPAG of a major increase in family allowances. Appointed to the Cabinet post he wanted, Keith Joseph (Secretary of State for Health and Social Services) was an advocate of state-funded self-help for disabled people. Some form of cash provision for disabled people would have been introduced in 1970 or 1971 without Joseph being at the DHSS, and very likely if Macleod had lived, as his comments at Selsdon Park favoured selective not universal programmes. Yet the rapidity with which the Constant Attendance Allowances were created, and the serious DHSS study of foreign disability cash benefits to plan future provision, were partly a result of Joseph’s focus on disabled people. A ‘folk hero’ at the DHSS for his policies and ability to get Exchequer funds, Joseph was solely responsible for winning the funds from Anthony Barber (Chancellor of the Exchequer) for the Constant Attendance Allowance.5 Further, Joseph and the DHSS were largely free from CRD opinion as it was particularly detached from Whitehall in the period. Notwithstanding its size, the DHSS was not regarded highly or often at Whitehall. ‘The Department of Stealth and Total Obscurity’, as it was known, was located in a non-descript office block in the then unfashionable Elephant and Castle. It was therefore vital for the department to have a dynamic figure like Joseph at its helm.

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Joseph was not yet disillusioned with social spending and the welfare state, and because of the Heath government’s ministerial stability, disabled people did not lose him as an advocate. Indeed, Joseph and Margaret Thatcher have both been described as ‘the most voracious big spenders’.6 The commanding principles of the Party from the late 1970s onwards had no serious intellectual or public support at the time, and if there was any significant desire to roll back the state, disabled people would not be affected: there was little to roll back. While the Conservatives were faithful to the contributory principle, few objected to the Constant Attendance Allowances or the motives behind them. Joseph’s commitment and persona were no doubt part of this. At the beginning of the Heath government, with his reputation not yet softened, no one could accuse the man who said ‘what this country needs is more millionaires and more bankruptcies’ of over-generous social spending on a group that gave little back to the economy.7 Further, Joseph believed that economic growth would enable the state to continue to take on the welfare of groups of the ‘deserving’ poor, like disabled people.8 The first three years of the 1970s were a period of both action and planning. This chapter analyses how and why different groups took advantage of the breakthrough in the perception of the late 1960s that disabled people deserved more statutory welfare, and the impact of these activities on government and legislation. • Under new leadership, how did DIG attempt to pressure government for new provision? • For the TUC, disabled people were always going to be a minor issue, but how did unions engage with disabled people? Did they embrace non-industrially injured people as part of the greater recognition of this group and their needs? • Did Labour change its attitude towards disabled people as it shifted to the left? • How in particular did the media engage with disability as its interest diversified beyond coverage and representation of DIG? The Constant Attendance Allowances were part of the continued expansion of social welfare under the Heath government. This chapter discusses how and why these cash benefits took the form they did, and how they were envisioned as contributing to the welfare of disabled people as the first in a series of selective benefits. Was there any concern about bending the contributory principle for a small number of potential claimants? And how did disabled people and the

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allowances fit into what Lowe described as the Heath government’s goals of ‘competition and compassion?’9 The forming of the CSDP and its passage through Parliament are detailed in Topliss and Gould’s A charter for the disabled (1979). Based on public records not released until the 2000s, this chapter analyses attitudes within government, particularly the DHSS, to what was regarded as an obtrusive piece of legislation. Calls for the Heath government to compensate victims of thalidomide caused a crisis in Cabinet in the final months of 1972, and this first public scandal about disabled people further raised the profile of disability. The thalidomide crisis struck at the welfare state settlement of the 1940s, and brought about the possibility of a national disability income.

Cash and the ‘revolution of expectation’ With the deliberations of the Seebohm Committee, and the focus on children and elderly people, the Wilson government spent its waning days legislating for the concerns and crises of the early 1960s. While the emergence of disabled people had arrived too late for them to receive significant attention in the 1960s, the first three years of the 1970s promised exactly that – important and particular engagement with disabled people, both inside and outside government. While some concerned parties wanted full implementation of the CSDP, cash began to be perceived as more desirable than services, and the tendency to see disability increasingly in social terms furthered the move towards cash as a means to independent living. In the early 1970s, disabled people were perceived as a group in urgent need of statutory welfare, especially in comparison to superior foreign schemes. Further, the DHSS, and government more generally, now had to openly declare support for new provision because increasing public and media support for DIG, especially with the passing of the CSDP, suggested future electoral consequences. Expectations continued to rise. The Disablement Income Group under Mary Greaves Mary Greaves was a retired civil servant in charge of CCD’s legal and parliamentary committee, and was involved with the Royal Statistical Society, British Psychological Association and British Sociological Association. A specialist on the training and employment of disabled people, she was a member of the National Advisory Council on the Employment of Disabled Persons.10

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DIG was both cautious and optimistic about its chances with the new Conservative government.11 The Conservatives had scrapped Crossman’s National Insurance and Superannuation bill, which included the Constant Attendance Allowance, but were committed to creating their own allowance. Greaves was confident that Joseph and Paul Dean, Junior Minister for the DHSS, would be more receptive than Crossman, and that further divergences from the contributory principle were forthcoming.12 Joseph appealed to DIG for patience while the DHSS studied European examples in preparing social welfare reform, and said that his aim of a ‘civilised policy for the disabled’ included provision for housewives and an invalidity allowance.13 DIG was then angered with the terms of the Constant Attendance Allowance announced in May 1971, as it estimated that it would only reach 50,000 people because it was only available to those who needed 24-hour care. DIG’s objectives for 1972 were to press for a broader attendance allowance, and to continue to work toward a national disability income.14 The former was realised quickly with the announcement of the extended Attendance Allowance in March 1972, as it was made available to an additional estimated 200,000 who needed attendance day or night.15 The CSDP raised the profile of disability in the House of Commons, but it seemed that there was little DIG could do at the national level to quicken its implementation. Branches were to chase up their local authorities to ensure that the permissive terms of the Act were fulfilled: DIG exists to secure a National Disability Income. Legislation from central government toward this end is our main concern. The CSDP does not deal with income or, primarily, expense allowances. It deals with services. But because branches are bound to be involved with the daily living problems of disabled members and because the Act has served to focus attention on these problems, it is a major means of creating public awareness and so gradually of helping to win understanding of and support for DIG’s own proposals. DIG branches therefore should seize the opportunity to exert all reasonable pressure for implementation.16 Labour pushed Joseph to make the Act’s permissive terms mandatory.17 DIG did not, as it knew that this was unrealistic, and very likely recognised that it was not worth jeopardising its relationship with Joseph, especially as the CSDP and its terms on information, goods and services were subsidiary to its goals.18

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While DIG recognised the need for services, it advanced arguments that cash was a more effective way to assist disabled people. Goods and services reinforced helplessness, locked disabled people into the provider’s perception of what may be good for them, and limited the range of choices they could make to attain what their particular circumstances required. Conversely, as DIG argued, cash would allow for individual choice and address the different combinations of need for disabled individuals.19 In agreement with the Heath government’s objective of personal responsibility and independence via welfare, cash would ‘make life better’ by promoting the freedom of disabled individuals, and allowing access to private services where statutory home help programmes were often greatly overburdened, and as with services in general, the subject of territorial variance. This is notable, as the welfare of disabled people before 1979 was seen almost without exception as the sum total of statutory and non-statutory efforts: any mention of the purchasing of private welfare was rare, and now seemingly a vatic warning for the 1980s. DIG also used facts revealing the economic deprivation of disabled people compared to able-bodied people as a powerful argument for provision in cash. Concurrent changes in ideas about welfare and how disability was perceived also supported cash provision. If disablement is defined by its impact on a person’s income, employment and social and economic life, then cash was superior to goods and services. Part of the change in attitudes in the 1960s was the acceptance of social and income inequalities as worthy targets of statutory welfare. By 1970, operating locally as a voluntary organisation had become DIG’s ‘second function’.20 Under the direction of a Central Advisory Service, branches acted as liaisons between different locations in the mixed economy of welfare to assist ‘disabled people so often lost and bewildered in the labyrinth of social welfare services’ by providing information and making referrals for individuals and their families.21 Branches provided day-to-day help to local disabled people, and were involved directly in politics by writing letters and presenting hard cases to their MPs that often resulted in questions in the House of Commons. Information from the branches about disabled people’s experiences with statutory services also served as a valuable research resource for the organisation’s Social Welfare Committee. While an examination of DIG at the local level is beyond the remit of this study, the records of the Coventry DIG allow a general look at how a local branch performed. Coventry had notoriously inadequate social services. Coventry DIG took the local authority to task on its comparatively poor performance in several areas – including

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housing, community care, local employment opportunities and public transportation – and had some strong words about the inadequacies of Coventry Social Services’ 1971 10-year plan.22 Coventry DIG followed a directive from national headquarters to find and represent individual cases where local authorities were not fulfilling the terms of the CSDP. Joseph, in fact, encouraged DIG branches to monitor local authorities’ implementation of the CSDP.23 Fundraising was also a vital function of the branches – local fundraising accounted for roughly one-third of DIG’s net annual income, and branches were challenged to constantly come up with new events to this end, and shared ideas and success stories.24 In addition to providing evidence of the day-to-day needs of disabled people, the experience of Coventry DIG shows the wide variety of functions it performed for disabled people, and how a nonstatutory group took on new tasks and areas of activities alongside, and in response to, the slowly increasing presence of statutory welfare for disabled people. ‘Inspire or shame’ Under Greaves’ leadership, DIG took up an increasing focus on Europe, and tried to advantageously use speculation about Britain’s entry to the EEC.25 DIG’s European programme was three-fold: the establishment of international research links on disability and welfare, one of the explicit goals set out by Megan du Boisson; self-education about provision for disabled people on the continent; and making unfavourable comparisons between British and European schemes. DIG delegates attended international conferences to learn about foreign systems and ideas to improve their own recommendations to government. Greaves attended two conferences in Ireland on the International Study for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled. She returned with an increased recognition that achieving better services for disabled people was a struggle against Britain’s particular tradition of having no overall public sentiment about how disabled people should be treated.26 Stewart Lyon, DIG’s Branches Secretary, arrived at a similar conclusion when representing DIG at the 1973 United Nations (UN) Seminar on Disabled People. DIG wanted to foster a holistic approach to the welfare of disabled people through greater coordination between all parties in the mixed economy of welfare, as well as philosophically through shaping public opinion.27 The DIG Charitable Trust commissioned a survey of cash provision in Denmark, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and West Germany.28 The report was released in March 1971, accompanied

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by a great deal of public relations activity. Many within DIG were optimistic that entry to the EEC would mean a levelling up of British provision with those on the continent that were generally better. The strategy was to ‘inspire or shame’ the Heath government into action on a national disability income,29 and the survey found many similarities between Britain and Europe. Ex-servicemen were treated separately and more favourably than disabled people, and all had distinct schemes for industrially injured people. In Britain and France, industrial injury schemes were more generous than those for disabled people, with a negligible difference in the Scandinavian countries. In every country, all programmes in the charge of local authorities were subject to great territorial variance, particularly between urban and rural areas, but Sweden made it mandatory for local authorities to provide a basic range of services. Centrally administered cash benefits in all surveyed countries were only vulnerable to territorial variance in the differences in costs of living between different areas. Exposing the comparative weaknesses of British provision for disabled people was, of course, the object of the report. While the report identified, not surprisingly, Swedish and Danish schemes as superior, it favoured the Dutch system for determining loss of income. Unlike the purely medical scales for determining loss of income through industrial injury in France and Britain, the report argued that the Dutch system was simpler and more effective: ‘Its chief merit is that it requires only medical and functional examination that a person’s physical condition has adversely affected his working capacity, thereby avoiding a more lengthy and expensive assessment process designed to measure loss of earnings.’ Britain was also the only country without a national disability income based on loss of working or income capacity, and the only country without provision for disabled housewives.30 Articles appeared in The Times, the Daily Star, The Sun, The Daily Telegraph, Birmingham Post, Liverpool Daily Post, The Sheffield Morning Telegraph, and the Yorkshire Post. Anne Shearer’s coverage of the report in The Guardian discussed the varieties of provision in Europe and the ways that Britain had fallen behind.31 Other press coverage was more condemning. ‘Britain lags behind Europe in grants for disabled’, began the bold headline in the Daily Star, before using DIG’s description of the British disabled housewife as a ‘non-person’.32 The Liverpool Daily Post featured one of DIG’s troubling hard cases.33 All media coverage pointed to the lack of a national disability income.

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Media The rapidity and conviction with which the media continued to take up the cause of disabled people is one of the most notable aspects of this period. In the late 1960s, growing media interest in disability was confined largely to DIG’s activities and contentions. Media interest in, and advocacy on behalf of, disabled people became more diverse in the early 1970s, as the public and political profile of disability issues continued to expand, but aside from The Sunday Times thalidomide campaign, media coverage was not of the frequency or intensity to set agendas. For provision in cash, the media largely remained a follower and not a leader in the period, as coverage was restricted to reporting the announcements of the Constant Attendance Allowances and editorials about a national disability income after DIG released ‘Creating a National Disability Income’ in 1972. Media coverage of a range of disability issues reinforced general trends including moves toward social integration and away from institutions, and calls for improvements in housing and employment programmes. That said, original and independent media research, the increasingly militant tone of demands for statutory provision, and criticisms of the implementation of the CSDP began in this period, and would become more frequent in the middle of the decade. Duncan Guthrie, head of the CCD, compared the CSDP to the Magna Carta in its enshrinement of rights in law, and this was often quoted in the media.34 Media coverage of the Act depicted and heightened the excitement with which it was passed, and called for full and rapid implementation. The Sunday Mirror urged disabled people under laggard local authorities to ‘kick up hell to claim their rights’.35 Topliss and Gould said the CSDP created a feeling of ‘euphoria’ among disabled people.36 One might suggest that these comments in the media – especially from disability lobby leaders who knew of the Act’s weaknesses, opponents and the severity and pervasiveness of need – were irresponsible, and served only to create unrealistic expectations for the speed and comprehensiveness of its implementation. It was also unreasonable to expect that a private member’s bill would lead to any significant increase in expenditure. Better organised and more uniformly offered services were more realistic, but seldom mentioned in the media. These hopes, however, were based on the belief in the early 1970s in continued economic growth that would allow both central and local government to spend ever-increasingly on the welfare state, and by extension, to improve services for disabled people.

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The News of the World’s May 1972 coverage of abuse scandals served to raise the public profile of disabled people. In a series of articles, it revealed stories of the abuse and neglect of elderly and disabled people in private care.37 These were related to the efforts of the News of the World and other papers to press local authorities into greater activity on behalf of vulnerable groups. An article in the Sunday People revealed the story of a disabled woman who could not leave her home because of an absurd local authority bylaw about walking on grass.38 As with the deaths of Dennis O’Neill in 1945 and Maria Colwell in 1974, this sort of scandal increased the profile of disadvantaged groups and social welfare against more glamorous topics. While cases of abuse focused largely on elderly people, disabled people had enough public esteem to be part of a welfare scandal before the first ‘moral panic’ about disability created by The Sunday Times’ thalidomide campaign. This episode was also an early indicator of the sort of outraged tabloid reporting of disability hard cases that would become more frequent in the mid-1970s. Part One of the OPCS survey received much attention on its publication, as its statistics were both pertinent and easily accessible. Take The Morning Star headline, ‘1 in 5 disabled people live alone’, and in The Guardian, ‘Survey finds 200,000 handicapped people in unfit housing.’39 The statistics were used throughout the period to emphasise the seriousness of the situation and the need for both central and local government action in fulfilling the terms of the CSDP. Like the coverage of the passing of the Act, coverage of the OPCS survey revealed plight and gave hope.40 Disability had become part of the ‘revolution of expectation’ in statutory welfare.41 On 31 December 1971, Pat Healy declared disabled people as the greatest beneficiaries of social welfare changes that year.42 The media had helped widen the gap between aspirations and what could be realistically expected from a welfare state facing increasingly difficult challenges in finances and priorities. Labour in opposition At the 1971 Labour Party Conference, Ashley blasted the failure of the Wilson governments to do more for disabled people, and condemned those within the Party ‘whose attitude to the disabled is characterised by the old attitude of tossing a coin into the tin of an old blind beggar.’43 There is little mention of disability in extant documentation at the LHA for 1970 to 1972, but some movement for change began to become apparent in 1972 as the Party began to

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prepare a social welfare programme for the next election. Neil Kearney, a Chelsea constituency representative, earned support at the 1972 Party Conference for his suggestions that the Party must prepare plans for a national disability income, and that the CSDP should be funded fully by central government. These, and other similar sentiments on behalf of disabled people, were expressed as objectives in the greater scheme of alleviating poverty, the ‘brotherhood of man’ and the redistribution of wealth.44 The Social Policy Sub-Committee’s Working Group on the Elderly and Disabled identified several immediate goals for improving statutory welfare for disabled people. For Labour, cash had eclipsed services as the primary way to address the welfare of disabled people, and creating two new cash benefits was a top priority: a national disability income regardless of insurance qualifications or the cause of disability, and an extension of the terms of the Constant Attendance Allowance. The May 1972 document, ‘Priorities in government: Labour’s aims for Britain’, further elaborated on the need for a national disability income as a right of citizenship regardless of cause of impairment. The failure of local authorities to provide adequate services was to be corrected by additional funding from central government. There was an emphasis on the largely non-existent enforcement of the 3 per cent employment quota, and the appointment of a disablement commissioner to oversee the implementation of the CSDP and detection efforts in particular.45 There were also ambitious plans for a new comprehensive disablement employment service under the DHSS. The new service was to include a great increase in the number of IRUs and sheltered workshops, as well as many new disablement rehabilitation officers. These plans were probably reactions to the high unemployment of the time, as disabled people tend to suffer more than non-disabled people do in such periods. References to disabled people, high unemployment and ‘the survival of the fittest’ were also a way for Labour to attack the Heath government.46 Labour had an unusually short, but vigorous, period in opposition in the early 1970s. With the Party becoming increasingly radical, the new and ambitious thinking about disability provision was part of this shift that led to a more progressive programme in 1974. In extant documents, there is the sense that the Wilson governments had somehow failed, and calls for a national disability income were very different from the comparatively limited goals for disability provision during the 1960s and the Wilson government’s grudging acceptance of the CSDP. More specified efforts to plan future provision did not

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occur until 1973, when the Party began to cost proposals for a national disability income. Trades Union Congress The TUC’s interest in disability issues broadened in the early 1970s. Led by the National League of the Blind and Disabled (NLBD), the TUC continued to increase its pressure on the Department of Employment and Productivity to improve working conditions in Remploy factories and to increase the scope of the programme.47 The TUC also took up an increased interest in disabled people after the CSDP. Motions passed in 1971 moved the General Council to instruct all affiliate unions on how to compel local authorities to fulfil the terms of the Act.48 The General Council obtained much information from statutory and non-statutory groups about the employment and state of welfare of disabled people.49 It gave evidence to a Sub-Committee of a House of Commons Expenditure Committee on disabled people and work, and the Employment and Livelihood Committee of the Working Party on integration. The General Council also examined the state of welfare for disabled workers and rehabilitation programmes abroad.50 The TUC’s greatest engagement with disability was the 1973 consultation with the Ministry of Labour about its proposed reforms to the quota scheme. For 1970 to 1972, a period when disabled people were receiving an unprecedented amount of attention, what might have prevented the TUC from taking a greater interest? There is the conspiracy theory, positing that unions, and society as a whole, viewed disabled people as a reserve army of labour whose welfare would always be secondary to wider social and economic considerations.51 More probable is that disabled people had high unemployment rates, and until the OPCS survey, there were no statistics on their employment; the TUC would only be concerned directly with those who were able to work. Further, non-industrial disability was a low priority for the TUC, and it only took an interest when disabled people had become a greater public and policy issue. As the responsibilities of the state expanded in the 20th century, so, too, did TUC concern. Yet as Martin has pointed out, the TUC was leading change in some areas: old-age pensions, economic planning and full employment.52 The TUC in the 20th century had to take on an ever-expanding range of issues: social policy directly after the First World War, foreign policy in the 1920s, economic policy in the 1930s, and the great expansion of more particular interests after the Second World War. Disabled people were one of many issues that the TUC had to

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contend with in the 1970s, ranging from matrimonial law reform to civil rights in the Soviet Union. As with advancements for women and minorities, the trades unions were reluctant followers of change, not enthusiastic shapers of it. The TUC’s disability-related activity from 1970 to 1972 was largely a reflection of agendas set elsewhere. Most notably, the increased interest in the quota was the result of a massive Department of Employment, internationally oriented, review of its effectiveness and future.53 Disabled people were viewed as a minority group, and even in the liberal climate of the ‘long 1960s’, the TUC was slow to change its attitudes, and often did so out of pragmatism rather than liberalised attitudes. As a group traditionally underrepresented by unions, women made gains in employment in the early 1970s with the Equal Pay Act 1970, but both Labour and the TUC had to be coerced into supporting women’s claims.54 While women made up 23.2 per cent of trade union membership in 1970, rising to 27 per cent in 1974 and 30.2 per cent in 1979,55 the movement for equal pay within British trade unionism was a century old.56 The 1968 Ford Strike, which announced the new powerful alliance between non-union and union women’s advocacy, was a display of power that forced the unions to act.57 There was also the strength of second wave feminism and the TUC Women’s Committee. Disabled workers, as well as homosexuals and minorities, simply did not yet have the numbers, organisation or influence of women. This was perhaps the most turbulent period for unions and their relations with government in the 20th century.58 Martin, however, said that it did not affect smaller issues beneath the overarching tensions caused by the Industrial Relations Act 1971 and economic problems: On all other issues of common concern, the pre-established pattern of consultation seems to have been maintained in the case of both ministers and civil servants. Apart from the TUC-ordained resignation of the unionist members on the Commission of Industrial Relations, the composition of pre-existing advisory and administrative bodies appears to have been unaffected; and they operated, formally as before. The key case is the National Economic Development Council that continued to meet frequently and, in line with the practice instituted by the Wilson government, under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister.59 The greater issues of British industrial relations did not affected unions’ interest in, and representation of, disabled people in the early 1970s.

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Nor did the changing relationship between unions and Labour. As revisionism waned and eroded the traditional links between unions and the Labour right, the overall shift to the left did not include unions embracing disabled people. Further, as discussed in the next chapter, it is probable that the TUC’s abandonment of the ‘work ethic’ in the mid-1970s in favour of a national disability income came less as a result of humanitarianism or a liberalising of attitudes toward disabled people, but more as a way to preserve jobs for non-disabled people in a period of high unemployment.60 Government Cash, not services, was the focus of DHSS planning in this period. The Conservatives in opposition accepted an Attendance Allowance in principle, and were committed to creating small provision for disabled people. Joseph and the DHSS had only to decide if it would be non-contributory and create a timetable for implementation, and the Constant Attendance Allowance and its extension were small and uncontroversial measures. What excited those at the DHSS were plans for beyond 1972, especially a housewives allowance, and this is readily apparent in their collection of information on foreign schemes. Constant Attendance Allowances Arguments for a non-contributory Attendance Allowance defeated the old thin-edge-of-the-wedge argument of the contributory principle purists. This inexpensive measure would have no significant effect on overall public expenditure, and there were no implications for existing benefits. There was also a precedent for non-contributory disability provision in the ex-servicemen’s Attendance Allowances.61 On either side of the 1970 General Election, both governments came to this conclusion. David Ennals, DHSS Minister of State, was a particularly strong supporter of a non-contributory measure, and wanted it paid at £5/week, an amount higher than the eventual £4.10/week.62 Whether out of pragmatism or axiomatic adherence, the contributory principle was used in the 1950s and 1960s to argue against new provision that required spending or changes in the administration of statutory welfare. With little administrative complication and a very small scope, few could object to the Attendance Allowance as an expensive violation of the contributory principle. Offered in the National Insurance Act 1970 as a non-contributory, Treasury-financed provision, the Constant Attendance Allowance was

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not taxed and was paid in addition to Supplementary Benefit. Unlike the FIS, it was not means-tested, very likely because of its small scope, and its recipients were not vulnerable to the poverty trap. The terms of qualification were a physician’s confirmation of six months’ severe physical or mental disability, necessitating ‘frequent attention during the day and prolonged or repeated attention at night.’ In practice, the Allowance was restricted to those who required constant day and night supervision, with the eventual extension for those who required day or night supervision. The original implementation date was April 1972, but because of public pressure, this was brought forward to December 1971, at the insistence of Joseph and the Prime Minister.63 The start date of the extended Constant Attendance Allowance was also brought forward to December 1972 in such a manner.64 Yet there is no reason to doubt that Joseph and the Prime Minister were not genuine in their efforts to make a rapid advance in this area. The Treasury warned both men off more ambitious endeavours, including a partial disability allowance and the near-future possibility of some sort of national disability income.65 The Prime Minister told Townsend that notwithstanding the Attendance Allowances, the 1971 Invalidity Benefit, and a projected increase of 21 per cent in real terms in PSS spending from 1971/72 to 1973/74, his government was ‘very far from satisfied’ and ‘a great deal more needed to be done.’66 The 1972 extended Constant Attendance Allowance was uncontroversial. There was the easy logic of extending benefit to those severely disabled who required care day or night and the DHSS, Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance and the Attendance Allowance Board shared this view. Interested parties were looking to Europe and to the future. Plans for future developments A national disability income was unrealistic in 1972 under a government committed to selectivity in welfare, but comparatively small measures such as the Constant Attendance Allowances or a disabled housewives allowance were feasible. Selectivity was a way to generally address the great problem of the welfare of disabled people, and Joseph and the DHSS had cautious, long-range plans for the development of selective cash benefits.67 A ‘major blast from DIG’ was how a DHSS official described an advance copy of ‘Creating a national disability income’ sent to Joseph by Greaves in March 1972.68 With DIG looking to influence the autumn 1972 social security bill, the pamphlet attacked the privilege

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of industrially injured people, and asked for no less than recognition of the loss of faculty as the sole qualifier for cash provision. The report also demanded better Attendance Allowances for disabled people, and that invalidity should be treated in the same manner as retirement and widowhood, regardless of contribution record. The well-researched report was widely covered in the media, and difficult for government to criticise. DIG discussed its objectives in May and November meetings with Joseph and DHSS staff. Requests included permanent disability pensions, a housewives allowance based on a husband’s insurance record that recognised the economic value of the housewife’s household duties, and a progressive reduction of differences between benefits for industrially injured people and disabled people. In response to Joseph’s question about priorities, Greaves and Large said they wanted progress in each area.69 DIG wanted no less than future benefits to add up to a national disability income. Also in the lead-up to the social security bill, Greaves attempted to get pensions organisations to include invalidity in their requirements of recognition for a retirement pension.70 Some organisations forwarded copies of Greaves’ letters to the DHSS to try to keep out disability. It is clear from correspondence that the DHSS and pensions organisations feared an expanded definition of pension need that would recognise adult-age permanent disability.71 This is the first explicit indication of an emerging fear among traditionally more privileged beneficiaries of statutory provision, and evinces that disabled people had the power to compete for scarce government resources. In keeping with Joseph’s philosophy of targeting long-term rather than short-term need, the 1971 Invalidity Benefit was a continuation of the National Insurance 28-week sickness benefit. The minimum qualification was the equivalent of three years of contribution that could be paid indefinitely with continued medical certification until replaced by retirement pension.72 Also introduced in the National Insurance Act 1971 was an Invalidity Allowance for those more than five years away from pensionable age, paid at three different rates depending on when the debilitating condition was acquired: higher rates were paid to those who became disabled earlier in their lives as younger people had less opportunity to accumulate wealth. For the Heath government, these benefits served to free up jobs in a time of high unemployment, and to address some of the need not covered by the ungenerous superannuation plan to be announced in 1973. Yet the Invalidity Benefit was often of little use to needy recipients as income from Supplementary Benefit was clawed back.73 Further, as Large and Greaves pointed out to Joseph and the Prime Minister at the

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November meeting, a non-earnings-related invalidity pension was also needed for those forced into early retirement. The Invalidity Benefit was paid at approximately 75 per cent of the corresponding benefits under the industrial injuries scheme, and DIG expressed dissatisfaction with the continued gap in provision between ex-servicemen and industrially injured people, and other disabled people: ‘It is a lottery in life that one becomes disabled at all’, as Greaves put it, ‘and we should not add to that lottery artificially through our social security system.’74 The responses to DIG’s points were honest: future schemes under consideration included housewives and partial disability allowances based on European schemes.75 Both before and after the release of Part One of the OPCS survey in May 1971, few could argue that disabled housewives were not worthy beneficiaries of a cash benefit. There was no cash provision for a disabled housewife unless her debilitating condition was severe enough to qualify for the Constant Attendance Allowance. Housewives whose husbands had adequate National Insurance records could not receive Supplementary Benefit. For government, this was a small group with much public sympathy and little capacity for runaway expenditure. The initial estimation was 30,000 beneficiaries at £3.70/week.76 Another estimation based on the OPCS survey identified 75,000 at £4.15/week, at a total cost of £16 million. There were also the daily realities of social isolation, and the exceptional difficulty of caring for children and completing household tasks with a disability. In 1971 and 1972, the DHSS considered arguments for and against a housewives benefit. It was recognised that services and cash were complementary, but there was the pervasive view that cash would better improve the overall welfare of an individual and a family affected by disability: The appropriate services are inevitably, and in common with all other personal social services administered by local authorities, patchy; and, though any improvements have immediate effect where they occur, the services could only be brought up to a really adequate level through the country over a long period.... Certainly, if the deficiencies in the provision of services and aids could be made good, this would do something to reduce the need for cash allowances, since some housewives who could not at present cope with their chores in any circumstances would be enabled to do so through adaptations, special equipment, etc. But the case for a cash benefit would not be weakened by this since

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there would still be a great many housewives who could not cope with their chores in any circumstance. Indeed, the case for cash allowances might be strengthened on the argument that the provision of so much more by way of aids and services to those who could benefit from them highlighted the plight of those who could not be helped in this way.77 Provision for disabled housewives would partly satisfy DIG, and would be a popular political move. There was also the recognition of the vital family role of a stay-at-home mother and how her disability often had greater ramifications from the extra costs of disabled living to the grim possibility of her husband having to leave work to care for the family.78 There were other possibilities for new provision. An allowance for those with congenital disabilities was not examined because of the sheer scale of need. Mobility was regarded as a subsidiary issue. Some sort of partial disability or rehabilitation allowance was rejected as too wide-ranging, and because of the expense of medical personnel and the burden it would place on local authorities. A cash benefit toward the extra expenses of disabled living was seen as a vague and ill-defined area that could be better addressed by services.79 Compared to the alternatives, a housewives benefit was inexpensive and uncomplicated. The DHSS feared that making yet another exception to the contributory principle for disabled people would lead to further such demands, and raised the questions of a medical qualification, such as the Constant Attendance Allowances, or a qualification based on the husband’s insurance record.80 While a housewife would have no earnings if she became disabled, the DHSS was aware of the argument at the time that household work had a monetary value.81 Yet there was also a concern that legislation in this area might move ahead of popular perceptions – in this instance, the traditional perception that a housewife’s work did not have monetary value – and would further raise expectations.82 The picture that emerges, then, is a cautious recognition within the DHSS in 1972 that disabled housewives were the next group to receive cash provision. Study of foreign schemes In 1971, the DHSS put together a task group to research disability provision in six European countries. Pressure in the House of Commons, resulting from DIG’s European report, necessitated that the DHSS, and the government in general, equip itself with information

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to respond. It was also inevitable that DIG and other critics would make comparisons to superior continental schemes during entry to the EEC. DIG’s European report made public what was well known within government, and made it no longer possible to say that there was nothing deficient about British provision, as Ennals did in the House of Commons in 1969.83 This project would also allow the government to take on DIG’s presentations in a critical way, instead of flatfooted acceptance. Looking forward to 1973 and beyond, there was also the genuine desire to learn about foreign schemes to help develop additional selective cash provision. The DHSS obtained English language abstracts of articles from across Europe. Jean François-Aubert, a Swiss law professor writing about France, pressed the idea that the welfare of 50 per cent of disabled men and 75 per cent of disabled women were not adequately addressed because French Social Security defined disability based on severity of physical impairment.84 Dutch Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health Dr Gerard Veldkamp contended that social security should offer the material possibility for every person to make the best of their own life. As such, Veldkamp felt that no discrimination in relation to the cause of injury or sickness should prevent social security from providing social opportunities and independent living.85 Remploy may have been embarrassed that Czechoslovakian statutory cooperatives of disabled people employed nearly 15,000.86 These examples make fascinating reading, and show the quick and curious DHSS uptake of disability issues in the early 1970s. In autumn 1971, the task group visited East and West Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Jersey as services had developed there more quickly than in England and Wales. Research included interviews with both medical and administrative personnel and the examination of different statutory schemes including those for housewives.87 Other than more general differences between Jersey and England and Wales – low population, high median incomes, many self-employed and freedom from personnel shortages – the report identified a strong community role in the welfare of disabled people. As with Denmark, Sweden and Norway, there was willingness in Jersey to conceptualise and address the welfare of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare, including much statutory/ voluntary cooperation.88 All the surveyed countries had an invalidity pension based on when, not if, a disabled person went from short-term benefit to invalidity pension, or, if able to return to work, a transitional allowance. Short-term benefit in East and West Germany lasted 78 weeks. In the Netherlands, it was one year.89 The Dutch scheme was

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the most radical as it had begun to discard its industrial injury scheme in favour of a non-discriminatory loss of faculty scheme.90 In both East and West Germany, welfare was fused especially with work, with medical rehabilitation being followed by the placement of the disabled person in whatever work they were capable of doing. The report concluded that Jersey and the countries studied were different from Britain in attitudes to disablement, better cooperation between parties in the mixed economy of welfare and the focus on rehabilitation when possible throughout the lifetime of a disabled person. There is no indication that DIG expanded its comparative framework beyond Europe, but the DHSS obtained some information on other foreign schemes. Of particular note is the prevalence of a full pension, whatever that may have entailed in different countries, payable on the assessment of two-thirds loss of working capacity. This was common in Western European countries like France and Switzerland, but also in countries ranging from Bolivia and Argentina to Burundi and the Congo. South Africa offered a full pension for permanent incapacity and the constant attendance allowance in the Soviet Union was said to be paid at 85 per cent of earnings.91 Unfortunately, the information is very general, and no reactions to it survived in documentation. Unlike the late 1960s, when DIG formed the agenda, this is another indicator of the desire in the DHSS to form its own programme.

The Magna Carta of the disabled: the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 The CSDP included many new statutory responsibilities for disabled people: • Section 1 instructed authorities to be ‘adequately informed’ of all disabled people in their jurisdiction. • Section 2 listed a range of services that local authorities could provide. • Section 3 dealt with suitable housing. • Sections 4-8 dealt with public access building adaptation. • Sections 9-16 outlined statutory advisory committees. • Sections 17-19 outlined considerations for children, elderly poor people and chiropody services. • Sections 20 and 21 dealt with vehicles. • Sections 22 and 24 required the Secretary of State for Social Services to report annually on disability-related research and development.

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• Section 23 addressed war pensions appeal rights and procedures. • Sections 25-27 dealt with the education needs of mentally and physically disabled children. • Section 28 dealt with the power of definition under the Act. • Section 29 outlined the Act’s short title, extent and commencement dates.92 The CSDP was the accomplishment of Alf Morris, Labour MP for Wythenshawe. Morris’s father was a disabled ex-serviceman from the First World War, and after a career as a sign writer plagued with illness, he died of tuberculosis in 1935. Morris learned through his widowed mother of the inadequacy of welfare for disabled people and their families, as well as the cycle of unemployment, poverty and social isolation.93 His mother-in-law was wheelchair-bound with rheumatoid arthritis, and his father-in-law had severe bronchitis that claimed his life in 1951.94 It was fortunate that the CSDP made it before the House of Commons. Morris was in India as part of a Commonwealth delegation when he was drawn first on the private members’ ballot in November 1969. Refusing more than 400 offers of ‘off the shelf ’ bills, he was determined to create his own legislation for disabled people before the end of a shortened parliamentary session.95 In their analysis of objections to the bill, Topliss and Gould said that media coverage of the bill’s configuration and its passage through Parliament gave the outgoing Labour government no choice but to accept it.96 Yet their discussions of the opinions of Labour MPs come from Hansard and other publicly made statements. An election was looming, the bill had much public support, it was well covered in the media, and many disability groups participated in its formation. As such, it seems that the Labour government acquiesced largely to a generally favourable piece of legislation. Documents at the TNA, however, reveal that the government, and many DHSS and other officials, wanted the bill to be defeated. The unusual forming of this ‘collective essay’ bill, which involved much drafting and redrafting in its five-month passage through the House of Commons, allowed many opinions to be elicited and survive in documentation. Unwilling to bend existing Public Expenditure Survey Committee (PESC) allocations in support of the bill (PESC was created in 1961 as a result of the 1959 Plowden Committee on Control of Public Expenditure with the objective of the central coordination of government expenditure by imposing multi-year limits) funding would have to come through a financial resolution as the government also refused to fund it through tax concessions.97 In fear of the large

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potential costs, the DHSS and the Treasury advised all MPs to oppose the bill at its crucial second reading. On the insistence of the Chief Whip Robert Mellish, however, it was decided that the bill could not be opposed because of public pressure and support in the House of Commons.98 The government’s strategy then became to eliminate clauses that would fall under the financial resolution while attempting to maximise presentational advantage in support of the bill in an election year. This is said explicitly in documents at the TNA, and evident in Ennals’ declaration in the media that the CSDP was backed by government as part of a greater attempt to address the exclusion of disabled people: ‘For too long the disabled have been the Cinderella of the Welfare State – with the exception of those whose infirmity is the result of war or industrial injury.’99 The bill’s wide scope cut across at least 11 departments. Superfluity with existing legislation and practice, as well as provision that overlapped government-produced schemes still in the planning stages, appeared to be major objections to the bill.100 A deleted clause amending earnings rules for disabled housewives earned some resentment at the DHSS. The Department of Employment resented a clause proposing special employment for deaf people as it ran contrary to the hierarchy of disabled employment provision, as established by the Disabled Persons (Employment) Act 1944.101 Yet documents at the TNA show little objection to how the bill’s terms would be grafted onto the existing administrative structure. In fact, there was much interdepartmental discussion about disability issues in the early 1970s, including the implementation of the Act.102 Concerns expressed about superfluity and departmental boundaries may have been more about minor difficulties in implementing some of the bill’s terms. There are several examples of correspondence between ministers or officials with detailed objections to particular terms. Take a detailed letter from Norman Pentland, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, to John Dunwoody, DHSS Under Secretary, discussing the bill’s proposed provision for telephone and broadcasting fees: Clause 29, which would authorise concessions on broadcast receiving license fees, is, I am sure, one of the clauses that must be excluded from the money resolution. The primary reason for excluding it is the general Government policy, in which your own department has taken the lead, and which we have repeatedly re-affirmed, that benefits in kind

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(apart, of course, from medical facilities and equipment into which category you may think, as I am inclined to do, special telephone equipment might well fall) are not the right way to help those members of a particular group – for example the chronic sick or the old – who like to spend their income in a particular way. The right way to help people in need of financial help is to give them cash to spend as they please.103 Many of the bill’s terms, and its focus on comprehensive services, were contrary to the popular position that selective cash provision was the best way to assist the welfare of disabled people. It is also evident here that philosophical and administrative objections were offered to disguise objections to expenditure. It is probable that complications in regulation and implementation caused government departments to pay much attention to a single provision. The Ministry of Technology was required to produce an annual report detailing research and development programmes for appliances and technical equipment for disabled people. Relevant files at the TNA from 1971 to 1973 are dominated by the topic, and show extraordinary effort and departmental coordination to compile a massive compendium of information that would be read by very few. It is also very likely that those within government embraced this term because its definite and tangible nature was different from complex terms of the bill, and that this provision was created partly by Tony Benn, Minister of Technology.104 The Annual Research and Development Report, for example, was straightforward and could be easily achieved, unlike the detection and registration of all disabled people. Many terms could never be fully realised, and this was a source of frustration to many in government, and a frequent criticism of the bill. It is difficult to ascertain which objection was strongest. This is made additionally difficult by the sense one gets from the documents that concern about expenditure, as well as the resentment of the DHSS and other departments about having an outside piece of legislation imposed on them, were hidden in more minor and particular objections. An extensive new bill dealing with services was against both older and newer Conservative thinking, and only adjacent to what DIG wanted. Reflexively, however, many within government objected to the bill’s selectivity for disabled people within PSS. A bill for services for disabled people excluding children and elderly people was a direct affront to the Seebohm reorganisation and the SSDs with their focus

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on amalgamation and more generalised social work and domiciliary care. Many believed that the bill would only invite ambitious requests for new selective services from other PSS groups.105 There was also the strong objection from Crossman, who was yet to see through his social security and superannuation legislation. Topliss and Gould detail how Morris overcame Crossman: Alf Morris recalls that he met Richard Crossman in his ministerial room in the House of Commons at 9:30 pm, just before a 10 o’clock division.... Crossman not only refused to offer any co-operation but made it very clear that he would try to frustrate Alf Morris at every point. When Alf Morris emerged, somewhat shaken, from his unhelpful meeting with Crossman, he reported the proceedings to his close colleagues Lewis Carter-Jones [MP for Eccles] and Jack Ashley, who were also vitally interested in the success of Morris’ initiative. Lewis Carter-Jones remembers that he saw Crossman directly afterwards in the division lobby and that a spirited exchange took place between them. Alf Morris completes the account of his relations with Crossman over the Bill by Commons Tea Room. Crossman appeared to have no recollection of their earlier exchange and commented that he was delighted that the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill was making such good progress.... Tam Dalyell, Richard Crossman’s Parliamentary Private Secretary at the time, confirms that Crossman tried to bully Alf Morris into changing the bill drastically or dropping it all together and also expressed the opinion that the DHSS would not itself have produced any similar legislation. Perhaps significantly, Richard Crossman makes no mention at all of the Alf Morris Bill in his diaries.106 With it well known that the extended Constant Attendance Allowance would be the only new provision for disabled people until 1973, DHSS priorities in 1971 and 1972 were mental health and the implementation of the FIS. The CSDP was the spectre at the feast. Expenditure was probably the strongest objection. Morris’s original bill contained provision for providing courses in technical equipment for disabled people by regional hospitals boards, free or discounted wireless and television services from the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, and the possibility that the Secretary of State could impose expenditure scales for the provision of equipment and

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appliances. An immediate report on the state of local education for deaf and blind children, which would have led to calls for increased expenditure, was also dropped.107 Terms that were viewed as wholly or partly superfluous were generally accepted if they did not require increased expenditure. 108 The Treasury also did not object to inexpensive clauses.109 Jaehnig said that the chosen method for fulfilling Section 1, a sample survey carried out by local authorities, resulted from the rejection of two other options. Ministers of both the Wilson and Heath governments argued against attempting ‘100 per cent identification’ of all disabled people because of cost, time-consumption and the dangerous potential consequences of revealing vast need beyond the OPCS survey. Leaving local authorities to collect their own information would not satisfy disability groups or opposition MPs. The sample survey was chosen as an inexpensive way for central government to appear active without incurring expenditure.110 As long as it did not divert funds, the bill did not disturb priorities in health and welfare or change the nature of local authority services for disabled people. It also took some pressure off the DHSS by passing on responsibility to local authorities. The clause to get younger disabled people out of local authority accommodation for elderly people demonstrates that expenditure was the main objection. In the 1950s and 1960s, there was a singular revulsion towards young disabled people being housed with elderly disabled people. Miller and Gwynne’s A life apart (1972) describes the depressing culture within residential homes, and how they rendered disabled people ‘socially dead’ as a period of transition to physical death.111 Greaves recommended a clause amending the National Assistance Act 1948 to enable younger people in local residential accommodation to move into private accommodation, and local authorities were to be allowed to provide financial support to this end. This was a popular measure, and there was some indication that it may have cost less than keeping younger disabled people in residential accommodation. Yet the measure was rejected by the DHSS as it did not want to increase financial or other burdens on local authorities, especially with the looming transition to SSDs. These objections were, again, accompanied and very likely disguised by other more philosophical or particular objections: Since generally young people are admitted to residential homes only failing other help it would seem that cases would be extremely rare. Enabling local authorities to resume powers of financial assistance taken from them with

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the break up of the poor law would be a matter of major principle extending in its effects much more widely than the objects of this bill. I hope it will not be pursued.112 In the end, Clause 17 of the Act forbade local authorities from accommodating disabled people under 65 with those over 65, a measure strongly supported by Joseph.113 There was some sentiment that local government should be left to its own affairs, and the DHSS was aware of criticisms of the freedom central government gave to local government.114 Yet the welfare state’s short tradition of local government not being responsible for dispensing cash payments was adhered to in the face of what would have been a widely supported measure. There was also the problem that any new local authorities’ duties would lead to calls for increased funding. This episode also demonstrates that the compulsion of the 1940s to distance the welfare state from the Poor Laws’ payment of local outdoor relief was to the detriment of disabled people. The dissemination of information on local authority services was a major objective of the Act, and non-statutory groups responded by expanding their efforts to provide information, and in line with the CSDP, adopted a more inclusive conception of disabled people. The Disabled Living Foundation worked with the Central Office of Information to publicise new domestic and internationally produced living aids, the dissemination of films and books on adaptations, and social and recreational opportunities for disabled people.115 Non-statutory organisations that had not previously dealt with disabled people assumed increased responsibility for their welfare, a manifestation of the greater recognition of disabled people. John Grooms Crippleage had provided residential accommodation for disabled young women since 1866.116 In 1969, men were also admitted, and the name was changed to John Grooms Association for the Disabled (JGAD). The John Grooms Housing Association was founded in 1971 to provide wheelchair-accessible housing. It was also in this period that the National League of the Blind changed its name to the National League of the Blind and Disabled, and while the organisation still dealt predominantly with blind and partly sighted people, it began to allow all disabled people to become members.117 Both in sentiment and in many of its terms, the Act sought to make good the failures of Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948. It had immediate positive psychological effects as it furthered disability as a public and policy issue, particularly through the media, and its wide

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range of duties helped broaden how the welfare of disabled people was conceptualised.

Office of Population Censuses and Surveys The situation on the ground in the early 1970s differed little from the late 1960s. This is not to say that improvements were not being made. Lewisham had a fleet of 22 coaches for transporting disabled people and their wheelchairs, and sent younger severely disabled people on Paris vacations. Oxford spent £12,000 per 100 disabled people, compared with £6,500 in Bristol and £2,200 in Birmingham.118 Implementation of the CSDP, however, was not mandatory until October 1971, and progress could not be reasonably expected until the middle of the decade. The OPCS survey was requested originally by the Ministry of Health to estimate the number of disabled adults and what local welfare services were available to them. Part One was the first significant quantitative assessment of disability and disabled people.119 It revealed 3 million people over the age of 16 with physical, mental and/or sensory impairment, including those over 65.120 A total of 514,000 were defined as severely or very severely handicapped, with another 616,000 appreciably handicapped. The OPCS survey estimated that at least 25,000 would qualify for the Constant Attendance Allowance and an additional 130,000 if extended to day and night attendance. It also revealed troubling hard cases from each category, like this example from the ‘very severely handicapped’ category: Man, aged 30, with cerebral paralysis of the left side due to birth injury to brain. Lives with Parents, who have to do everything for him, as he cannot feed himself, or drink without help, or go to the WC, or wash himself. He is bedfast and cannot speak – only being able to communicate with signs.121 The survey also emphasised the gap between need and statutory provision. More than 80 per cent of severely disabled people did not appear on local authority registers. Some received local authority services, mostly home helps and chiropody, but more than half had no contact with local authorities. The survey made only speculative comments on the incomes of disabled people, but did identify that 35-40 per cent of disabled people received Supplementary Benefit and were mostly forced to live with relatives.122

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The survey’s definitions were important and helped to explain the relative deprivation of the disabled housewife: ‘impairment’ was defined as the actual physical condition, ‘disablement’ was the loss of ability resulting from impairment, and ‘handicap’ was the loss or reduction of functional ability. Impairment did not always lead to handicap, as 2 million people, apart from the estimated 3 million – mostly working or retired men – were classified as having a minor impairment as they were largely or wholly able to look after their own welfare. This distinction was particularly important, as most disabled people with appreciable or severe impairments were women, and women constituted 2 million of the estimated 3 million. Very few appreciably or severely disabled men lived alone, but many elderly women in these categories did. Approximately half of those who received some sort of cash benefit received National Insurance retirement pension, but again, most of these were men who had built up adequate insurance records. The OPCS survey confirmed that disabled housewives were most neglected by the welfare state, as 500,000 were unable to complete basic household duties.123 Statistics from the survey also supported DIG’s European campaign on the size of need, relative poverty of disabled people and the situation of disabled housewives.124 The OPCS survey gave the DHSS additional impetus to take on disabled housewives after the extended Constant Attendance Allowance. Both the Wilson and Heath governments had used the preparation of the survey to placate calls for the rapid development of new provision. The DHSS did not attempt to dilute the report, but it did lean on the OPCS to make its conclusions sound more speculative than definite.125 The DHSS also tried to ensure that the past tense was used, so reference could be made to improvements on the ground because of the CSDP and Constant Attendance Allowance.126 The survey underscored the need for the implementation of services described in the CSDP and further selective cash benefits, especially for disabled housewives. While the CSDP contributed momentum and publicity to those agitating for change, the survey gave readily accessible statistics and facts, and hard cases for media use.127 While the survey’s local sample surveys were criticised for underestimating the severity of need, they provided examples of common hardship among disabled people.128 Lack of telephones, transportation and social work visits meant involuntary seclusion. Other common problems were the lack of indoor lavatories, difficulty with preparing meals and personal grooming, and getting around or out of the house. There was territorial variance in the efforts of localities to seek out and provide services for disabled people; local authority

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spending on meal services for disabled people, where they existed, ranged from 5p to 18p per person.129 Where services were available, most disabled people were not aware of them, and preferred the help of friends and family and visits from GPs.130 Central government applied no pressure on local authorities, and most did not have the funds or personnel to identify and address unmet need. Dissatisfaction with the performance of local authorities in public access since 1948 was also fuelled by adopting the objectives of international campaigns such as the American Civil Rights Movement and the innovative independent living scheme in Denmark.131 The OPCS survey was well utilised in the House of Commons and media. It drove home the realities of slow development and daily deprivation, and in making immediate corrective action seem like a foregone conclusion, contributed to the widening gap between expectation and the reality on the ground it described.

Children of thalidomide Thalidomide, a drug of West German manufacture, became available in Britain in 1958 under the name ‘Distival’. A sedative used to combat nausea in pregnant women, it was used until 1961, when links were made between its use and limb and organ deformity. The British distributor of the drug, the Distillers Company, withdrew it from circulation in December 1961. More than 400 children in Britain subsequently suffered deformities. The tragedy led to new procedures for the examination of new pharmaceuticals, as it did in many of the 46 countries where thalidomide had been distributed. The Committee on the Safety of Drugs was established in 1963 to check the safety and efficacy of new drugs for sale or clinical testing. The parents of thalidomide children fought a long court battle for compensation.132 In July 1969, Distillers eventually settled the claims by giving the 370 known victims at the time £3.25 million over 10 years: approximately £15,000 for the worst affected. Assessments at the time, however, stated that victims with severe deformities would need at least £100,000 to cover their welfare throughout their lifetimes. In September 1972, The Sunday Times began to publish a series of articles on compensation for thalidomide children detailing the efforts of Distillers to avoid paying any considerable compensation.133 Editor Harold Evans had obtained information that Distillers had relied irresponsibly on safety assurances from German manufacturers Chemie Grünenthal, and had continued to sell the drug after being at least partly aware of its dangers. While contempt of court laws meant

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that the media could not attack Distillers’ negligence in distributing the drug, The Sunday Times defied the law under the reasoning that the plight of affected children could be discussed as a moral issue.134 The articles often featured descriptions of unnerving malformations, and incited a massive public campaign to pressure Distillers into providing adequate compensation. Led by The Sunday Times, Ashley and Castle, there were also calls for the Heath government to intervene and to provide compensation for thalidomide children.135 The Heath government’s thalidomide crisis of autumn 1972 is germane to this study of adult disabled people in several ways. Thalidomide was the first ‘moral panic’ about disability, and disabled people had gained widespread recognition in the mid and late 1960s. By the 1970s, some thalidomide children were reaching adult age, and would require some form of lifetime income maintenance because of the nature of their debilitating conditions. Many of the issues raised in connection with thalidomide were applicable to those of all disabled people; it was seemingly paradoxical that the smallness and uniqueness of the dramatic thalidomide tragedy spotlighted the general problems of disabled people. All involved parties – including advocates, the media and the Heath government – did not see thalidomide children in isolation, but in the greater picture of statutory welfare for disabled people. It was in this manner that the Heath government could fear the same type of abject foreign comparisons as employed by DIG.136 The welfare of thalidomide children was related directly to provision for disabled people including the Constant Attendance Allowance. There was great public pressure for thalidomide children to receive cash benefits for life, raising the possibility of a non-contributory lifetime income for those with chronic conditions. With the recent experience of the CSDP, as well as the CSDP 1972 (Scotland), there was the sense within government that widespread support for thalidomide victims would require more unwanted legislation.137 Under the National Insurance Act 1946 and the Industrial Injuries Act 1946, the state took responsibility for cash benefits for industrial injury, and compensation was decided by social policy, not tort law. The shift from the individual culpability of employers or wrongdoers to the needs of the victimised was part of the welfare state’s shift from individual to collective welfare. The thalidomide crisis brought up these questions of who was responsible, the offending party or the state, to compensate affected disabled people, and it was further complicated because of the unique situation of a small number of victims in a statutory compensation system based on a shared pooling of risk.

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The Sunday Times articles were seized on by Ashley, as expressed in a letter to the Prime Minister: You will be aware that many members on both sides of the House have been deeply concerned about these children, and some feel that the government has a measure of responsibility as Thalidomide was prescribed through the National Health Service.... Ultimately, of course, we need a state insurance system to compensate for personal injury. Until that is established injustice and anomalies are inevitable. I hope your government will formulate plans for a system of this kind.138 Posters appeared on the London Underground encouraging the boycott of Distillers’ products. The TUC and several unions, local authorities and student and voluntary associations supported the campaign. David Mason, father of a limbless thalidomide victim, appeared on television several times and travelled to the US where he enlisted the assistance of consumer advocate Ralph Nader to add weight to the threat of boycott.139 The government came under scrutiny in the House of Commons. Requests for the Prime Minister and Joseph to put pressure on Distillers, however, were dealt with easily, as both could say that it was inappropriate for a government or any of its ministers to comment on or attempt to influence the proceedings of civil litigation: this conveniently afforded them time to explore possible options for state involvement. Calls for reform of personal injury legislation were deflected by saying it was already under review by the Robens Committee on Workplace Health and Safety.140 So, too, did pointing out what forms of statutory provision had recently been made available to disabled people and the victims of thalidomide in particular. This was the basis of the Prime Minister’s response to Ashley’s letter, and was used by Joseph to answer questions in the House of Commons.141 CarterJones attempted to ensure that Joseph, Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State for Education and Science, and Dudley Smith, Under-Secretary of State for Employment, were exercising their full responsibilities in the welfare of thalidomide children and their families.142 The question of the state providing provision for the welfare of thalidomide children created a crisis for the Heath government. The problem was first evaluated within the scope of existing provision, and it was quickly determined that the only sort of state provision that could be extended to thalidomide children was a one-off cash benefit. In terms of PSS, thalidomide children had the same right to services as

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any disabled child, and perhaps even more so as their particular forms of disablement might act as additional incentive for local authorities to address their needs. Similarly, all the NHS resources were available to thalidomide children, and many victims’ families were already receiving the Constant Attendance Allowance. The difficulty with a one-off cash payment for thalidomide children was the political impossibility of confining a disability scheme to 400 people. Indeed, a briefing for the Prime Minister on the possibility of a cash payment described how the crisis animated the welfare state’s overall difficulties with disabled people and the traditional disablement hierarchy enshrined in 20th-century British welfare, and it ran in this way: There are of course special historical and other reasons for the special treatment of the war and industrially disabled.... It is sometimes suggested that there should be a single uniform system of payments for accidents no matter how or by whose fault they are caused – in effect an industrial injuries type State-run scheme covering all personal injuries. But it is clear that it would be very difficult to avoid extending the provision of any such scheme to cover disablement resulting from congenital conditions or disease which are by far the greatest cause of disablement. However the implications for public expenditure and administration of any State-run scheme providing compensation for disablement generally, of anything like the standard provided at present through the courts or even the industrial injuries scheme, would be enormous, and any lower standard could hardly be contemplated if present remedies were to be withdrawn – the calls on medical manpower alone would seem to preclude anything approaching the present industrial disablement benefit arrangements. Underlying suggestions of this sort is the fundamental question of principle how far it is the proper function of the State to make general provision for compensation extending beyond basic provision related primarily to the relief of needs.143 The Prime Minister’s idea for the government to provide full compensation to the parents of victims while seeking to recover part of the cost from Distillers was rejected on a point of tort law.144 In discussing the Prime Minister’s suggestion of an official enquiry, Joseph pointed out that thalidomide children were in some ways

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not unique. Children with similar deformities attended the DHSS’ limb-fitting service, and the number of children with deformities who did not attend was unknown. There were similar disabilities and accompanying hardships experienced by many families. With other pressure groups ‘waiting in the wings’, as Joseph warned, the financial and legislative commitment would extend inevitably beyond thalidomide children.145 There was also the concern that some sort of payment, or an enquiry, would shift the location of responsibility from Distillers to the government.146 Robin Butler, Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, pointed out that the Prime Minister’s suggestion of a Royal Commission into compensation for personal injury law would not fully relieve the pressure on the government.147 A solution presented itself in the Lady Hoare Thalidomide Fund, a privately funded body highly regarded by the DHSS. The government was able to evade calls for involvement or new statutory provision for thalidomide victims or other disabled people with a £3 million donation. The government was eager to establish that this was a unique measure, and played down the links between thalidomide and disability in general. Despite the objective of avoiding additional statutory provision for thalidomide children, there is some indication that Joseph saw the payment as part of the greater trajectory of the state solving the welfare of disabled people.148 In 1973, under persistent public pressure and a shareholders revolt led by Tony Lynes, Distillers set up a £20 million fund to provide lifetime income maintenance to the families of victims. The Prime Minister feared that DIG would use the crisis to further their objectives. DIG, however, chose not to use the issue, or the indelible images of infants affected by thalidomide, to increase pressure on the government for additional statutory provision. DIG’s official response was sympathy for thalidomide victims, while also pointing out that their plight was one small example of the difficulties faced by all disabled people.149 DIG did not want to jeopardise its good relations with Joseph and the government overall, and many within the organisation would have objected to a particular campaign for a small minority of disabled people. DIG consequently missed an opportunity to further its goals. Increasingly in the 1970s, and in contrast to its earlier particular advocacy on behalf of disabled housewives, DIG played for all the marbles: a national disability income. This increasing preoccupation diverted attention from this opportunity, and while there is no supporting explicit evidence, DIG learned from The Sunday Times thalidomide campaign in creating the 1973 Jimmy Martin scandal.

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As Drakeford and Butler have said, statutory welfare, as a symbol of collectivism, can become the subject of scandal when there is a violation of duty in the protection of the vulnerable. Further, they emphasise that statutory welfare scandals must be understood in the greater policy context when they occur.150 The thalidomide episode occurred in the context of the ‘revolution of expectation’, where the Heath government was under pressure from competing demands for increased statutory welfare. Public enquiries are dangerous for governments during a scandal as history can be recreated: the enquiry itself can fashion the original event and social welfare scandals are often influential in the subsequent development of policy. The option of the Lady Hoare Thalidomide Fund allowed the Heath government to sidestep a public enquiry and avoid being forced by heightened expectations to create additional statutory provision for disabled people. Avoiding an enquiry also ensured that the scandal would have little staying power, unlike the Maria Colwell enquiry to which Joseph reluctantly agreed in 1974. Statutory welfare scandals are often fuelled by the public’s fear of a particular abuse being representative of additional hidden abuses or the potential of the abuse to become widespread. The thalidomide crisis quickly subsided as there was no potential for further victims in a very limited case of private negligence.

Conclusion The first three years of the 1970s were a promising period for disabled people. Increased provision was advocated in the House of Commons, by both major political parties, the media and the DHSS. The mid and late 1960s were about the discovery of disabled people, while the first three years of the 1970s were about purposeful action. It was also in this period that the welfare of disabled people began to receive consideration previously afforded to that of other PSS groups. DIG attempted to use the example of superior European schemes to ‘inspire or shame’ the Heath government into new provision. Social definitions of disability became more widely accepted from the late 1960s, and DIG capitalised on this by arguing for the freedom and improved welfare that cash benefits would afford disabled people. DIG was no longer wholly responsible for agenda setting, as the DHSS sought to develop its own programme. More independent media interest was just beginning to develop, and the media engaged with a wider range of disability issues. As is evident from the passing of the CSDP and The Sunday Times’ thalidomide campaign, the government

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Cinderella of the welfare state

now had something to fear in media coverage of disability, especially before Britain’s entry to the EEC. Different statutory and non-statutory groups played off each other in this period, in both conflict and cooperation, to try to use or react advantageously to the breakthrough in perceptions in the late 1960s that disabled people deserved greater statutory welfare: pensions groups tried to conspire with the DHSS to limit provision for disabled people; Joseph told DIG to go after local government over the CSDP; the OPCS survey was turned against government by DIG and the media; and some in Labour and many in Whitehall tried clandestinely to destroy the CSDP against the efforts of Labour and Conservative backers and non-statutory groups. Disability in this period demonstrates that the actions of statutory and non-statutory parties should be assessed individually, and that the division between government and voluntarism is a porous border. This was no different from when the NLB and TUC were allied with Poor Law authorities and voluntary groups in pressing central government for the eventual Blind Persons Act 1920, but were in conflict over local provision. While the immediate effectiveness of the Act was curtailed by the fear of 100 per cent identification and great expenditure, the CSDP could not have been passed without public support, and this is evidence of greater overall desire to improve the welfare of disabled people. The Act had positive psychological effects as it furthered disability as a public and policy issue, and its wide range of services lent to an understanding of disabled people’s overall welfare. It also created a platform for further agitation and the expectation of additional provision. The CSDP was an attempt to correct the failure to create well-developed statutory services as prescribed in Section 29 of the National Assistance Act 1948. It was not a wholly anomalous Act, but like the private members’ bills of 1968 and 1969, it was a manifestation of older concerns, and passed against the run of play in a period where cash became more desirable than services. While disability was not as frequent a topic as FIS or unemployment, the passing of the CSDP demonstrated that disability was now a sufficiently large issue for governments to fear political consequences for not supporting new disability provision in the House of Commons. There was little compunction about circumventing the contributory principle to help some disabled families via the Constant Attendance Allowances. Cash payments fitted well with both older and newer Conservative thinking, and were in line with the arguments of DIG. Further, with the recognition of the numbers of disabled people as shown by the OPCS survey, many felt comprehensive measures

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

were impossible. Selective cash benefits were a way to make real improvements in the lives of some disabled people, and with the focus on planning for future schemes, there was the irresistible feeling that the state would make further advances into their welfare. The Constant Attendance Allowances, however, were also notable because they sponsored and recognised informal care as the primary way to assist the welfare of a needy group. Opinions within government were mixed on whether the problems of thalidomide victims were to be considered similar to those faced by all disabled people. It was decided that this admission could lead involuntarily to the state assuming a large part of the welfare of disabled people from voluntary bodies and informal welfare, as well as the destruction of the contributory principle via a national disability income. In adherence to its goal of provision for all disabled people, DIG chose not to use the tragedy as a platform for agitation. And the Heath government placated calls for statutory compensation with a one-off donation to the Lady Hoare Thalidomide Fund. In comparison with the reconsideration of social services in the 1960s and the crises of the mid-1970s, 1970–73 was a quiet period when progress could be made towards the welfare of an increasingly recognised disadvantaged group. In this climate, expectations rose about what disabled people would receive from the welfare state, and these expectations appeared to have been fulfilled by the mid-1970s. Notes Hall, P. (1976) Reforming the welfare state: The politics of change in the personal social services, London: Heinemann, p 122; Lowe, R. (1996) ‘The social policy of the Heath Government’, in S. Ball and A. Seldon (eds) The Heath Government, 1970-1974: A reappraisal, London: Longman, p 191.

1

2 Hill, M. (1993) The welfare state in Britain: A political history since 1945, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, p 110.

Blackstone, T. and Plowden, W. (1988) Inside the think tank: Advising the Cabinet, 1971-1983, London: Heinemann, p 102.

3

Attendance Allowance was originally claimed by 70,000 households. By the mid1980s, it had reached 200,000, while Child Benefit was being paid to nearly 7 million parents of some 12 million children. Deacon, A. (1995) ‘Spending more to achieve less? Social security since 1945’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare, London: University College London Press, p 81.

4

170

Cinderella of the welfare state See TNA, PREM 15/666; Timmins, N. (2001) The five giants: A biography of the welfare state (2nd edn), London: HarperCollins, p 289. 5

6

Prior, J. (1986) A balance of power, London: Hamilton, p 132.

7

Denham, A. and Garnett, K. (2001) Keith Joseph, Chesham: Acumen, p 212.

8

Halcrow, M. (1989) Keith Joseph: A single mind, London: Macmillan, p 45.

9

Lowe, op cit, p 213.

10

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. DIG headquarters to DIG membership, 19 May 1969.

MRC, MSS.108/4/2. There is little archival evidence about DIG’s activities in 1969, but it appears to have been a quiet year after the exciting media successes of 1966 to 1968 and before the CSDP. The 1970 Annual General Meeting was concerned wholly with the election of a new executive. Fifth Annual General Meeting, 30 May 1970. 11

MRC, MSS.99 Box 5 of 5. Minutes of National Executive Committee, 21 July 1970; Newsletter: Coventry and District Branch, July 1970.

12

13

MRC, MSS.108/5/1. DIG London meeting, 23 June 1971.

MRC, MSS.108/4/2. Bulletin Number Five, Mary Greaves to all Branch Committee members, January 1972. 14

MRC, MSS.108/3/3. Dean to Maurice Edelman, 11 April 1972; MRC, MSS.99 Box 2 of 2. DIG meeting at Church House, Westminster, reply to Joseph by Stewart Lyon, 23 June 1971.

15

16

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. Guidance notes for DIG branches, 1972.

LHA, Labour Party conference reports, 1972; 817 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1971) 1653-758; 831 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1972) 913-1034.

17

MRC, MSS.108/3/3. Bulletin Number Seven, Greaves to all Branch Committee members, March 1972. 18

DIG (Disablement Income Group) (1974) Creating a national disability income, London: DIG. 19

171

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 20

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. DIG Fourth Annual General Meeting, 10 May 1969.

21

Ibid.

22

MRC, MSS.99 Box 2 of 5.

23

MRC, MSS.99 Box 5 of 5. Joseph to Reid, 14 April 1971.

MRC, MSS.99 Box 5 of 5. DIG and DIG Charitable Trust, Combined income and expenditure account, 12 Months to 31 December 1970, undated, probably spring 1971. 24

Collins, D. (1972) ‘First thoughts on social policy in the common market’, in K. Jones (ed) Year book of social policy in Britain 1971, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p 204. 25

MRC, MSS.108/3/2. Bulletin Number Two, Greaves to all DIG branches, November 1969. 26

MRC, MSS.108/7/1. Report on UN European Seminar on the contribution of social security and social services to the rehabilitation of the disabled, Warsaw, Poland, 16-26 September 1973, Stewart Lyon. 27

Greaves initiated the study. The 61-page report was based on 140 interviews with senior and other civil servants, doctors and other members of panels responsible for the assessment of disability, officials of rehabilitation services, non-statutory groups representing disabled people, and disabled people themselves. Most of the report was completed by Nuala Mole, an Oxford law graduate, who spent time in Bruges at an EEC seminar on disability. The synopsis and chapter on British provision was written by Timothy Booth, a sociologist at the University of Essex. 28

MRC, MSS.108/3/3. Bulletin Number Six, Greaves to all Branch Committee members, February 1972.

29

30 DIG (Disablement Income Group) (1972) Social security and disability: A study of financial provision for disabled people in seven Western European countries, London: DIG.

31

Shearer, A. (1971) ‘Limping behind Europe’, The Guardian, 26 March.

Keyworth, F. (1971) ‘Britain lags behind Europe in grants for disabled’, Daily Star, 26 March.

32

172

Cinderella of the welfare state 33

‘Disabled “getting shabby treatment”’, Liverpool Daily Post, 26 March 1971.

34

Healy, P. (1970) ‘Disabled to play fuller part in community’, The Times, 29 May.

35

‘One huge step to freedom’, Sunday Mirror, 23 August 1970.

Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1981) A charter for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, pp 136-7.

36

‘The “guest” house dodge’, News of the World, 14 May 1972; ‘Behind the net curtains’, News of the World, 14 May 1972; ‘I would not want this to go on for five seconds longer’, News of the World, 14 May 1972; ‘A slap will do her some good said the nurse’, News of the World, 14 May 1972; ‘A cause for concern’, News of the World, 14 May 1972; Litchfield, M. (1972) ‘The nurse who starved a blind old lady’, News of the World, 21 May; Litchfield, M. (1972) ‘50 per cent: why shouldn’t I make my pile?’, News of the World, 14 May; ‘Old folks homes: more disturbing facts’, News of the World, 21 May 1972; ‘They dressed my mother in cast-offs’, News of the World, 21 May 1972; ‘The problem: not enough places’, News of the World, 21 May 1972; ‘It’s all part of the family business’, News of the World, 21 May 1972. 37

38

Kent, P. (1971) ‘Stop this war on a cripple’, People [[Sunday People?]], 23 August.

39 ‘1 in 5 disabled people live alone’, Morning Star, 4 May 1971; Leishman, J. (1971) ‘Survey finds 200,000 handicapped people in unfit housing’, The Guardian, 4 May; ‘New probe into helping disabled’, Daily Sketch, 4 May 1971; Wilkinson, J. (1971) ‘New help on way for disabled’, Daily Express, 4 May.

40

See ‘The courage and the shame’, Daily Mail, 4 May 1971.

Fergusson, A. (1971) ‘The cost of the “revolution of expectation”’, The Times, 17 May.

41

Healy, P. (1971) ‘Welfare state changes direction’, The Times, 31 December. The two outstanding correspondents in the period were Healy, social services correspondent at The Times, and Anne Shearer, welfare correspondent at The Guardian. Both reported on issues and contributed original pieces. Healy published frequently on all aspects of both statutory and non-statutory welfare. In addition to articles on the implementation of the CSDP and cash provision, her notable contribution was to reveal the day-to-day difficulties in the lives of disabled people. See Healy, P. (1971) ‘A new approach in understanding the disabled’, The Times, 26 March; Healy, P. (1971) ‘“Apartheid” of handicapped child condemned’, The Times, 28 January; Shearer, A. (1970) ‘No just impediment’, The Guardian, 24 August. 42

173

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 43

LHA, Labour Party conference reports, 1971.

44

LHA, Labour Party conference reports, 1972.

LHA, RD/274. Report of the Working Group on the Elderly and Disabled, February 1972.

45

46

LHA, RD/356. ‘Priorities in government: Labour’s aims for Britain’, May 1972.

47

MRC, MSS.292B/841.44/1.

48

MRC, MSS.292D/841.44/1. Conference resolutions, 8 March 1972.

MRC, MSS.292D/841.62/1. These included the Spastics Society, CBI, Remploy and the Disabled Living Foundation.

49

50

MRC, MSS.292D/841.6/1; 146.9/1; 146.9/2.

Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1979) Provision for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, p 7; Hough, I. (1975) Political economy of the welfare state, London: Macmillan, p 25.

51

Martin, R.M. (1980) TUC: The growth of a pressure group, 1868-1976, Oxford: Oxford University Press, p 333. 52

53

TNA, LAB 110/13.

See Lewenhak, S. (1997) Women and trade unions: An outline history of women in the British trade union movement, Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

54

Wrigley, C. (1997) British trade unions, 1945-1995, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p 31. 55

Hakim, C. (1996) Key issues in women’s work: Female heterogeneity and the polarization of women’s employment, Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Athlone, p 176.

56

Boston, S. (1980) Women workers and the trade union movement, London: DavisPoynter, pp 278-80.

57

58 See Taylor, R. (1996) ‘The Heath Government and industrial relations: myth and reality’, in S. Ball and A. Seldon, op cit, pp 161-2.

59

Martin, op cit, pp 304-5.

174

Cinderella of the welfare state General Secretary speaks to the Annual General Meeting of the British Polio Fellowship, 27 September 1975. MRC, MSS.292D/146.9/4. 60

TNA, T 227/3097. T. Stuart [Treasury] to N. Jordan Muir [Treasury], 1 May 1970. 61

62

TNA, T 227/3097. Ennals to Crossman, 21 October 1969.

63

TNA, PIN 35/353. Joseph to Heath, 23 December 1970.

64

TNA, PIN 35/353. Gregson to Wendt [DHSS], 14 July 1970.

65

TNA, T 227/3128.

66

PTC, 75.01. Heath to Townsend, 16 April 1973.

67

TNA, PIN 35/370. Alison to Greaves, 30 November 1971.

68

TNA, PIN 35/370. Note on social security and disability, 27 March 1971.

69

TNA, PREM 15/666. Note of meeting with DIG on 9 May 1972.

70 TNA, PIN 35/353. Greaves to R.G. Weir [President of CJB Society of Pension Consultants], 5 June 1972.

TNA, PIN 35/369. Michael Pilch [National Association of Pension Funds] to Atkinson [DHSS], 11 July 1972. 71

72

Topliss and Gould, op cit, pp 68-9.

73

MRC, MSS 108/4/1. DIG Bulletin Number Four, November 1971.

TNA, PREM 15/666. Note by Large in advance of meeting with Joseph and Heath on 28 November 1972, undated, November 1972.

74

TNA, PREM 15/666. Unidentified Secretary for the Prime Minister to Dudley Smith, 13 December 1972.

75

76 TNA, PIN 35/369. ‘Possible benefit for handicapped housewives with children’, 12 January 1972.

77

TNA, PIN 35/369. ‘Developments in cash provision for disability’, 12 July 1972.

175

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 78

Ibid.

TNA, PIN 35/369. ‘Developments in cash benefits for disability: the next step’, undated, 1972.

79

80

Ibid.

81

Ibid.

82

TNA, PIN 42/83. Regan to Errington, 12 July 1972.

83

792 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1969) 19.

Aubert, J.-F. (1965) ‘Vers une conception nouvelle de l’invalidité’, Annales de médicine legalé, vol 4, no 1, pp 235-56 [abstract in English translation]. 84

Veldkamp, G.M.J. (1966) ‘De maatschappelijke betekenis van de arbeidsongeschiktheidsverzekering’, Sociale Verzekering, vol 11, no 1, pp 117-19 [abstract in English translation]. 85

Chmelensky, K. (1965) ‘Druzstva invalidu v CSSR’, Zpravodaj Svazu ceskoslovenskych invalid, vol 16, no 1, pp 6-8 [abstract in English translation].

86

87

TNA, PIN 35/370.

‘Team will see how other nations run social security’, Daily Telegraph, 8 September 1971.

88

89

‘Disablement – distinctions, not difference’, The Economist, 10 June 1972.

90 TNA, PIN 35/470. Note on cash benefits for the handicapped: a selective study of some European countries in operation, June 1972.

91

TNA, PIN 35/370. ‘Cash benefits for the handicapped’, June 1972.

92

DHSS Circular 12/70, CSDP 1970, 17 August 1970.

93

Topliss and Gould (1981), op cit, p 2.

Morris, A. and Butler, A. (1972) No feet to drag: Report on the disabled, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, pp 5-6.

94

176

Cinderella of the welfare state 95

Topliss and Gould, op cit, p 21.

96

Ibid, pp 46-7.

97

TNA, BN 72/102.

98

TNA, T 227/3127.

‘Helping the disabled to play their part in the community, new measures will expand benefits and services’, The Guardian, 10 April 1970. 99

100

TNA, T 227/3127. Alice Bacon to John Dunwoody, 14 January 1970.

TNA, T 227/3128. The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill, Standing Committee C of the House of Commons, 19 December 1969.

101

102

TNA, BN 13/274. ‘Provision for disability’, 30 October 1972.

103

TNA, T 227/3127. Pentland to Dunwoody, 15 January 1970.

104

Topliss and Gould, op cit, pp 23-4.

TNA, BN 72/102. Note on Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill – Lords, 18 January 1970.

105

106

Topliss and Gould, op cit, pp 25-6.

107

Ibid, pp 151-62.

TNA, AST 36/284. Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill, 11 December 1969. 108

TNA, T 227/3127. ‘List of proposed clauses and sub-clauses lost or deferred during Standing Committee debates on the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill’, undated, probably March 1970. 109

110

Jaehnig, op cit, p 444.

111 Miller, E.J. and Gwynne, V. (1972) A life apart: A pilot study of residential institutions for the physically handicapped and the young chronic sick, London: Tavistock, p 89.

177

Disability and the welfare state in Britain TNA, AST 36/284. Note on Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill, 14 January 1970.

112

113

TNA, BD 18/1013. Memorandum on CSDP, 13 July 1970.

TNA, BN 72/102. Note on Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill – Lords, 18 January 1970.

114

115

‘Aids for disabled people on permanent display’, The Times, 11 May 1971.

116

TNA, BN 62/3072-3; LMA 4305.

117

TNA, NF 2/168.

817 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1971) 1666; ‘A little less neglected’, The Economist, 10 April 1971.

118

Parts One and Two dealing with welfare and employment were released in May 1971. Part Three examined housing and adaptations and was released in October 1972.

119

Harris, A., Smith, C.R.W. and Head, E. (1972) Handicapped and impaired in Great Britain. Part One, London: HMSO, pp 5-7. 120

121

Ibid, pp 15, 60.

122

The report said explicitly that it did not set out to examine incomes. Ibid, pp 55,

60. 123

Ibid, pp 2, 17, 89.

124

Ball, D. (1971) ‘The disabled: digging in’, New Society, 6 May.

125

TNA, BN 82/24. Whiting [DHSS] to Smith [OPCS], 9 May 1971.

126

TNA, BN 82/23.

127

Stevenson, J. (1971) ‘Plight of the lone cripples’, Daily Mail, 4 May.

Borsay, A. (2004) Disability and social policy in Britain since 1750: A history of exclusion, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 193; Jaehnig, op cit, pp 445-6; Gray, B.I. (1972)

128

178

Cinderella of the welfare state Report on the sample survey of chronically sick and disabled persons in Preston, Preston: Preston Social Services Department, p 91. 129

Orwell, S. (1973) ‘Handicapped’, New Society, 5 April.

130

Gray, op cit, pp 86-94.

Sainsbury, S. (1995) ‘Disabled people’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare: Past, present and future, London: University College London Press, pp 184-9. 131

TNA, PREM 15/1099. ‘A brief history of the thalidomide episode and steps taken to prevent a recurrence’, undated, probably October or November 1972.

132

133

Evans, H. (1983) Good times, bad times, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp 65-

72. 843 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1972) 463-4, 467. The case went through to the European Court of Human Rights, which decided that the injunction violated freedom of expression. ‘The moral case for publishing thalidomide article’, The Times, 9 November 1972. 134

846 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1972) 191-4, 21014, 765-6.

135

136

CPA, ACP 2/3. ‘Cash benefits’, Note by Joseph, undated.

137 TNA, T 22/2043. The Heath government knew that the CSDP (Scotland) was hopelessly flawed, but acquiesced in its passing because the Prime Minister could not appear opposed to the measure in Scotland where he was trying to gain support. Further, many of the responsibilities it detailed were already happening on the ground, and were superfluous to those in the 1968 Social Work (Scotland) Bill.

138

TNA, PREM 15/1099. Ashley to Heath, 28 September 1972.

Ashley, J. (1982) Acts of defiance, London: Reinhardt, in association with Viking, p 201.

139

140

846 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1972) 212.

TNA, PREM 15/1099. Heath to Ashley, 13 November 1972; 847 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1972) 442-3.

141

179

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 847 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1972) 272-4, 257-8, 359.

142

TNA, PREM 15/1099. Brief for the Prime Minister on thalidomide children, undated, probably October or November 1972.

143

144 Opinion of the Law Officers to the Crown and Junior Counsel to the Treasury, Thalidomide children, 20 November 1972. TNA, PREM 15/1099.

145

TNA, PREM 15/1099. Joseph to Heath, 21 November 1972.

146

TNA, T 227/3665. Confidential, 29 November 1972.

147

TNA, PREM 15/1099. Butler to Heath, 24 November 1972.

148

TNA, T 227/3665. Confidential, 29 November 1972.

149

TNA, PREM 15/1211. Dudley Smith to Douglas Hurd, 2 December 1972.

Drakeford, M. and Butler, I. (2005) Scandal, social policy and social welfare (2nd edn), Bristol: Policy Press, pp 226, 238. 150

180

SIX

The final days: disability at the end of the welfare state, 1973–79 Timeline, 1973–79 1973 October

OPEC crisis. Coal and fuel prices rise.

December

Jimmy Martin scandal.

1974 January

Three-day week begins, to conserve electricity and coal.

February

Election: Labour (301), Conservatives (297), Liberals (14), Others (21).

March

Barbara Castle becomes Secretary of State for Social Services. Alf Morris becomes Minister for the Disabled.

September

Castle announces plans for Mobility Allowance, Invalid Care Allowance and NCIP.

October

Election: Labour (319), Conservatives (277), Liberals (13), Others (24).

1975 November

Cash limits introduced on spending for the first time.

1976

Unemployment reaches 1.5 million; Callaghan speeches confirm end of full employment.

January

NCIP and Mobility Allowance become available.

181

Disability and the welfare state in Britain April

Callaghan becomes Prime Minister; Castle is dismissed as Secretary of State for Social Services.

July

Invalid Care Allowance becomes available.

September

Callaghan government approaches IMF for loan.

Introduction This chapter concentrates largely on 30 consummate months, January 1973 to the settlement of cash benefits in July 1975. Disabled people seemed to have made great gains, and their exclusion from the welfare state appeared to have ended. The political situation in 1974 was favourable to increased social expenditure, and disabled people now had sufficient political and public profile to take advantage. Four new cash benefits were created: the Invalid Care Allowance, the Mobility Allowance, the Noncontributory Invalidity Pension and the Housewives Non-contributory Invalidity Pension. For services, progress in fulfilling the terms of the CSDP was now expected, and the state of play on the ground began to be scrutinised in academic studies. The cash benefits violated the contributory principle, and seemed to add up to a national disability income when the HNCIP was made law in July 1975. DIG largely began to disband, having seemingly achieved its objective. Then came the imposition of cash limits on spending and the end of the welfare state in 1976. Why did the postwar settlement implode just at the time disabled people were finally gaining recognition? Britain was in recession in 1973 and 1974 with the crashes of the New York and London stock exchanges. The OPEC crisis had a great adverse effect on the National Balance of Payments – GDP shrank by 0.8 per cent in the second half of 1973, and 4.3 per cent in 1974.1 The three-day week in January and February 1974 was a psychological blow, and many started to question the validity of the Keynesian system that had prevailed since the Second World War.2 The recession ended in December 1974 with the end of rent freezes, and the economy expanded again in 1975. By the spring of 1975, the Wilson government had abandoned the idea of full employment. Inflation rose to 27 per cent and unemployment reached 1.5 million in 1976.3 It was in such a troubled economic period that new spending on social welfare was introduced for children, women, pensioners and disabled people.

182

The final days

Disabled people benefited from the turbulent politics of 1974. Both major political parties were less popular than they had been since the Second World War, with a combined 75 per cent of the vote in the February election.4 Both parties had influential figures, Keith Joseph and Barbara Castle (Secretary of State for Social Services), committed to the cause of disabled people. Disability was explicitly mentioned in the manifestos of both parties before the February election, and the Conservative manifesto included the possibility of a disability income. The Prime Minister appointed Morris as Minister for Disabled People (without portfolio) on his return to power in 1974. Millward has noted correctly that the significance of placing a prominent disability activist in a notable position was part of the government’s attempts to cater for specific groups, and how his placing within the social security side instead of the health side of the DHSS confirmed the greater shift in perception from the 1940s to the 1970s: from employment, hospitalisation and local-based promotional welfare to greater provision in cash and services.5 Castle’s team also included Ashley as Principal Private Secretary, a young and left-leaning Jack Straw as political adviser, the ‘preening, hair tossing’ David Owen as Parliamentary Secretary for Health (later Minister of State for Health), and Brian O’Malley, who helped create the Party’s plans for disability provision in opposition, as Parliamentary Secretary for Social Security.6 In advance of the October election, both parties specifically courted disabled people, with Labour promising the Invalid Care Allowance, the Mobility Allowance and the NCIP.7 The Conservatives concurrently announced similar non-contributory benefits, and it seemed that disabled people would be the winners after the election. Labour was radicalising, and many in the Party returned to power in 1974 looking to render accounts with the perceived social failures of the Wilson governments of the 1960s. Further, Labour saw the February election as a validation of the Social Contract, and as an indication of the need to spend on social welfare despite the troubling economic climate. So, too, did the Maria Colwell case increase pressure for Labour to create politically favourable social legislation.8 With the Treasury weakened against the demands of social spending departments in a year with two elections, Castle was powerful. As Toynbee and Walker put it: ‘For two years, social policy was Barbara Castle. Until she was sacked by James Callaghan in a settling of old Labour Party scores, she enjoyed two (hyperactive) years.’9 Aged 64 by the time of the October election, she would not run again, and the DHSS was her last-chance saloon.10 She fought Joel Barnett, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, from March through September 1974 for new cash benefits

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for disabled people, including an HNCIP.11 In the irrationality of a year with two elections, Castle helped win funds for the DHSS, whose existence was already being questioned in the mid-1970s. Toynbee and Walker identified the first two years of Labour’s return to power as a vibrant time for social policy: Social administration burgeoned as a discipline. Routledge and Kegan Paul published, from 1971 on, fat yearbooks of social policy; they ceased in 1982. Contacts between civil servants, ministers, journalists, academics and the commentariat at large were denser than they had ever been before or have been since. It was the heyday of the magazine New Society – which carried Frank Field’s famous leak of Cabinet discussions about deferring the implementation of the Child Benefit Act 1975. Bertorelli’s restaurant in Charlotte Street rang with specialist luncheon and dining clubs. Barbara Castle’s appointment of Professor David Donnison to chair the Supplementary Benefits Commission and the arrival with her at the Department of Health and Social Security of Professor Brian Abel-Smith personified the close connexion between the social policy community and policy itself. An unnamed senior civil servant at the DHSS declared that resources real-location “showed a clear political initiative, whose ideas had been stimulated by the social sciences.” Here was a British version of the conjunction of “faith, intelligence and good works” described for the era of the Great Society programmes in the United States by Henry J. Aaron.12 Glennerster said that Labour’s implementation of the National Pension Plan and Child Benefit amidst a global economic crisis was the ‘high water mark’ of the welfare state.13 Perceptions of disabled people in this period focused largely on how their unquestionable need should be addressed given the political, not the foreboding, economic situation, and efforts at new legislation focused on cash benefits as the best way to address the welfare. DIG, Labour, the Conservatives and the media raised expectations of a noncontributory national disability income. Concerned parties envisioned and attempted to influence the form that the cash benefits would take. While there was tension within the Wilson governments over these benefits in 1974 through July 1975, there was overall little tension between expectation and what the benefits appeared to provide.

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Timmins and Walker felt there was a consensus about cash benefits between the elections in 1974.14 How and why were the benefits created as they were against other options, and how effective were they expected to be? Was there a consensus, and if so, what was its extent? While the cash benefits did contribute to the welfare of many of disabled people, they came under later criticism for creating a ‘Kafkalike world’ of disability provision, as it was known at the time. The CSDP also came under much scrutiny in the mid and late 1970s and early 1980s. The positive psychological impact of the CSDP and the increasing representation of disabled people were victories for disabled people, but did the Act succeed in both improving the welfare of disabled people on the ground and in living up to expectations? Analyses of the effectiveness of the cash benefits and the CSDP are used in this chapter as benchmarks to assess how the welfare state ultimately affected the welfare of disabled people.

Disablement Income Group and a national disability income While Mary Greaves’ tenure had been about more about research, publications and European interests, DIG under Peter Large – a retired civil servant, engineer and ex-serviceman of the Royal Navy who had acquired polio at 30 and was confined to a wheelchair – focused overwhelmingly on increasing the presence of disability issues in the House of Commons. This was particularly evident in the lead-up to the 1973 Social Security and Superannuation Bill and the February 1974 election. Some were concerned that DIG was experiencing a lull in activity in 1972 and 1973, particularly as the thalidomide campaign commandeered public attention. There was also the concern that DIG was already focused excessively on parliamentary affairs at the cost of attempting to influence public opinion.15 Having not made any advances under the Heath government beyond the 1972 extended Constant Attendance Allowance, DIG mounted a massive effort to put pressure on, and canvass the opinions of, candidates from all parties in the lead-up to both 1974 elections. DIG sponsored amendments at the committee and report stages, but failed to get disabled people included in provision for pensions and pensions for widows. DIG argued that the Social Security Bill was unsound and discriminatory as it gave different levels of pensions benefits to widows and retired people than to people with chronic disabilities under National Insurance, despite the fact that these categories of

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people were similarly unable to work.16 The major obstacle was the unknown cost of DIG’s proposals. DIG tried to assuage these fears by identifying the numbers of disabled people on Supplementary Benefit who could return to work if aided by non-contributory benefits.17 Branches were issued sets of questions for their local MPs to encourage backbenchers to raise questions in the House of Commons and to take up issues with ministers.18 Of particular interest to DIG was the disability scheme that Labour had formed while in opposition, and whether it amounted to a national disability income. Details, however, were not forthcoming, and Large issued a series of questions for local branches under Labour MPs.19 Overall, the hope was to increase questions on new provision, and a disability income in particular, inside the House of Commons to such an extent that it would become the subject of up bidding between Labour and the Conservatives.20 While DIG hoped for a Labour majority and what disability schemes it might bring, the organisation continued to be officially nonpartisan in the hope that the ‘only majority in the Commons will be a majority in support of DIG’.21 DIG’s survey of MPs in March 1974 found almost unanimity in favour of a nationality disability income, housewives allowance and the Constant Attendance Allowances.22 By August 1974, Labour and the Conservatives had discernible positions on a NCIP. Both proposed a non-contributory income at roughly 60 per cent of National Insurance Invalidity Benefit. As is evident in the change in the Conservatives’ position from 1973 to 1974 in favour of a national disability income, DIG had sufficient influence to get election promises and well-considered responses from both major parties. DIG had also managed to convince both parties of the problems of disabled housewives. Notwithstanding these successes, DIG fell into financial crisis again in 1975 as donations to non-statutory groups plummeted. The organisation was in a dire financial situation after its exertions during the 1974 election campaigns.23 Some branches folded in 1975 and 1976 because of falling membership numbers or bankruptcy. The NCIP came into effect in April 1975, the Invalid Care Allowance in 1976, and the HNCIP was to be introduced in November 1977.24 Local branches began to dissolve, having seemingly achieved their objective of a national disability income through these benefits. The benefits represented important changes in thinking about disabled people in the welfare state. Following on from the Attendance Allowances, further provision based on insurance and compensation afforded in the postwar settlement to ex-servicemen, industrially

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injured people and other groups under National Insurance schemes, were extended to those in attendance of a disabled relative. The need for income for disabled married women was generally recognised, and the pressing need for non-contributory benefits finally superseded concerns about deviating from the contributory principle. With the cash benefits and Castle’s promise of more to come, many in the organisation began to feel that it had succeeded and outlived its usefulness. As DIG largely disbanded, the Disability Alliance formed in 1974 as a group of organisations and specialists. Its objective was to press government for its particular vision for a national disability income as a comprehensive income maintenance based solely on degree of physical impairment.25 Townsend and Walker said that they created the organisation because of the need for a specialist non-statutory group to advise government, and to unite all disabled organisations into a more powerful one.26 It is also evident that the Disability Alliance was also created as the disability movement began to radicalise, as some became frustrated with the slow development of statutory provision and the failure of the new cash benefits to attempt to create comprehensive income maintenance.27 Whiteley and Winyard said that Townsend and Walker created the movement in response to Labour’s failure to consider a national disability income in 1974, and that the Alliance wanted to take a more militant approach.28 Records at the MRC, however, suggest that the Disability Alliance was formed as an elite group comprising the leaders of non-statutory groups, as well as medical and academic specialists. While it was strongly motivated by a desire to express disappointment with the initial proposals of 1974 Labour government, the original impetus, for which there is evidence from 1973, was to form a specialist group. It seemed a new approach was needed to influence future provision, especially as the Prime Minister told Townsend that there was more to come.29 In contrast, DIG became less critical of government in its parliamentary phase under Large. As media coverage of the welfare of disabled people became more frequent and caustic, DIG no longer agitated for change with the ardency it had in the 1960s and early 1970s. Townsend formed the Alliance with others in DIG who wanted a more confrontational approach in reaching comprehensive income maintenance. This is evident in opinions expressed about Labour’s plans for provision in cash.30 The Disability Alliance assumed DIG’s function as the primary non-statutory group pressuring for statutory cash benefits and publishing academic research.

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Jimmy Martin scandal In December 1973, a national media scandal surrounded Jimmy Martin of Leicester, a boy of 10 who was reported to have been born with no arms or legs. The story was featured in The Times, the Daily Mirror and the News of the World in December 1973, and Large had editorial comments in The Times and The Daily Telegraph in January 1974. Martin’s parents were refused both the full and partial Attendance Allowances five times on the account that Jimmy did not require attendance. DIG knew that the extent of Jimmy’s disablement and the callousness of the criteria were exaggerated: We must obviously do what we can to exploit the latest events in the Jimmy Martin case for the benefit of all disabled people through our campaign for a national disability income.… Jimmy Martin is not ‘limbless’ and sections of the media have greatly exaggerated his disability. His need for attendance as defined in current legislation has been exhaustively investigated and it is now generally accepted that he does not qualify for an allowance.31 Yet DIG seized on the opportunity that they had long awaited in their collection and dissemination of hard cases – disability had a Maria Colwell. Jimmy Martin was used not only as an example of why the Constant Attendance Allowances should be expanded and better funded, but also as an argument for a national disability income. In the lead-up to the February 1974 election, the timing of the scandal was fortunate for DIG, especially after media coverage of the thalidomide campaign had shown that a disability ‘moral panic’ could influence government appreciably. The Jimmy Martin scandal was similar to the thalidomide campaign: a child suffering from an extremely debilitating condition generated expansive interest about the overall situation of millions of disabled people. DIG may have learned from its failure to use the thalidomide tragedy to show the need for increased statutory provision. Large’s press release pointed out that Jimmy would have nothing to look forward to as an adult except Supplementary Benefit, unless a NCIP was introduced.32 The same argument may have been employed by DIG during the thalidomide crisis. Townsend, however, felt that the scandal diverted attention from the real need of a comprehensive income maintenance for all disabled people, as many papers pressed for more liberal Attendance Allowances.33 In the House of Commons,

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there were many written questions about qualifying criteria for the Constant Attendance Allowances. Both parties in opposition in 1974 asked for the relaxation of the six-month qualifying period, and rejected applications, especially Jimmy Martin’s, formed the basis of questions.34 DIG’s use of Jimmy Martin further established the welfare of disabled people, and cash benefits in particular, as a political and ‘moral panic’ issue at a time when both parties were particularly sensitive to public opinion. The Jimmy Martin episode, however, did not attract continued attention throughout the election year. The initial exposure generated concern, but there were no further revelations. As Drakeford and Butler have pointed out, a welfare scandal cannot simply repeat itself or the power of the original revelation quickly dissipates.35 It may have also been that in the context of the ‘revolution of expectation’, many felt assured that needy disabled people, such as Jimmy Martin, would soon receive additional statutory provision.

Assessing the Disablement Income Group Even in a limited temporal period, it is difficult to assess the precise contributions of a pressure group towards the welfare of a particular group. There is always the suggestion that judging the success of a pressure group can be at best unverifiable speculation, or at worst a prejudiced personal judgement. Much pertinent information also escapes documentation. That said, a pressure group can be judged by informed enquiries to arrive at a reasonable assessment of its successes and failures. How did DIG stand up to the challenges that face pressure groups? DIG had done well as an ‘insider’ pressure group. It had many prestigious members and sponsors, and local branches succeeded in recruiting local notables to their executives. DIG’s established academics gave it a high degree of credibility in the eyes of government and the media, and unlike Shelter, civil servants generally accepted that DIG’s evidence was not exaggerated. Further, there was a simple lack of information, especially in the late 1960s, that DIG filled, and in doing so acquired an excellent reputation for the quality of its information.36 Disability was also an easier sell compared to the ‘lifestyle choice’ of homelessness or the ‘psychological deviance’ of unwed mothers.37 Pressure groups must react well to changes in government, and while DIG had closer links with Labour, this was never a difficulty with the political appeal of its arguments and objectives, as well as its dedication to official non-partisanship. DIG also succeeded in both convincing

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government to commit to an amelioration of their social problems, and that their particular solutions were more valid than others. That said, considering the sentiment against institutions and segregation, as well as desirability of increased independence and social integration for disabled people, it is understandable that cash benefits as advocated by DIG were preferred by government over less politically expedient and more expensive and selective options, such as planned communities or a massive disability employment programme. With the exception of the thalidomide crisis, DIG was ambitious and acutely aware that it must act quickly to capitalise on the favourable circumstances of the time. With the social climate from the mid1960s to the mid-1970s favourable to pressure group activity, how did DIG respond to the challenges of the period? It struggled to make its proposals for a national disability income financially agreeable to government. While the Wilson and Heath governments were committed to the welfare state, and the Heath government genuinely concerned about poverty, both governments operated under financial constraints. DIG’s 1974 publication, Creating a national disability income, identified the cost of its proposals at around £500 million.38 As discussed later, this was far more than Labour and Conservative plans. How did DIG fare in representing its client group? DIG’s successes with the media have already been discussed, but the fact that this success was not fleeting, a common problem for pressure groups, was an achievement. There was also a thorough change in attitude within the media. Writing about DIG’s first national rally in 1967, Philip Howard’s article in The Times, ‘Cripples hobble to No 10’, described the event in a derisive manner, and was wholly different from the widespread media advocacy in coverage of DIG’s European report and the Jimmy Martin scandal. DIG heavily influenced media content, and this contributed to its desired climate of opinion that disabled people were a group of self-aware citizens, unjustly deprived and deserving of statutory welfare. Further, DIG’s two successful tactics for influencing politicians were direct and complimentary. Direct letters to MPs and correspondence in general was used in combination with media coverage – senior civil servants and ministers receive a lot of mail, but they often receive synopses from staff members about events based on mail and print media. The simplest measure of a pressure group’s success is whether it fulfils its original objectives. DIG succeeded in representing the claims of disabled people for improved statutory welfare, promoted research

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and worked in conjunction with other organisations, and created public awareness of disability issues. While measuring user satisfaction is difficult, DIG’s activities helped lead to the tangible benefits of statutory cash benefits and services provided by local branches. It is clear from the records of local branches that DIG offered opportunities for socialising, fraternity and citizen participation. It was an outlet for concerns, common interests and aspirations, and was the first major national organisation to speak for disabled people.39 DIG made disability a public issue and a public alarm issue, an achievement for perhaps the most neglected disadvantaged group in the early 1960s. As an area with comparatively low public and political profile, concern for disability or any other PSS group could never have reached that of other policy issues like education, the NHS or taxation. For DIG and disability, merely getting on the policy agenda and bringing recognition to the inadequacies of the welfare state settlement was a victory. Writing in 1987, Whiteley and Winyard identified disabled people as having become the single most extensively represented subaltern group in Britain.40 Viewed across the duration of 20th-century welfare, and against its traditionally more esteemed rivals in the PSS queue like children, problem families and elderly people, few in 1965 could have predicted this outcome. Crossman felt that Megan du Boisson was one of the most effective social crusaders of the 20th century and more effective than Eleanor Rathbone: it took du Boisson four years to make the public and the state recognise a group in need and to address it in legislation via the 1969 Attendance Allowance; the Family Allowance Act 1945 had taken 20 years of campaigning.41 Again, when DIG began to largely disband, some in the organisation thought that it had succeeded in achieving comprehensive income maintenance, but inclusion in the welfare state’s full or near-full employment, and the benefits that contributions to National Insurance would have brought, were not realised.

Labour in opposition In 1973, Labour’s Disablement Income Working Group that included Abel-Smith and Castle began to create proposals in advance of the next election. The goal was an unprecedented and comprehensive system of cash benefits. The philosophical impetus for this project was in line with Labour’s social ethos at the time: the vertical redistribution of resources to society’s neediest groups. Labour’s plan had both absolute and relative goals: to combat poverty and low financial resources among disabled people outright, and in relation to non-disabled people; to

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iron out horizontal inequalities in cash benefits within different groups of disabled people; and to work towards closing the gap between provision afforded to ex-servicemen and industrially injured people. The new system of allowances was part of a greater plan to improve disabled people’s welfare. Morris was not naïve about the CSDP’s potential or the false backing it received, and knew that many who expressed support for the bill were opposed to it. He asked constant questions in the House of Commons to press for central government involvement in its implementation, and using hard cases and statistics from the OPCS survey, Labour MPs pressed for specifically allocated funds for implementation. Labour had plans to fund and enforce the CSDP, to expand and enforce the quota system, and to set up adult education centres for disabled people. Cash benefits, however, were the main consideration. Townsend, Morris and Brian O’Malley, Junior Health and Social Security Minister in 1969 and 1970, each tabled a proposal to be evaluated by the LRD and DIG.42 The proposals had common goals for the CSDP, the quota system and adult education. While all recognised the need to phase in cash benefits because of financial constraints, the plans varied in cost and in their reasoning about how cash benefits might better improve the welfare of disabled people. Townsend’s proposal aimed at comprehensive income maintenance, and was the most ambitious. It sought to bring disabled people up to the same level of cash benefits as received by ex-servicemen and industrially injured people. Every disabled person was to receive an allowance, regardless of age or cause of disablements, based on a five-tiered scale of severity of disablement. In addition to this basic rate, a series of functionally defined extra expenses would be paid. As with schemes for ex-servicemen and industrially injured people, those disabled people without a contribution record would receive National Insurance instead of Supplementary Benefit in addition to the new universal allowance. This scheme was costed at £295 million minus an unidentified clawback from Supplementary Benefit, and amounted to the reversal of the postwar settlement’s neglect of disabled people. O’Malley’s scheme was identical to Townsend’s, but with less generous rates, and was costed at £205 million minus claw-back.43 Both DIG and the LRD favoured Morris’s scheme. It was similar to Townsend’s, but its focus was the expenses of disabled living, not comprehensive income maintenance.44 Every disabled person would receive an expense benefit based on degree of impairment, as defined by the three tiers in the OPCS survey. Disabled housewives and those unable to work because of disability would receive a small additional

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benefit. Morris’s scheme was costed at £284 million. Townsend’s scheme aimed to establish comprehensive income maintenance as a right based on degree of disablement as a right of citizenship. In this, it was more in line with the original thinking of DIG about the failures of the welfare state settlement. Morris’s scheme, however, was more in line with the increased emphasis of the 1970s on giving cash to those in need to attain their own welfare and benefits to selectively target the greatest need.

Conservatives in opposition With many Conservative MPs voicing support for DIG, what form did the CRD’s schemes take? How and why did they come to the conclusions expressed in Joseph’s autumn 1974 outline of future benefits? In June 1974, Geoffrey Howe, MP for Reigate, created a study group on disablement comprising Joseph, Michael Alison, MP for Barkston Ash, and Monty Woodhouse, MP for Oxford, which worked in conjunction with the CRD.45 The CRD was in some disarray after the February election defeat with staff turnover and a loss of power to the Leader’s Office.46 As such, the powerful figures in this group would dominate the agenda in advance of the October election. Howe insisted that the group prepare cash schemes to rival Labour, and that they should be circulated promptly to all shadow Cabinet members. The schemes would also be used to inform criticism of the government’s autumn report on the development of statutory welfare for disabled people.47 The motivation was partly political as the Conservatives were explicitly aware that cash, not services, would be an issue in the autumn election campaign. There is an indication in the Committee’s files that they planned to address services, but under political and public pressure, it was not their priority. The group’s recommendations were to be mentioned in the October election manifesto, but were brought forward to rival Castle’s announcement of Labour’s plans. A total of 250,000 of the neediest disabled people – those who had no income from employment and who received no benefits beyond Supplementary Benefit or of Constant Attendance Allowances – would receive an Income Support grant of £6/week, with additions or subtractions based on degree of disability. Like the industrial injuries scheme, it would be paid in addition to the Constant Attendance Allowances, but Supplementary Benefit would be clawed back. The contributory principle would be discarded, as ‘the social and political

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objections are very strong.’48 The cost would be £94 million, plus savings on Supplementary Benefit of £10–20 million. The group rejected two alternatives. The ultimate objective was to unite all forms of disability cash benefits into a single tax credit system. It was recognised, however, that this would take a long time to design, and a platform was needed quickly. A larger national disability income, as proposed by DIG at a cost of £500 million, was rejected as inefficient and too costly.49 Other than more urgent political expediency, the motives remained the same as they had been under the Heath governments: simple targeted benefits for the most disadvantaged. It was for this reason, as well as public pressure, that the Conservative Party was willing to make a large exception to the contributory principle. While most Conservatives objected to exceptions, Joseph’s Constant Attendance Allowances were accepted because of their small scope, both in the number of beneficiaries and total cost. There was also a newer consideration. Unlike Labour’s less selective schemes, the Conservatives wanted the new benefit to be paid only to those unemployed because of the exceptionally high unemployment figures among disabled people in 1974. The industrial injuries scheme was based on a complex sliding scale of physical impairment and corresponding benefits, but the Conservatives thought this was unnecessary for 250,000 unemployed disabled people. Unlike the 700,000 people under the industrial injuries scheme, the status of those who were permanently unemployed because of severe chronic sickness was unlikely to change, and was conducive to a simple scheme. Also unlike industrial injuries, it was estimated that 97–98 per cent of unemployed disabled people were never able to work.50 The group felt that the basic £6 would be efficient and humane, as Christopher Mockler, Head of CRD’s Social Services section, wrote to Alison: ‘To introduce an earnings rule for the able-bodied is one thing, to introduce the same for the physically disabled may seem tasteless if not unfair; the party is committed to simplifying the welfare state.’51 The Conservative philosophy changed only somewhat in 1974 despite the opportunity to try to promise more than Labour in their October election manifesto, as they did before the February election. DIG, in fact, rejected the proposed gradation of rates depending on the degree of disability, as it put an individual’s physical disablement before its adverse effects on employment.52 Further, Joseph was never one to raise expectations and then disappoint. Rather, as with the moving ahead of implementation for the Constant Attendance Allowances in 1971 and 1972, it is very likely that he preferred to set expectations comparatively low, and then exceed them. Unfortunately, there was no

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extant evidence at the CPA of any objections from those in the Party who may have wanted to promise more in an election year.

Trades Union Congress and the quota scheme As with women in the 1970s and homosexuals in the 1990s, the TUC only took up the cause of disabled people and traditionally underrepresented groups when it could no longer ignore them. In this period, unions may have been a powerful voice for disabled people under the Social Contract, and union backing for disabled people would have added to the pressure on government for significant cash provision in 1974. Records at the MRC show massive shop floor support for disabled workers, probably because of personal familiarity with disabled workers and less care for greater issues. The TUC, however, in debates over the quota system or otherwise, was hesitant to take up the cause of disabled people in order to preserve jobs for able-bodied people in a time of rising unemployment. The unions’ greatest single engagement with disability was the 1973 consultation with the Department of Labour about its proposed reforms to the quota scheme. The often-strong responses of 67 affiliated unions to eight questions formed the basis of the General Council recommendations (see Tables 6.1 and 6.2). Table 6.1: Potential alterations to quota scheme, as suggested by the Department of Employment and Productivity 1. Stricter enforcement of the present scheme. 2. Strict enforcement of a reduced quota. 3. A scheme that takes account of unregistered as well as registered disabled people. 4. Abolition of the permit scheme: introduction of an unqualified obligation on employers to fulfil the quota. 5. Abolition of the permit scheme: employers to be obliged to fulfil their quota unless they have reasonable cause not to do so. 6. Abolition of the permit scheme: financial sanctions on employers. 7. Abolition of the quota: a system of subsidies to encourage employers to employ disabled people. 8. Abolition of the quota: improve the employment and training services provided for disabled people.

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain Table 6.2: The Trades Union Congress General Council’s recommendations based on the responses of affiliated organisations 1. The existing quota of 3% should remain in force and be more strictly enforced, including the cessation of the issue of ‘bulk’ exemption permits to employers. Employers should be required to make regular returns to the local disablement resettlement officers about the percentage of disabled people employed. 2. More staff should be employed to work in the resettlement of disabled people, and better facilities for the training and rehabilitation of the disabled should be provided. 3. The Department of Employment should make grants available to firms for the necessary modification to plant and machinery, to enable the employment of disabled people. 4. Government contracts should not be given to firms not complying with the quota, unless agreed by the local Disablement Advisory Committee. 5. The Manpower Services Commission should take over broad responsibility for sheltered employment, with Remploy Ltd and local authorities acting as agents, having control over day-to-day administration. 6. A more equitable wages structure should be developed for sheltered employment. 7. There should be more diversification in the types of sheltered work available, and an expansion of appropriate training facilities to enable more disabled people to take up administrative, technical and professional work.

The opinions expressed in the individual unions’ responses are fascinating. The responses also revealed how many disabled workers chose not to register for fear of discrimination. Leeds and Wolverhampton TUC called for a national disability pension. Hartlepool TUC wanted a levelling up of British employment programmes for disabled people with some EEC ones. While some objected to the idea of compulsory employment of any sort, and instead suggested better training and social services for disabled workers, most strongly objected to a reduction or removal of the quota, and spoke favourably of their disabled comrades.53 As with minority ethnic groups after the Second World War, there was some shop floor solidarity for disabled people.54 There was much media coverage of the problems disabled people had in finding work. By 1975, the unemployment rate of disabled people was estimated at 13-14 per cent, twice that of able-bodied people.55 At times in this period, the rate of increase in unemployment for disabled people was three to four times greater. In the face of parliamentary and public pressure, the Labour government could not have dropped the quota, and Harold Walker, Minister of State, Department of Employment, announced proposals for its retention in December 1975. The proposals that came out of the study, however, were nothing new. The government would take a leading role in adding more disabled

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people to the civil service and nationalised industries. The Manpower Services Commission would review the idea of grants for firms that hired disabled workers, and violations of the quota would be more strictly enforced. In truth, there were only seven prosecutions since the Employment Act 1944, and the maximum penalty was £500.56 As evident in files at TNA from the late 1960s, government departments often did not meet the quota, and there was an indication that by 1975 this had become worse.57 On the ground, disablement resettlement officers tended to prefer cordial relations with employers to maximise the number of disabled people they could get into employment. This, too, led to the failure to enforce the quota. As Secretary of State for Employment before the 1970 election, Castle said that the CBI, local authorities and all nationalised industries should meet the 3 per cent quota.58 Notwithstanding fears that the Department of Employment’s review may lead to the abolition of the quota, there was also a feeling of optimism that it may lead to increased statutory efforts to find work for disabled people under a Labour government. This expectation was heightened as the unemployment rate for disabled people rose throughout the mid-1970s. As with the TUC, one might suggest that the Wilson government chose to do little in order to preserve jobs for able-bodied people. The decision to keep the quota was met with relief, but considering the dire state of unemployment among disabled people, one might have expected the government to offer more than the same promises it had in the 1960s and early 1970s. The trade unions’ concern for disability appeared to have changed and widened from 1965: the myopic focus on medical and vocational rehabilitation and industrial injury gave way to a concern for the greater welfare of disabled people, both in and out of work. Indeed, a 1975 Congress motion expressed dissatisfaction with Labour’s proposed reform of the social services in that it did not include comprehensive income maintenance.59 The TUC’s willingness to look beyond the ‘work ethic’ in favour of non-contributory benefits was less about humanitarianism or a liberalising of attitudes, and more about preserving jobs for able-bodied people in a period of high unemployment. Disabled people could now compete with industrially injured people for statutory welfare in a period of increasing need. The TUC also probably feared a levelling up of non-contributory benefits at the cost of reductions to the industrial injuries scheme.60 One might also suggest that any TUC advocacy for additional statutory welfare for disabled people was insincere, as it often was for women and minority ethnic groups.

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‘It’s only a matter of time’: the media With the exception of mobility, the media did not set agendas in this period other than in the House of Commons. Disabled people received regular coverage in The Times, The Guardian and New Society. The ‘populars’ focused mostly on hard cases, and were consistently advocates for greater statutory welfare. After Britain joined the EEC and the end of DIG’s ‘inspire or shame’ campaign, there was seldom reference to superior European schemes.61 Media coverage and discussion in the House of Commons addressed many aspects of disabled people’s welfare including access, public transport and employment and the quota scheme. There was media coverage in the lead-up to the 1974 Sharp report on mobility, and many questions were asked in the House of Commons about what steps local government was taking to ensure freedom of movement for disabled people.62 This is evidence that the diverse welfare needs of disabled people had become better and more accurately perceived. It is probable that the terms of the CSDP and reports of its poor implementation caused the media to focus on these particular aspects, but the media had also come to conceive of the welfare of disabled people in broader terms. Overall, the media continued to contribute to rising expectations in its coverage of hard cases and the current state of provision in comparison to speculation about what new benefits were being discussed and what results they might produce. Expectations were raised in particular by coverage of proposals and calls for comprehensive income maintenance for ‘all disabled’ people irrespective of cause of disablement both before and after the announcement of proposals for future provision in 1974.63 In addition to Jimmy Martin, the hard cases and inequities in provision presented in the national dailies illustrated undeniable need and seemed to guarantee new provision to alleviate it.64 DIG’s Annual General Meeting in May 1973 received much coverage, and Joseph mentioned a forthcoming housewives benefit and the possibility of a national disability income.65 In response to DIG’s request for a loss of earnings income and other supplementary cash benefits, Joseph said, ‘It is only a matter of time.’66 In an interview with the Daily Express, Joseph referred to disabled people as a ‘vast, unmet desert of need’, and seemed committed to many new forms of statutory provision: We are in a stage of transition from almost total neglect by central government until very recently, to a civilized state.

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There are cash needs, treatment needs, care needs, technical equipment needs, medical needs, and the needs of families looking after the disabled. But the variety and scale and, in many cases the sheer difficulty of needs is such that it’s going to take us a number of years to get through the transition.67 Comments like this, and media coverage in general, contributed to the sense that progress was irresistible. Crossman’s July 1973 opinion piece in The Times is another example, and it captured the overall complexion of media coverage in the period: moral panic, hard cases, massive promises and up-bidding. Referring to the thalidomide children and their cash settlement from Distillers as a ‘tiny plutocratic elite’ among other suffering disabled children, Crossman mentioned the terrible lives of young disabled adults in long-stay hospitals. He said that Labour would work to create a comprehensive income maintenance that would allow all disabled people to be cared for in the community.68 Also evident in this criticism of Joseph’s lack of progress beyond the Constant Attendance Allowances was how election promises contributed to rising expectations. After the benefits were announced, there was some coverage of the problems that disabled people experienced with income, and doubts about how effective cash benefits would be in addressing the problem. It was also pointed out that the cash benefits did not placate those who sought equality of provision for all disabled people and the continued inequalities in provision for ex-servicemen, industrially injured people and disabled people.69 Yet the prevailing sense that cash benefits would make a great contribution to the welfare of disabled people drowned out any doubts.70 Until 1976, cash benefits had not yet affected disabled people, and criticism was restricted largely to New Society.71

Cash benefits There was no new provision in cash in 1973 as the DHSS’s Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) group on cash benefits for disabled people was still working, and the Social Security Act 1973 committed government to report on income provision for disabled people by the autumn of 1974.72 This PAR group was influenced explicitly by DIG’s success in making a national disability income a cross-party issue in the Houses of Commons in the lead-up to the Social Security Act 1973. It noted the growing doubts that its review of disability would produce a national disability income as it focused on how much industrial rehabilitation could contribute to disabled people’s welfare

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and the foreign schemes analysed by the group in 1971 and 1972.73 Industrial rehabilitation was a way to avoid significant new expenditure, and there is evidence that this PAR group was under pressure from the Treasury, notwithstanding that Joseph wanted to make a ‘political splash’ in disability provision before a general election.74 The continued emphasis on foreign schemes was another indicator of DIG’s success in agenda setting in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The PAR group was aware that disabled people now had sufficient public and political influence to compete with other PSS groups for statutory welfare. In another effort to limit its plans for future provision, it said that disabled people were only one of many disadvantaged groups that had to be addressed because of pressure and genuine need.75 This was very likely because of financial expediency and the persistent view that disability was a low priority compared with child benefit and pensions. New cash benefits were also viewed by the group in relation to the increasing numbers of elderly people, many of whom were disabled, projected for the late 1970s. There was the potential of having to raise taxes to fund new PSS expenditure, and these expenditures were inimical to hospital building.76 Disabled people could now compete, but were still at the back of the queue for the DHSS. The group’s tentative proposals were circulated to the Cabinet in March 1974. An NCIP was to be introduced for 190,000 people, including housewives, at a rate of £4.65/week, and £2.85/week for housewives, at a total cost of £47 million/year with a savings of £37 million on Supplementary Benefit. An Invalidity Care Allowance for 15,000 people caring for only the most severely disabled relatives was to be paid at a rate of £7.75/week, with £5 million clawed back from Supplementary Benefit. Also proposed was a Disability Expenses Allowance for 50,000 of the most severely disabled. The total scheme was costed at £22.7 million after claw-back, with the possibility of pocket money for inpatients adding an additional £8 million.77 The view from Whitehall in 1973 was one of economic restraint, but in the House of Commons, negative evidence supports the idea of general cross-party consensus: cash benefits were rarely mentioned before a January 1975 backbench revolt during the committee stage of the 1975 Social Security Benefits Bill ensured that an HNCIP would be introduced; between the 1974 elections, it was simple for Morris to say that Labour’s scheme for disabled people would be announced in the autumn; and there was little criticism from the Conservatives after Castle announced her cash benefits in autumn 1974. Cash benefits were uncontroversial, and while Whitehall was part of the consensus that some must be created, it was not part of party

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up-bidding. As discussed, Labour’s preferred scheme was costed at £284 million minus Supplementary Benefit claw-back, and the Conservative scheme was costed at £74–84 million after claw-back. All three schemes, however, were based on degree of disablement as the qualifying criterion in defiance of the contributory principle. Labour and Conservative ideas about what was required by political expediency and genuine need greatly exceeded the more sober and apolitical thinking at Whitehall. The PAR exercise was terminated in May 1974 because Castle had her own plans built on those formed in opposition.78 With a view to helping disabled or attendant women, and for disabled people to catch up ex-servicemen and industrially injured people, Castle’s plans were intended as a first step toward addressing the greatest need before more comprehensive benefits could be created. An NCIP that included housewives was to be paid to 190,000 people at a rate of £6/week, at a cost of £20 million/year. The NCIP also included £2/week pocket money for 70,000 psychiatric inpatients. A £1 million/year Invalid Care Allowance was to begin in 1976 for 11,500 full-time wage earners, mostly women, who stayed at home to care for disabled relatives. While Castle saw these benefits as selective and temporary, dissenting voices said they were too comprehensive and costly, and inefficient in their degree of selectivity. It was also very likely that the costs were greatly underestimated, but Castle’s plans were not nearly as ambitious as those of the LRD formed in opposition, and not unlike the PAR exercise. The CPRS and Treasury wanted to focus on employment-based rehabilitation and highly selective provision for the most needy. General NCIP benefits were expensive and treated a heterogeneous group in a general manner that might produce more inequities.79 Castle’s plans also did not detail how many people would be floated off Supplementary Benefit, a major goal for cash benefits as it was thought to appease public and political pressure with a psychological boost, while clawback limited overall cost.80 The CPRS and Treasury also felt that the degree and type of physical disablement should determine need, and Britain should follow a West German plan to create appropriate employment opportunities in line with particular disabilities.81 The CPRS and Treasury were opposed to general cash benefits meant to address the income needs of disabled people. After negotiation with Barnett, Castle’s benefits were announced in September 1974.82 The NCIP would be paid at £6/week, excluding housewives, at roughly 60 per cent of National Insurance Invalidity Benefit. It would not be subject to a means test, and takeup was estimated at 220,000 people, with 135,000 being floated

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off Supplementary Benefit. The estimated 70,000 inpatients would receive £2/week. The Invalid Care Allowance was also to be paid at £6/week. A Mobility Allowance was not a priority for Castle, but she and Healey recognised that it was made politically necessary by the publication of the Sharp report, and the ensuing media coverage and pressure in the House of Commons.83 The Mobility Allowance was to be paid to 100,000 people at £4/week. The NCIP and Invalid Care Allowance excluded married housewives. Financial considerations were applied to these cash benefits despite Castle’s power versus Healey in 1974. The backbench revolt, however, ensured that HNCIP was put into law and was to be made available beginning in 1977 or 1978, at a cost of £25 million/year.84 Castle indicated that the Treasury was planning to introduce a HNCIP at a lower rate than the NCIP, and was ‘delighted’ with the revolt.85 Notwithstanding the ungenerous rates, the principles behind these benefits seemed to reverse the exclusion of disabled people from the welfare state settlement. Income became a right regardless of National Insurance contributions. The particular circumstance of disabled people living in informal family care, as well as the heterogeneous mobility needs of disabled people, were recognised and targeted for remedy.86 It appeared that these non-means-tested measures targeted the neediest disabled people before further provision would address disabled people more broadly. Compensation now appeared to be based on disability and not its causes. The benefits allowed disabled people a measure of control over their heterogeneous welfare needs, and showed the progress made from the paltry outdoor relief services and the confinement of local authority residential accommodation of the early 1950s. It is notable that Castle rejected any special provision for blind people and TUC requests for additional industrial injury provision. She also openly admitted that her plans for social expenditure would take resources away from building hospitals.87 In this, the cash benefits demonstrate Castle’s power versus Healey in 1974, especially as the Treasury and CPRS wanted highly selective and employment-based provision. Castle, however, seems to have lost out on the HNCIP. Castle’s scheme, as presented in March, included housewives in the NCIP, but this appears to have been reversed between then and the September announcement. Barnett insisted that the benefits had to be presented as all that could be provided for the near future,88 but there was unwillingness on the part of Castle and many in Cabinet to face up to the grave economic realities in 1975, even though it was well known that cash limits were

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going to be imposed.89 Castle and Morris presented the benefits as a bare minimum and first step in tough economic times.90 Castle recognised that her plans did not address the Jimmy Martin scandal about the inadequacy of the Constant Attendance Allowances, and had further plans for a general disablement costs allowance and a wage supplement plan.91 As the welfare state crumbled, more benefits were somehow forthcoming. Kafka-like world The Kafka-like world of statutory provision for disabled people was, in fact, the cumulative result of piecemeal development throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Blaxter’s 1972–73 study of a Scottish city found that 59 agencies (defined as an organisation or branch of an organisation with a separate function and address) contributed to the welfare of adult-aged disabled people in provision in cash, services and employment.92 The particular needs of a disabled individual did not often match the services or benefits available to them. There was understandable confusion for disabled people, physicians, hospital staff, social workers and local officials. And the cash benefits of the mid1970s added to the rabbit warren.

Failures of the cash benefits The benefits had different and overlapping qualifying criteria, and the complexity of understanding, applying for, and receiving benefits was especially difficult for disabled people because of the functional limitations of physical disablement. The benefits failed to rescue disabled people from low incomes, poverty and its related effects, as well as the greater prevalence of financial hardship compared with non-disabled people.93 Several studies identified the prevalence of low- or non-take up.94 The benefits were stigmatised, and disabled people were subject to humiliating and arbitrary means testing at the hands of local officials.95 The benefits were also baldly discriminatory. The HNCIP required married or cohabiting women to prove that they were unable to complete work outside and inside the home, and the Invalid Care Allowance was not available to married women.96 In failing to redress the welfare state’s disparity between the incomes of ex-servicemen and industrially injured people and disabled people, the cash benefits were the welfare state’s final failure for disabled people.97

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The non-contributory national disability income through the cash benefits was symbolic and theoretical only. The NCIP was offered at the same rate as Supplementary Benefit, at an annual cost of £7 million.98 A 1976 estimate showed it would only increase incomes for 50,000 people not receiving Supplementary Benefit.99 With approximately 1.3 million people with incomes below or close to Supplementary Benefit rates, the NCIP was therefore largely ineffective.100 The taxable Mobility Allowance, created more out of political expediency than considerations of its potential effectiveness, was also paid at an inadequate rate to fulfil its purpose: £5/week in 1975, £7/week beginning in 1977.101 The Joint Committee for the Mobility of the Disabled said that £500/annum per person was needed at an annual cost of £75 million.102 The Invalid Care Allowance was only offered to those caring for a relative in receipt of the Constant Attendance Allowances, benefiting a mere 11,500 carers, and excluding married women. At an annual cost of £25 million, a wanting fraction of what was needed for efficacy, the benefits were largely impotent, and reached only a small portion of disabled people. Claims for these benefits were evaluated centrally by a National Insurance officer. Forms were usually obtained at local authorities, and submitted with the assistance of junior caseworkers. With the pressure of great numbers of clients, and the awareness of limited resources, local officials did not often represent the full needs of disabled people. Further, with the numbers of claimants, claims were often assessed locally and subject to the uninformed personal or moral judgement of an overburdened official.103 It was often difficult for those disabled people to articulate their complex living situation and particular needs in seeking both the cash benefits and services under the CSDP. Different qualifying criteria for cash benefits added additional problems: the Mobility Allowance was based on inability to walk, often as judged by a local official; the HNCIP was often judged on a husband’s contribution record and income; and the Constant Attendance Allowances and the Invalid Care Allowance were judged on the subjective assessment of a carer’s workload. For cash benefits, services and other more particular needs such as artificial limb fitting and rent and vehicle rebates, a disabled person may have to visit several local authority departments. Supplementary Benefit had separate machinery, and the medical certification required for the NCIP and HNCIP involved GPs and possibly specialists. There was also the mental burden of having to struggle against ignorant and uninterested personnel and cold

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bureaucracy to attain vital benefits and services that came so easily to the able-bodied majority. Benefits based on group qualification usually have near full-take up. Low or non-take up were problems common to cash benefits based on individual eligibility, such as the disability cash benefits and Supplementary Benefit. Many disabled people were unaware of the benefits. Offered from 1977, the Disability Alliance’s Welfare rights handbook quickly became popular, and there was some national and local television and radio publicity. Yet the onus was on disabled people with often-restricted mobility to make their disablement and particular circumstances known to local authorities. The charge on local authorities under Section 1 of the CSDP to compile a register was increasingly ignored in the late 1970s. Those authorities that compiled a register did not often update it, and most made no effort to contact disabled people eligible for cash benefits or to publicise the benefits. Determining the circumstances of individual disabled people tends to require much time and consideration, but the 1979 social expenditure cuts resulted in fewer local staff, and contributed to low or non-take up.104 Again, the difficulty of applying for these benefits was often exacerbated by a disabled person’s particular physical condition, and the assistance of a friend or family member was often required. Low or non-take up remained part of disabled people’s exclusion from the welfare state and its continuation of Poor Law traditions. Disabled people needed liable relatives to help them attain their welfare, local officials determined outdoor relief, and there were strong social and psychological disincentives in a new era of moral stigma. If services or cash benefits are well publicised and/or subject to group qualification, there tends to be less stigma and more openness. Indeed, a central social insurance system based on group qualification should eliminate the means test. The cash benefits were often not well publicised, and the closed process based on individual qualification attached the social and psychological stigma of being made to feel like a welfare cheat, as did the position that all statutory welfare was compromising the strength of the economy in a difficult period.105 Many disabled people refused to expose themselves to the vicious scrutiny of officials, and did not apply for benefits. As one observer said, ‘As a representative at these [cash benefits appeal] tribunals, I have watched people hold out articles of clothing for examination, interrogated as to their moral worthiness, or face queries about their sex life.’106 The cash benefits added to the misconception created by the terms of the CSDP that disabled people had never had it so good.

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Stigma, like denial and difficulty of accessing benefits, is an inherent cost-saving measure of the means test. For women, there were many problems with the HNCIP. It was set at 60 per cent of the National Insurance rate and could not be collected in addition to Supplementary Benefit: it often only reduced the amount of Supplementary Benefit a disabled woman could receive. It floated few off Supplementary Benefit, and it was estimated that it would be available to only 15,000 women not already receiving Supplementary Benefit. Married and non-married women were treated differently – the HNCIP could not be paid to a woman in addition to her husband’s benefits. A household with an unemployed married couple could not receive the HNCIP if the husband was on Supplementary Benefit, NCIP or National Insurance benefits. As such, the value of the woman’s vital work in support of a needy family that may have had children was not recognised. It was perverse that a married woman whose husband was gainfully employed and had no need for Income Support could receive the HNCIP at £10.50/week. Further, the HNCIP intruded into women’s’ private lives. It was subject to a means test based on the OPCS survey’s method of determining disability.107 The HNCIP also failed to adjust for changes in a woman’s marital status, as a single woman receiving the HNCIP could lose it on marriage.108 Additionally, it seemed to lock women into roles of dependant or worker without regard for their choice.109 Like the other benefits, the shortcomings of the HNCIP created calls for comprehensive group benefits in a period of restraint.110 In the economic climate of the late 1970s, these benefits were vital to the welfare of disabled people. The OPCS survey established that disabled people, whether employed or not, had harder financial circumstances in difficult times, and this was exacerbated by the severity of physical impairment.111 Hyman showed that the extra expenses of disabled living averaged 25 per cent of the often-low incomes of disabled people.112 The high fuel costs of the time similarly affected disabled people, and reduced employment and other activities outside the home.113 Inflation was particularly hard as it eroded the value of statutory cash benefits used to meet the special expenses of disabled living. In periods of high unemployment, liable relatives are often themselves unemployed, and unable to provide financial support or assistance in kind to disabled family members.114 Services offered under the CSDP were cut and went against the grain of thinking about how the welfare of disabled people should be addressed and how disabled people wanted to look after their own welfare. The cash benefits failed to provide for the welfare of disabled people at a particularly vital time.

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Townsend’s Poverty in the United Kingdom was revealing in this regard. Falling incomes caused 58 per cent of disabled people to be near or below Supplementary Benefit levels compared with 24 per cent of able-bodied people. Disabled people made up a greater portion of the unskilled manual labour force than the skilled labour force, faced poorer living conditions, had limited access to fuel, and often went without heating in the ‘winter of discontent’. Disabled people suffered more poverty because of their limited access to income-generating resources: employment and highly paid employment to accumulate wealth, occupational pensions, home ownership and National Insurance. Disabled people generally require a higher income to maintain a similar standard of life to that of non-disabled people, and families struggled to generate wealth as incomes had to be pooled to meet the costs of disabled living.115 The cash benefits were not based on degree of disablement like industrial injury and war pensions. Inequities remained between ex-servicemen and those receiving National Insurance, and those receiving the new cash benefits: with some variation, the latter provided approximately 60 per cent of the former.116 The National Insurance Constant Attendance Allowances were paid to more than 150,000 people in 1974.117 The State Earnings-related Pension Scheme (SERPS), enacted under Castle’s time at the DHSS, has been called ‘a pioneering assertion of women’s economic independence’ as it included provision for women with periods of time away from work to care for relatives, and allowed pensioners to claim their best 20 years of work, which greatly benefited women whose best earnings usually occurred earlier in their careers.118 In comparison, the non-earnings related Invalid Care Allowance was paid to 11,500 at £6/week. Disabled people did not have problems attaining benefits under National Insurance: the Invalidity Benefit, the Constant Attendance Allowances, SERPS and widow’s pensions.119 This continuing disparity was underscored by the media and the Disability Alliance’s pamphlets. Surveys showed that approximately 80 per cent of voters in 1974 were in favour of a levelling up of cash provision, with no distinction between cause of disablement or earnings-related contributions.120 By 1979, it was the new cash benefits that were widely recognised as having failed. As discussed earlier, Townsend’s plan sought to destroy the separation of National Assistance and National Insurance, but the two systems survived, and did so with an increasing stigma around cash benefits and statutory welfare in general. Indeed, not only did the disappointing benefits not add up to a national disability income, but there was also

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no effort made at a comprehensive scheme that did not discriminate in age, sex, contribution record, working capacity or cause of disablement. It was strange that in such a sensitive and expectant period for disability provision that the Wilson government further promoted inequities – in age, cause of disablement and potential for working and contributions capacities – by giving £5 million to the Thalidomide Fund and an additional £3 million to the Rowntree Trust for disabled children.121 This endemic fragmentation, as argued by Townsend and the Disability Alliance, was evidence of the state’s failure to conceive a central philosophy or set of principles on how the welfare of disabled people should be addressed by the state.122 As previously discussed, DIG argued that this failure of coherent sentiment and organisation was a particularly British failing, and painfully detrimental to the welfare of disabled people. In comparison to the Salford slum of his youth, Robert Roberts observed that the welfare state had succeeded: Our village, like the rest, had its quota of feeble-minded, dummies (deaf-mutes), hydrocephalics, grotesque cripples, and its elderly women, broken like horses, who could be hired to drag a hundredweight of coke in a wagon a mile or more for threepence. One knew others, the unnameable, mere living bags of rags that existed mostly on local charity and who served draped in a creeping subservience that only years of beggary could confer. These were they who came shuffling into the shop late Saturday night pleading for the day’s scraps of cheese and bacon to make Sunday’s only meal: the economic lowest of the low. They and the like are now all gone from our “dull” Welfare State.123 Yet the cash benefits were the welfare state’s final and largely futile attempt to meaningfully improve the lived experience of disabled people. Their ineffectiveness led more and stronger calls for a comprehensive strategy for disabled people based solely on degree of disablement with no distinction between causes of impairment. This was the objective of Townsend and the Disability Alliance – a ‘new Beveridge’ at a time when that was all but impossible.124 Disabled people never caught up the ‘preferred status’ groups, as Sainsbury said of the cash benefits of the 1970s: ‘The effect was not to create a coherent response to disability with a single disability income, but to fragment the social security system still further, and to leave the war and industrial injuries schemes intact, at the apex of the social security

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hierarchy.’125 The cash benefits confirmed the welfare state’s overall indifference to minimum rights and incomes, discretionary welfare, and equity of provision between disabled people, industrially injured people and ex-servicemen.

Failures of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act As a disabled person, the importance of this Bill is the underlying philosophy: the integration of the disabled person into society.126 A friend of mine in a wheelchair was warned recently by a well-wisher of a coming backlash against the handicapped. People had had just about enough of their demands for more ramps and special facilities. “Coming out” with its parading connotations seems to threaten straight society.127 The CSDP may have symbolised society’s recognition of the welfare of all disabled people, but for government, it was a forced response based on political expediency. Many within government objected to the bill, and notwithstanding its comprehensive goals, it was always going to be a limited and ineffective measure with the lack of central government interest and financial commitment. Left to local government and largely, if unofficially, permissive, local services offered under the Act did improve the lives of some of disabled people, but analyses have condemned it as a failure, and especially so because of the ‘euphoria’ when the Act became law. Designed as the first step before providing services, Section 1 gave local authorities the duty to compile a register of all disabled people in their jurisdiction. Morris and the bill’s supporters intended for complete identification of all disabled people, but Circular 45/71 instead encouraged local authorities to make an imprecise general assessment of number because of the large human and financial resources required for 100 per cent identification.128 As such, Section 1 became largely optional. Further, with the pervasiveness of need as identified in the OPCS survey, many local authorities did not attempt identification because identifying and providing services for all disabled people seemed an impossibly large task. There was also the vague wording of Section 1. In referring to the identification of all ‘chronic sick’, it allowed local authorities to define narrowly which disabled people should be identified.129

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Local surveys underestimated the number of disabled people. By 1973, it was estimated that half of local authorities had attempted a survey, but this was inaccurate as it was based mostly on London boroughs and entirely on urban localities.130 Most of the surveys were not well formulated or methodologically sound, and varied enormously in their definition of disability131 – Brown and Bowl rated 14 surveys as excellent, 37 as good, 36 as fair, 33 as mediocre and 34 as poor.132 There was also the traditional problem of local authorities greatly exaggerating what was actually being done on the ground. Notwithstanding Circular 45/71, there is evidence that 157 local authorities, at least on paper, attempted to identify disabled people.133 Yet almost half of the local surveys were house-to-house leaflets with a tear-off slip for disabled people to return by post to the local authority – like elderly and lesseducated people, disabled people have a high non-response rate to postal surveys. One local authority estimated that three-quarters of disabled people did not respond.134 It also became clear to active local authorities that the maintenance of a register required constant updating because of the changing circumstances of disabled people’s lives: reaching retirement age, hospitalisation, moving house, moving into residential accommodation or the improvement of a non-permanent disabling condition.135 Many disabled people originally accounted for became lost to local authorities, as they were lost between their parish of birth and residency in the 17th century. Section 2 sought for local authorities to provide goods and services to contribute to the welfare of disabled people identified under Section 1. Local authorities were to provide particular forms of assistance: • practical assistance in disabled people’s homes • radio and television or other residential recreation for those unable to afford them • recreation facilities outside the home • transport to recreational, social and educational opportunities • home adaptations • assistance with holidays • meals • telephones. There were, however, obstacles to providing these services. Some local authorities were slow to implement Section 1, and felt that they could not proceed with Section 2 until account was made of all disabled people. Section 2 could not be fulfilled without accurate registers, and as mentioned above, most underestimated need. For those authorities

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that did complete more accurate registers, the scale of need revealed made the fulfilment of Section 2 impossibly costly in finances and personnel. Conversely, some keen local authorities that wanted to address known need felt bound to compile a register first to detect unknown need, and were hampered in both by financial constraints.136 The surveys raised expectations for services that may or may not have been forthcoming.137 Identification revealed increasing need that even the most assiduous local authorities struggled to meet. As the most expensive and personalised service, less than one-fifth of local authorities attempted any home adaptations.138 There is also the indication that at least half of disabled people did not want statutory services, particularly practical assistance in their homes and with meals.139 The overall response to social workers was unfavourable as disabled people lost out to children and families when it came to social workers’ priorities.140 This may have been a result of the Seebohm reorganisation, but it is more likely an indicator that children were simply a greater priority, especially after the death of Maria Colwell. Services did expand under the Act, as Borsay pointed out, using official statistics from the late 1970s and early 1980s.141 The volume of need, however, was grossly undetermined, and known need was often unmet.142 Thompson, Buckle and Lavery’s study of the 1988 OPCS survey criticised the 1971 survey for failing to estimate the additional costs of disabled living, as well as limiting its definition of disabled people to only those with more severe afflictions that limited their ability to sustain employment and complete daily tasks such as dressing and using the toilet.143 For those identified, there was often rigid qualification criteria for services created and enforced by local authorities. A small percentage of disabled people received practical assistance, or aids or adaptations, and there was great territorial injustice. Surveys on what percentage of disabled people received any form of practical assistance ranged from 8 to 27 per cent.144 Radios and televisions appear to have been provided at increased rates before 1977–78, and most disabled people had radios or televisions. Telephones, however, appear to have been one of the most desired items by disabled people – they are often vital to disabled people as contact with family and friends, the ability to communicate from one’s home in general, and the peace of mind that comes with knowledge that assistance can be attained in an emergency.145 Yet again, there was territorial injustice, and provision of telephones decreased significantly in the late 1970s.146

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Meals-on-wheels reached a small percentage of disabled people, but there were often charges, and many did not like the meals.147 There is little data on how many local authorities provided holidays, but the vast majority of disabled people offered refused, usually preferring holidays with family or friends.148 Social and recreational centres were perhaps the only area where local authorities fulfilled their obligations, and while many centres dated from before 1970, approximately 30 per cent of disabled people used statutory social and recreational centres.149 Transport to these centres varied enormously by region – one local authority spent £2,500 per 1,000 people, while another spent only £400.150 Section 3 was meant to remedy the poor housing situation of disabled people. The OPCS survey revealed that 1 million disabled people had inadequate indoor toilet facilities, had to sleep in a living room or could not access certain rooms in their house.151 Section 3 required local housing authorities to account for disabled people in their planning, and to specifically design and allocate some homes for disabled people. The lack of home adaptations attempted under Section 2 made public housing for disabled people especially important. So, too, did the fact that many disabled people could not afford to purchase a private home. Morris’s Circular 74/74 appears to have increased housing authority projects for accessible homes. From 1975 to 1978, 5,000 accessible homes were built and 13,500 were planned,152 but the shift in emphasis to home ownership in 1979 reversed the trend. Many accessible homes were sold on the private market, as housing authorities could not find disabled people to occupy them. The failures of Sections 2 and 3 caused disabled people in particularly difficult circumstances to seek statutory residential accommodation. The CSDP was not concerned with creating additional residential accommodation. It was contrary to the ethos of the Act and against the convictions of all concerned with the overall welfare of disabled people, but local authorities retained the duty to provide residential accommodation under the 1948 National Assistance Act. Further, it was the last refuge for those whose circumstances were severe and not adequately addressed by the fulfilment of the Act. There was also high occupancy in local authority residences. Residential accommodation was not a priority, and from the late 1950s, there was a great emphasis on getting disabled and elderly people out of residential accommodation. There were often no beds for those who wanted them. Further, Sections 17 and 18 of the Act required the separation of younger disabled people and those over 65 in statutory accommodation, but the facilities were often inappropriate for the

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development of young disabled people, and many stayed at home in unfavourable circumstances.153 With services for PSS groups offered locally, the failures of the CSDP are intimately linked to SSDs, especially in the great uncertainty about the pervasiveness and severity of need. The SSDs had to fill an unknown area in domiciliary provision as the immediate postwar burst in voluntary domiciliary efforts began to fade in the late 1960s. The questions that plagued SSDs prevented better services for a heterogeneous disabled people: how many people need assistance as much or more than those already receiving services? With so many individual cases, and each with its own place within the mixed economy of welfare, how can the provision of local services be judged as adequate, and what are the consequences of potential failures in each case? With the lack of direction on priorities from central government, is focus on any area simply an idiosyncratic sentiment of local personnel who will irresponsibly allocate resources? Elderly people experienced an improved and greater range of services, and there was much user satisfaction. Notwithstanding some similar needs of elderly and disabled people – not least their extraordinary needs as PSS recipients and groups for which there was ‘no cure’ – there was only some improvement in services for disabled people, and these only improved on a meagre base of existing provision and were largely unsatisfactory to disabled people. The distribution of PSS provision is critically dependent on the discretion and motivation of service providers. While disabled people caught up children and elderly people in public and political esteem in the mid-1970s, children and elderly people still had greater priority in local services. SSDs focused on implementing the Children and Young Persons Act 1969, especially after the death of Maria Colwell, and this distracted resources from the terms of the CSDP.154 The SSDs were haunted by the Poor Law. The Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 gave local guardians responsibility for providing workhouse accommodation, whose residents often included children, elderly people and disabled people. The SSDs were plagued by the association of their PSS duties with these Poor Law traditions, and were especially stigmatised as most people did not need to benefit from PSS, and those who did had extraordinary and often desperate needs that could involve the state’s intrusion into their lives, as in the removal of children from the home.155 How could those people still need that help? The welfare state destroyed the Poor Law, did it not? The requisite accommodation of control, assistance and integration is the difficulty at the heart of PSS, as Fraser pointed out in referring to the scenario that created the

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Poor Law Amendment Act 1834: ‘Parliament provided officials, both local and national, with the impossible task of marrying deterrence and human relief within the same system. At different times, by different means and for different applicants the Poor Law could perform one or the other of its tasks, but not both simultaneously.’156 Notwithstanding the wider awareness of needs created by the CSDP, the SSDs struggled with this traditional difficulty to the detriment of disabled people. As a private member’s bill that went against concurrent thinking about the best way to address the welfare of disabled people – selective cash benefits for extraordinary need – the CSDP never received the financial support of central government. The money resolution granted to local authorities was not specifically for disability services, and could be spent as local authorities pleased. With high inflation in the 1970s, local authorities could have provided services and items that disabled people could not afford. When reading the 1976 Priorities in health care, the desirability of ‘community care’ is a thin disguise for non-statutory welfare.157 Spending on the PSS as a percentage of public expenditure did not shrink in the late 1970s, but services for disabled people were the subject of reduced expenditure.158 It is comparatively easy for local government to fund services for the able-bodied majority, such as public transportation and concessionary fares, but difficult and costly to do for disabled people in special transportation, educational opportunities and access. The Orange Badge scheme for disabled drivers, as outlined in Section 21 of the CSDP, succeeded as a ‘passport for disabled people to gain free access to cities and enjoy true outdoor mobility,’ as it was an easily dispensable and effective measure.159 Yet given the heterogeneous nature of disability, most general and inexpensive provision offered by local authorities would fail to address the particular and more expensive needs of disabled individuals. Economic rationality has been blamed by many for the failures to implement the Act, and for the low priority of statutory welfare for disabled people in the 19th and 20th centuries. This argument is pervasive in histories of disability in Britain, emancipatory disability studies and works that are critical of the statutory provision for disabled people after 1945. Economic rationality was never applied to the Act’s treatment of severely and appreciably disabled people: hospitalisation and/or residential care cost far more than allowing people to remain in their homes with adequate support.160 The Act has also been condemned as unenforceable.161 When Morris was appointed Minister for the Disabled, there was some optimism about implementation.162 Yet the Act contained no definition of need, and there was no legal recourse for disabled people who did

214

The final days

not receive a service that could improve their welfare. This was also linked to changing perceptions about disabled people and welfare in the late 1970s. The important intangible gains that the Act seemed to promise were not achieved. Disability could hardly be seen as a lifestyle choice or moral failing, but with the CSDP and cash benefits, disabled people, like single homeless people, were now somehow seen as scroungers and welfare cheats.163 Phones, radios and televisions were seen as luxury items.164 Such misperceptions seemed especially cruel as the Act largely failed to deliver tangible benefits or respect, positive identification and compassionate consideration. Toynbee and Walker suggested that cash provision for disabled people and other PSS groups might have contributed to the increased dislike for statutory welfare in the late 1970s, and that Labour failed to influence welfare perspectives.165 It is reasonable to assume that services under the CSDP had a similar effect. With the failure of the state, disillusioned parties had a stronger case for the readily available alternative of women carers whose unpaid efforts did not cost local or central government, and kept women at home in a time of high unemployment. With territorial injustice and the functional limitations often faced by disabled people in attaining statutory welfare, the Act added to an already difficult situation. The difficulty in attaining statutory services helped fuel the welfare rights emphasis of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Michael Meacher, Labour MP for Oldham West, estimated that there were more than 7,000 means tests in 1973.166 It was cruel that the situation had created a new breed of often useless functionary, the welfare rights officer, as described by Simkins and Tickner: ‘Like the high priests of old, to act as an intermediary between the layman and the law – in this case the morass of welfare benefits.’167 While the contributory principle was circumvented to target selectively need in cash, the failure of the CSDP ensured that the general classes did not escape the Poor Law tradition of localism and stigma; in a period of illiberal attitudes toward the poor, those who appealed to PSS for help were admitting to their failures. Unlike PSS areas with more esteem, such as pensions and child services, services for disabled people remained outside central control for the duration of the welfare state. One may suggest that the CSDP ensured the failure of settlement of the 1940s for disabled people – they were not guaranteed a right to earn or to control their income, to participate fully as equal citizens in social and economic life, and were not guaranteed freedom from the five giant evils of want, disease, ignorance, squalor

215

Disability and the welfare state in Britain

and idleness. Less tangible, but important in its failure, was that the CSDP did not create lasting respect, dignity and acceptance.

Conclusion In 1979, Topliss said that most disabled people received no statutory or formal non-statutory welfare.168 This is impossible to determine, not least because measuring the impact of the voluntary sector in any area is impossible. This claim, however, said something about the frustration of the time, and regardless of the voluntary sector’s impact, statutory welfare in cash and services meant little to the lived experience of disabled people. How different was this from 1601, when disabled civilians were cared for largely by informal welfare? DIG did not succeed in making disability a major issue in the House of Commons in an election year, but its work in 1973 and its use of the Jimmy Martin scandal helped create a consensus that new cash benefits would be offered, and made them subject of up bidding between Labour and the Conservatives. While it is difficult to judge the success of a pressure group, DIG established disabled people as a political and policy issue with impressive rapidity from 1965 to 1974. Further, DIG was also the major force in changing the perception of disabled people, from a relatively unknown group to an increasingly powerful self-aware group of citizens treated unfairly by the state. Labour and the Conservatives were willing to abandon the contributory principle for those unable to work. Townsend’s scheme went so far as to destroy the welfare state’s National Assistance (Supplementary Benefit)/National Insurance divide. One cannot help but wonder what more cash provision would have been offered if these ambitions existed in a period more economically, socially and intellectually supportive of the continuing expansion of statutory welfare instead of the late 1970s. That said, the contributory principle was the primary reason for the relative exclusion of disabled people from cash provision in the welfare state, and as universalism began to wane in the early 1970s, disabled people were finally addressed, albeit selectively. Castle’s cash benefits were a genuine attempt to address need in a selective way, but the psychological lift provided by the benefits was short-lived, as they were quickly exposed as hollow in both design and implementation. The CSDP also failed overall in improving the lived experience of disabled people. It was unenforceable, underfunded and largely disliked by central government. No different from the 20 years following the National Assistance Act 1948, services for disabled

216

The final days

people were left to the vicissitudes of local welfare services that may have provided a small fraction of their overall welfare. While the circumstances of disabled people had gained the recognition afforded previously to other PSS groups, this change in perception did not significantly improve the situation on the ground. The CSDP also failed to change perceptions. In discussing the Act’s implementation, Simkins and Tickner said the arbitrary qualifying criteria and insufficient financial resources amounted to ‘a mockery of the spirit in which the act was conceived and enacted.’169 Both the CSDP and cash benefits heightened expectations in an unprecedented way before what could realistically be expected decreased. So, too, did media in the period, with its focus on hard cases, potential future provision to alleviate need, and continual mention of comprehensive income maintenance for ‘all disabled’ people. While there was some shop floor solidarity for disabled people, unions were disinterested generally, and feared in particular that provision for disabled people would adversely affect industrial injury benefits. Unions were powerful under the Social Contract, but chose not to advance the cause of disabled people. In July 1975, however, four new cash benefits had become law. Morris was the first minister representing disabled people in a parliamentary democracy. Castle was Secretary of State for Social Services, and more benefits were forthcoming. The retention of the quota scheme was announced in December. The diverse problems of chronic illness had seemingly been addressed by the state through the CSDP and the cash benefits, and in public and political esteem, disabled people appeared to be on a par with children and elderly people. The early 1970s seemed to promise important advances in statutory welfare for disabled people. In 1975, the cash benefits seemed to be their fulfilment and the culmination of the changing perceptions of the welfare of disabled people that largely began in the mid-1960s. Notes Caincross, A. (1996) ‘The Heath Government and the British economy’, in S. Ball and A. Seldon (eds) The Heath Government, 1970-1974: A reappraisal, London: Longman, p 109. 1

O’Connor, J. (1973) The fiscal crisis of the state, New York: St Martin’s; Hicks, J. et al (1975) Crisis ’75…?, London: Institute of Economic Affairs; Gamble, A. and Walton, P. (1976) Capitalism in crisis, London: Macmillan.

2

217

Lowe, R. (2005) The welfare state in Britain since 1945 (3rd edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 317.

3

Bogdanor, V. (1996) ‘The fall of Heath and the end of the postwar settlement’, in S. Ball and A. Seldon (eds), op cit, p 382.

4

Millward, G. (2013) ‘Invalid definitions, invalid responses: disability and the welfare state, 1965-1995’, PhD, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, pp 130-3.

5

Martineau, L. (2011) Power and politics: Barbara Castle (2nd edn), Andre Deutsch: London, p 283. 6

Healy, P. (1974) ‘Plan to give disabled people £10 a week’, The Times, 14 September. 7

Butler, I. and Drakeford, M. (2011) Social work on trial: The Colwell Inquiry and the state of welfare, Bristol: Policy Press, p 178. 8

9 Toynbee, P. and Walker, D. (2004) ‘Social policy and inequality’, in A. Seldon and K. Hickson (eds) New Labour, Old Labour: The Blair, Wilson and Callaghan governments, London: Taylor & Francis, pp 110-11.

10

Martineau, op cit, pp 287-8.

Castle, B. (1980) The Castle diaries, 1974-76, London: Macmillan, p 173; Barnett, J. (1982) Inside the Treasury, London: Deutsch, p 47. 11

12

Toynbee and Walker, op cit, pp 110-11.

13

Glennerster, H. (2000) British social policy since 1945, Oxford: Blackwell, p 121.

Timmins, N. (2001) The five giants: A biography of the welfare state (2nd edn), London: HarperCollins, p 345; Walker, A. (1976) ‘Justice and disability’, in K. Jones (ed) Year book of social policy in Britain 1975, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p 200.

14

MRC, MSS.108/3/3. Anthony Mason [Secretary, DIG Coventry] to National DIG, 29 January 1973.

15

MRC, MSS.108/3/3. Disability and the Social Security Bill – A brief for MPs, undated, probably autumn 1973.

16

17

Ibid.

The final days MRC, MSS.108/3/8. ‘Maintaining pressure on your Member of Parliament’, Large to DIG Scotland, DIG Branch Chairmen, DIG Branch Secretaries, June 1974.

18

MRC, MSS.108/3/8. Labour Party Manifesto 197, Large to all Branch Secretaries, all Branch Activists, 18 February 1974.

19

MRC, MSS.108/3/8. DIG’s General Election Campaign, September/October 1974, Large to DIG Scotland, DIG Branches, 22 September 1974.

20

21

MRC, MSS.108/3/8. Election campaign, note from Large, 11 March 1974.

MRC, MSS.108/3/8. Conservative, Labour and Liberal Party replies – General Election campaign, 5 April 1974.

22

23

MRC, MSS.108/3/8. Note on DIG – Finances – 1975, 11 February 1975.

24

Walker, op cit, pp 36-7.

Walker, A. (2010) ‘Disability: Introduction’, in A. Walker et al (eds) The Peter Townsend reader, Bristol: Policy Press, pp 489, 492.

25

Disability Alliance (1975) Poverty and disability: The case for a comprehensive income scheme for disabled people, London: Disability Alliance, pp 1-2. 26

27

Ibid, pp 4-5.

28 Whiteley, P.F. and Winyard, S.J. (1987) Pressure for the poor: The poverty lobby and policy making, London: Methuen, pp 45-9.

PTC, 75.01. Townsend to Wilson, 6 November 1974; Wilson to Townsend, 18 November 1974.

29

30

TNA, PIN 521/1. Reid to Morris, 5 November 1974.

MRC, MSS.7/1. The Jimmy Martin case, Large to DIG branches, 10 January 1974.

31

32

MRC, MSS.7/1. Press release, 9 January 1974.

‘Campaigners pressing for national pension right for all disabled persons’, The Times, 21 January 1974. 33

219

Disability and the welfare state in Britain 851 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1973) 188-9; 861 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1974) 455-6; 874 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1971) 421-2. 34

Drakeford, M. and Butler, I. (2005) Scandal, social policy and social welfare (2nd edn), Bristol: Policy Press, p 224. 35

36

Whiteley and Winyard, op cit, pp 32, 132.

Evans, T. (2009) ‘Stopping the poor getting poorer: the establishment and professionalisation of poverty NGOs, 1945-1995’, in M. Hilton, N. Crowson and J. Mckay (eds) NGOs in contemporary Britain: Non-state actors in society and politics since 1945, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 152.

37

38 DIG (Disablement Income Group) (1974) Creating a national disability income, London: DIG, p 12.

The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) felt that DIG focused too myopically on incomes, and relied too much on political pressure and experts instead of involving disabled people. It sought self-representation for disabled people and the full integration of disabled people into society. UPIAS (1976) The Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation and the Disability Alliance discuss fundamental principles of disability: being a summary of the discussion held on 22nd November, 1975 and containing commentaries from each organization, London: UPIAS and Disability Alliance, p 12; UPIAS (1974) Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation: Policy statement, London: UPIAS. 39

40

Whiteley and Winyard, op cit, pp 20, 134.

Du Boisson, M. (1973) ‘A story of our time’, 22 February, BBC Radio Four, presented by Sue Macgregor.

41

42

TNA, PIN 35/526. Atkinson [DHSS] to Baldwin [Treasury], 30 May 1974.

43

LHA, RD/360. ‘Disablement schemes’, November 1973.

While there is no explicit evidence, it is possible that concerned parties at the time were affected by Mavis Hyman’s influential The extra costs of disabled living. Hyman, M. (1976) The extra costs of disabled living: A case history study, Horsham: National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases. 44

45

CPA, CRD 4/7/9.

220

The final days Ramsden, J. (1980) The making of Conservative Party policy: The Conservative Research Department since 1929, London: Longman, pp 303-4. 46

CPA, CRD 4/7/9. ‘Cash provision for the disabled’, Note by Geoffrey Howe, 25 June 1974. 47

48

Ibid.

49

Ibid.

50

Ibid.

51

CPA, CRD 4/7/9. ‘Earnings rule for the disabled’, 14 June 1974.

52 MRC, MSS.108/3/8. ‘Realising a national disability income: an assessment of recent announcements’, Note from Large, 28 September 1974.

53

MRC, MSS.292D/146.9/4.

Lindop examined the strikes in favour of Enoch Powell and other anti-immigration activities of trade unionism throughout the 1970s, but Lunn identified that there was local support for Irish and Polish workers directly after the Second World War, and later for ‘Blacks and Asians’, long before the TUC’s campaigns against racism in the mid-1970s. Lindop, F. (2001) ‘Racism and the working class: strikes in support of Enoch Powell in 1968’, Labour History Review, vol 66, no 1, pp 79-100; Lunn, K. (1999) ‘Complex encounters: trade unions, immigration and race’, in J. Fishman, N. Fishman and A. Campbell (eds) British trade unions and industrial politics: The high tide of trade unionism, 1964-79, Vol 2, Aldershot: Ashgate, pp 74-8. 54

55

Walker, A. (1975) ‘Disabled quota’, New Society, 18 December.

56

Harrison, P. (1974) ‘Disablement’, New Society, 8 February.

TNA, LAB 110/13. Department of Employment, Report on the quota and designated persons schemes, November 1970.

57

58

‘Mrs Castle’s bid to help disabled’, The Times, 20 January 1970.

59 MRC, MSS.292D/14.5/2. Congress Motion comments, 1973-75, 1975 Motion 30, undated.

60

TNA, PIN 35/325/2.

221

Disability and the welfare state in Britain ‘EEC social welfare differences studied’, Sunday Times, 7 May 1973; Healy, P. (1973) ‘How Denmark makes life larger for disabled’, The Times, 3 September; Townsend, P. (1975) ‘Help for the disabled’, New Society, 24 July; Walker, A. (1975) ‘Disabled quota’, New Society, 18 December. 61

857 Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons (5th series) (1973) 884-900. The Sharp report on mobility was commissioned in April 1972 to examine the state of statutory mobility assistance for disabled people. At the time, provision in the form of cars, invalid tricycles or a £100/year mobility allowance was only available to those disabled people who could drive. The report recommended the phasing out of invalid tricycles, the provision of adapted cars and cars for those unable to walk. Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1979) Provision for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, pp 104-5.

62

Most articles after the announcement covered calls from the Disability Alliance to level up benefits for disabled people with those for ex-servicemen and industrially injured people. Healy, P. (1973) ‘Aid for all disabled is urged’, The Times, 30 March; ‘Alliance presses for aid to all disabled’, The Times, 4 February 1975; ‘Equality for all disabled’, The Guardian, 16 February 1976.

63

See, for example, ‘Fighting for life on only £16 a week’, Daily Express, 2 March 1973; ‘Some disabled people get 70p for week’s work’, The Times, 6 September 1974.

64

65 Cunningham, J. (1973) ‘Disabled wives may get cash help’, The Guardian, 7 May; Hughes, W. (1973) ‘Sir Keith: “colossal” gaps in disabled care’, Sunday Times, 6 May.

66

‘Help is on the way for disabled’, Sunday Telegraph, 6 May 1973.

‘Alain Cass interview with Keith Joseph, “Why are they waiting?”’, Daily Express, 2 March 1973.

67

68

Crossman, R. (1973) ‘Personal view’, The Times, 18 July.

Meacher, M. (1975) ‘No justice for the disabled’, The Guardian, 5 April; ‘Equality for all disabled’, The Guardian, 16 February 1976. 69

Healy, P. (1975) ‘£390m plan to end poverty among disabled people’, The Times, 23 April. 70

Shearer, A. (1975) ‘Disability aid’, New Society, 9 January; Walker, A. (1975) ‘Disabled wives’, New Society, 17 April; Townsend, P. (1975) ‘Help for the disabled’, New Society, 24 July.

71

222

The final days PAR was influenced by the American Planning-Programming-Budgeting System, and championed by the Conservatives’ ‘Business Team’ and many within the civil service and Treasury. PAR sought to make government spending more rational and efficient, link objectives to outcomes and to reinforce PESC. It was also to aid Cabinet ministers in general to maintain a consistent overall strategy. Originally, each department was to produce an annual review on any area of policy with expenditure less than £10 million per year. The PAR group discussed in this section was one of many that began in 1973 on a three-year timescale. Lowe, R. (2011) The official history of the British Civil Service: Reforming the Civil Service, Vol 1, The Fulton years, 1966-81, London: Routledge, pp 177-82. 72

73

TNA, T 227/4222.

74

TNA, T 227/4222. Patterson [Treasury] to Widdup [Treasury], 19 June 1973.

75

TNA, T 227/4222. PAR on cash benefits for disabled, 29 January 1974.

76

Ibid.

77

TNA, PIN 35/526. Atkinson to Baldwin, 30 May 1974.

TNA, PIN 35/526. Cabinet Social Services Committee: ‘A new scheme of help for the disabled’, undated, probably March 1974.

78

79

TNA, PIN 35/514. ‘Cash benefits for the disabled’, 25 March 1974.

TNA, PIN 35/526. Cabinet Social Services Committee: ‘A new scheme of help for the disabled’, undated, probably March 1974.

80

TNA, PIN 35/514. ‘Cash benefits for the disabled’, 25 March 1974; TNA: CAB 184/277. Gilbert to Morris, 7 November 1974.

81

Unfortunately, the particular proceedings of these negotiations are not detailed in archival, autobiographical or biographical sources. At TNA, there is only evidence of tension between Castle and Healey about the rate of the Mobility Allowance. TNA, PREM 16/276. 82

83

Castle, op cit, pp 47-9, 60.

84

Healy, P. (1975) ‘Benefits for disabled housewives nearer’, The Times, 28 January.

85

Castle, op cit, pp 291, 296.

223

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Ex-servicemen tended to prefer vehicles, as they were generally suitable for their particular disablements. A Mobility Allowance for disabled people was necessary as no form of vehicle would be suitable for a wide range of disabilities. MOR, 1/2. Central Council for the Disabled, ‘Mobility for handicapped people’, 21 July 1974.

86

TNA, PIN 35/533. Castle to Antony Head [Chairman, Royal National Institute for the Blind], 15 July 1974; TNA, PIN 35/540. Castle to James Jack [General Secretary, Scottish TUC], 24 October 1975. 87

TNA, PIN 35/526. Cabinet Social Services Committee: ‘A new scheme of help for the disabled’, undated; TNA, CAB 184/227. Gilbert to Morris, 4 November 1974.

88

89

Pearce, E. (2002) Denis Healey: A life in our times, London: Little Brown, pp 443-4.

90

TNA, PREM 16/276. John Hunt to Wilson, 4 September 1974.

TNA, PIN 35/526. Cabinet Social Services Committee: ‘A new scheme of help for the disabled’, undated.

91

Blaxter, M. (1976) The meaning of disability: A sociological study of impairment, London: Heinemann Educational, pp 18-19. 92

Townsend, P. (1979) Poverty in the United Kingdom: A survey of household resources and standards of living, Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp 685-739; Stowell, R. (1980) Disabled people on Supplementary Benefit, London: Social Science Research Council; Walker, A. (1981) ‘Disability and income’, in A. Walker and P. Townsend (eds) Disability in Britain: A manifesto of rights, Oxford: Robertson.

93

Casserly, J. and Clark, B. (1977) A welfare rights approach to the chronically sick and disabled, Strathclyde: Strathclyde Regional Council; Phillips, H. and Glendenning, C. (1981) Who benefits? Report on a welfare rights project with people with disabilities in North Yorkshire, London: Disability Alliance; Mcgavin, P., Skinner, L. and Bennett, T. (1982) Still sick, disabled and below the poverty line: A study of the ‘long term trap’, its effects, and the need for reform, Harlow: Harlow District Council.

94

95

Topliss and Gould, op cit, pp 72-3.

Borsay, A. (2004) Disability and social policy in Britain since 1750: A history of exclusion, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 165-6; Loach, I. (1977) Disabled married women: A study of the problems of introducing non-contributory pensions in November 1977, London: Disability Alliance, pp 33-6.

96

224

The final days Walker (1981), op cit, pp 199-200; Simkins, J. and Tickner, V. (1978) Whose benefit? An examination of the existing system of cash benefits and related provisions for intrinsically handicapped adults and their families, London: Economist Intelligence Unit, p 41. 97

It is considerably difficult to determine how many disabled people received Supplementary Benefit. With one in three people having some form of physical impairment, researchers were faced with problems of definition. There was also the problem of locating a representative sample, as disabled people are a heterogeneous group in age, impairment, employment, income and marital status. Further, the OPCS was the only source of national figures on disabled people, and research costs limited the scope and depth of analysis for interested parties in the 1970s. It is reasonable to estimate that approximately 160,000 disabled people received Supplementary Benefit in the late 1960s and 1970s. This figure remained relatively constant. The new cash benefits probably prevented the number from rising during the high unemployment and economic problems of the mid and late 1970s. One might suggest that this was a success for the new benefits, or conversely, that they simply offered Supplementary Benefit under a different name. Disability Alliance (1977) Poverty and low incomes amongst disabled people, London: Disability Alliance, p 5; Stowell, op cit, pp 3, 29. 98

99

Walker (1976), op cit, p 201.

100

Townsend, P. (1975) ‘Help for the disabled’, New Society, 24 July.

Large, S. (1977) ‘Mobility for the physically disabled’, in K. Jones (ed) Year book of social policy in Britain 1976, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p 205. 101

102

MOR, 1/2. Peter Large to Caldwell [DHSS], 12 May 1974.

103

Simkins and Tickner, op cit, pp 58-9.

104

Phillips and Glendenning, op cit, pp 9, 43.

Wilson, J. (1980) A very high priority? The impact on people with disabilities of government policies since the last election, London: Disability Alliance, p 14.

105

106

Spicker, P. (1984) Stigma and social welfare, London: Croom Helm, p 152.

107

Loach, op cit, pp 9-10.

108

Ibid, p 15.

225

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Land, H. (1976) ‘Women: supporters or supported?’, in D. Leonard and S. Allen (eds) Sexual divisions and society: Process and change, London: Tavistock, p 128.

109

Loach, op cit, pp 36-9; Lister, R. (1975) Social security: The case for reform, London: Child Poverty Action Group, p 10. 110

111 See Harris, A., Smith, C.R.W. and Head, E. (1972) Handicapped and impaired in Great Britain. Part Three, London: HMSO.

112

Hyman, op cit, p 110.

113

Mcgavin, Skinner and Bennett, op cit, p 6.

114

Ibid, p 8; Topliss and Gould, op cit, p 52.

115

Townsend, op cit, pp 734, 738-9.

116

Walker (1976), op cit, p 201; Topliss and Gould, op cit, p 70.

117

Bradshaw, J. and Baldwin, S. (1974) ‘Allowable Attendance’, New Society, 1 August.

Perkins, A. (2003) Red Queen: The authorized biography of Barbara Castle, Basingstoke and Oxford: Macmillan, pp 378-9. 118

119

Simkins and Tickner, op cit, p 227.

120 Healy, P. (1974) ‘Benefits that lie in a better definition of disablement’, The Times, 17 July; Townsend, P. (1975) ‘Help for the disabled’, New Society, 24 July; Walker (1976), op cit, p 201.

121

PTC, 75.01. Townsend to Wilson, 6 November 1974.

122

PTC, 75.01. Townsend to Wilson, 26 November 1974.

123 Roberts, R. (1973) The classic slum: Salford life in the first quarter of the century, Harmondsworth: Pelican, p 80.

124

See also Simkins and Tickner, op cit, p 45; Topliss and Gould, op cit, p 78.

Sainsbury, S. (1993) Normal life: A study of war and industrially injured pensioners, Aldershot: Avebury, p 16. 125

226

The final days Mary Greaves (1970), quoted in Morris, A. and Butler, A. (1972) No feet to drag: Report on the disabled, London: Sidgwick & Jackson, p 126. 126

127

Raphael, The Sunday Times, 7 September 1980.

128

DHSS Circular 45/71, 16 September 1971.

Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1981) A charter for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, pp 91-3.

129

Social Policy Research for the NFRCD (National Fund for Research into Crippling Diseases) (1973) The implementation of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, Horsham: NFRCD, pp 2-3.

130

131 Ibid, pp 33-37; Mcmullen, S. (1974) ‘Studies in physical disablement’, Social Work Today, vol 12, no 5, 19 September, pp 356-7.

Brown and Bowl’s study was based on information received from 172 of 174 local authorities in England and Wales. Brown, M.J. and Bowl, R. (1976) Study of local authority chronic sick and disabled persons surveys, Birmingham: Birmingham University Social Sciences Unit, p 35. 132

133

Topliss and Gould (1981), op cit, pp 91-3.

134

Walker, A. (1974) ‘Disablement’, New Society, 27 March.

135

Topliss and Gould (1981), op cit, pp 95-9.

136

Simkins and Tickner, op cit, pp 30-1.

Gregory, E. (1973) ‘Implementing the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act’, Social Work Today, vol 11, no 4, 23 August, p 351.

137

Social Policy Research for the NFCRD, op cit, p 34; Topliss and Gould (1981), op cit, pp 91-3.

138

139

Topliss and Gould (1979), op cit, pp 149, 165; Borsay, op cit, pp 194-5.

140

Wright, op cit, p 3.

141

Borsay, op cit, p 192.

227

Disability and the welfare state in Britain There was some concern that services were inadequate throughout the process of initial disablement: injury, hospitalisation, release and adapting to the circumstances of a newly acquired disablement. Pinset, R.J.F. (1973) ‘Impact of physical disability’, Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, vol 66, pp 136-7. 142

Thompson, P. with Buckle, J. and Lavery, M. (1988) Not the OPCS survey: Being disabled costs more than they said, London: Disablement Income Group, pp 4-5.

143

Knight, R. and Warren, M.D. (1978) Physically disabled people living at home: A study of numbers and needs, London: HMSO, pp 56-7.

144

145

Ibid, pp 51, 84

Wright, F. (1977) Public expenditure cuts affecting services for disabled people, London: Disability Alliance, p 10. 146

147

Orwell, S. (1973) ‘Handicapped’, New Society, 5 April; Borsay, op cit, p 194.

148

Simkins and Tickner, op cit, p 169.

149

Knight and Warren, op cit, p 63.

150

Social Policy Research for the NFRCD, op cit, p 45.

Buckle, J. (1971) Handicapped and impaired in Great Britain. Part Two, London: HMSO, pp 60-81.

151

152

Topliss and Gould (1981), op cit, p 124.

153

Knight and Warren, op cit, p 65.

Sainsbury, S. (1995) ‘Disabled people’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare: Past, present and future, London: University College London Press, p 190. 154

Gladstone, D. (1995) ‘Introducing the personal social services’, in D. Gladstone (ed) British social welfare: Past, present and future, London: University College London Press, p 164.

155

156 Fraser, D. (2009) The evolution of the British welfare state: A history of policy since the Industrial Revolution (4th edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 66.

228

The final days DHSS (Department of Health and Social Security) (1976) Priorities for health and personal social services in England: A consultative document, London: HMSO.

157

158

Borsay, op cit, p 192.

MOR, 1/2. Peter Large, Press release, Joint Committee on Mobility for the Disabled, 25 May 1974. 159

Klein, R. (1973) ‘Disabled’, New Society, 17 May; Topliss and Gould (1979), op cit, p 115.

160

See Cook, J. and Mitchell, P. (1982) Putting teeth into the Act: A history of attempts to enforce the provisions of Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, London: Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, pp 1-2. 161

Roper, J. (1974) ‘Minister for disabled needs list of priorities’, The Times, 11 March.

162

163 Crowson, N. (2012) ‘Revisiting the 1977 Housing (Homeless Persons) Act: Westminster, Whitehall, and the homelessness lobby’, Twentieth Century British History, vol 24, no 3, pp 445-6; Casserly and Clark, op cit, p 9; Simkins and Tickner, op cit, pp 30-1.

164

Social Policy Research for the NFRCD, op cit, pp 2-3.

165

Toynbee and Walker, op cit, pp 118-19.

Meacher, M. (1973) ‘Out of the means test muddle’, in A. Leigh (ed) Better social services: The Observer papers on a policy for social change, London: Bedford Square, p 33.

166

167

Simkins and Tickner, op cit, p 36.

168

Topliss and Gould (1979), op cit, p 118.

169

Simkins and Tickner, op cit, p 233.

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SEVEN

The last waltz: epilogue They realize at last that change does not mean reform, that change does not mean improvement. (Franz Fanon, The wretched of the earth) How ineffective the cash benefits were was not yet realised by disabled people in 1975. The NCIP seemed to end the contributory principle and its exclusion of those disabled people unable to work. So, too, did the HNCIP in addressing the welfare of disabled women who could not work either inside or outside their homes. The welfare state’s principles of compensation and insurance, as established in the National Insurance Act 1946 and the Industrial Injuries Act 1946, had been extended to include attendance and mobility: the Mobility Allowance addressed those people in immediate need, and the Invalid Care Allowance paid cash benefits to people unable to work because they were providing care for a disabled relative. The DIG gave Castle and Morris a sherry party in November1 – disabled people were the ‘Cinderella’ of the welfare state. The new cash benefits had been established before serious economic crises. With inflation reaching 27 per cent in 1975, economic growth was slow and tax revenue reduced, and the Wilson government then faced increasing demands for welfare, especially because of the high unemployment at the time. Volume spending on public services ended as cash limits were imposed in November 1975. The Callaghan government then abandoned full employment, which had been the basis of the welfare state settlement: contributions therefore no longer supported benefits. And the IMF loan confirmed how unsustainable the welfare state had become in the current economic climate.2 Cinderella had come to the ball too late. For disabled people, the feeling of achieving significant inclusion in the welfare state was short-lived. Callaghan dismissed Castle as Minister of Health for Social Security in April 1976, and so they lost a powerful representative within a Labour government that was now committed to restraint on expenditure. The NCIP was largely useless to disabled people, offering no financial advancement as it was paid at the same rate as Supplementary Benefit,

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and only 10,000-15,000 recipients actually experienced a net gain in income.3 There was extremely low take-up for the Invalid Care Allowance as it was deducted from Supplementary Benefit.4 The HNCIP was not offered until November 1977, and there was low take-up because of the means test. Those housewives with severe functional problems also found it difficult to apply for benefits5 – some 500,000 were unable to complete basic household duties, and more than 2 million were appreciably or severely disabled.6 By 1981, the NCIP and HNCIP was benefiting only 121,000 people, while the population of disabled people was estimated consistently at around 3 million.7 The Mobility Allowance may be considered successful, however, as it was doubled in the late 1970s, from £5 to £10, and by 1981, it assisted 80,000 disabled people to purchase adapted vehicles or to attain other forms of transport.8 Like the CSDP, the cash benefits of the mid-1970s brought great expectations for improvements in the welfare of disabled people. The failure to deliver on these aspirations in the late 1970s furthered the growing gap between expectation and results that began in the mid1950s, and perpetuated this relationship between disabled people and the state beyond 1976. Awareness about, and representation of, disabled people was an achievement, but expectations had accelerated, which made the situation on the ground in the late 1970s seem especially abject. In the early 1980s, some felt that the CSDP was effectively dead. With limitations on increased social expenditure in 1979, any plans to meet the demand for services or comprehensive cash benefits by the increasingly dissatisfied disablement lobby was unrealistic. The welfare rights emphasis of the late 1970s questioned the idea of disabled people’s right to statutory provision as a right of citizenship. This was a reaction to the failures of the CSDP, and the delays and ineffectiveness of the cash benefits. Under the contributory principle, adequate statutory welfare was earned through work, and was therefore not applicable to most disabled people. New initiatives and objectives emerged, and welfare for disabled people began to be viewed as a human right; disabled people then began to self-identify as a minority group seeking more inclusion. UPIAS, the precursor to the Disabled People’s Movement, focused on the attainment of independent living and exploring the social model of disability, partly through the idea that poverty was the manifestation and not the cause of a greater discrimination against disabled people.9 Disabled people began increasingly to seek anti-discrimination legislation such as the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Sex

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Discrimination Act 1975. Groups of disabled people became more unified and powerful, with the formation of the British Council of Organisations of Disabled People in 1981. The Committee on Restrictions Against Disabled People reported in 1982, and its findings were ignored until a series of private members’ bills forced John Major, Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, to acquiesce to the 1985 Disability Discrimination Bill. Frustration and anger built in the early 1980s. In this time of crisis, solutions became abstract and drifted into unreality. With the radicalisation of the disablement lobby, expectations and aspirations were racing ahead, while what could realistically be expected in the form of statutory welfare was receding with the rolling back of the state and the focus on selectivity and the mixed economy of welfare. The 1981 Social Security reforms reduced the rates of NCIP and HNCIP, while cuts to local government adversely affected services. As Rose put it in reference to Supplementary Benefit tribunals, the means test, that spectre of the Poor Law, had returned: ‘The “gift relationship” which exists in Supplementary Benefit is one of exchange of public cash for personal humiliation ... the applicant must adopt a supplicant role, like a medieval leper exhibiting his sores.’10 The means test and the notion of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ need locked disabled people into the world created by the Poor Law Act 1601. It was all a whited sepulchre. In 1980, Alf Morris pointed out the massive improvement in the lives of disabled people if Britain spent 1 per cent of what it did on munitions on integration and rehabilitation programmes.11 The International Year of the Disabled was 1981, and in Britain, this meant much reflecting on the failures of the 1970s. There was a great deal of abject foreign comparisons, as Morris said: Many poorer countries have not chucked the disabled out of society as we did in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries when we made prisons on the edge of town for people that did not meet the norms. In the third world, the disabled are a part of society, not a-part from society like they are here.12 It may have been unrealistic that centuries-old attitudes could change in 30 years, but there was hurt after the liberal ‘long 1960s’ had seemed to promise a sea-change in attitudes towards disabled people – acknowledgment, acceptance into society, normalcy from exclusion

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and stigma – only to be dashed by the ultimate failure of provision in cash and services. With the ignorance about the realities of HIV/AIDS in the early 1980s, jokes were often made about disabled people and the disease: ‘What do you call a gay man in a wheelchair? Roll-AIDS.’13 In 1981, Steven Dwoskin, director of the British Film Institute, who had poliomyelitis, put on a series of films dealing with disablement. His selection of films, from Frankenstein to the Hunchback of Notre Dame, suggested that disabled people are never viewed as themselves, only as monsters or likeable invalids.14 The popular newspapers that were caustic critics of statutory provision for disabled people turned to rampant coverage of welfare cheats and the alleged luxury and improvidence of life on cash benefits.15 The perception that disabled people were worthy of statutory welfare changed during the welfare state, but it is possible that popular perceptions did not, or that they reverted to rejection and prejudice in the late 1970s. Notes 1

Castle, B. (1993) Fighting all the way, London: Macmillan, pp 468-9.

Lowe, R. (2005) The welfare state in Britain since 1945 (3rd edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp 317-18.

2

Disability Alliance (1977) Poverty and low incomes amongst disabled people, London: Disability Alliance, p 22. For disabled people with gainful employment, the NCIP was valuable as an income supplement. Topliss, E. and Gould, B. (1979) Provision for the disabled, Oxford: Blackwell, p 71. 3

4

Healy, P. (1976) ‘Few claim invalid care grant’, The Times, 6 July.

Casserly, J. and Clark, B. (1997) A welfare rights approach to the chronically sick and disabled, Strathclyde: Strathclyde Regional Council, p 77; Walker, A. (1981) ‘Disability and income’, in A. Walker and P. Townsend (eds) Disability in Britain: A manifesto of rights, Oxford: Robertson, pp 47-8.

5

Topliss and Gould, op cit, p 71; Townsend, P. (1979) Poverty in the United Kingdom: A survey of household resources and standards of living, Harmondsworth: Penguin, p 733.

6

Healy, P. (1981) ‘Campaign to alter attitudes to disabled and recognize their abilities’, The Times, 2 January; Smith, T. (1981) ‘Three million Britons afflicted’, The Times, 5 January. 7

234

The last waltz Healy, P. (1977) ‘Disabled to get £10 and chance of new car’, The Times, 7 December; Healy (1981) op cit.

8

Walker, A., Sinfield, A. and Walker, C. (2011) Fighting poverty, inequality and injustice: A manifesto inspired by Peter Townsend, Bristol: Policy Press, p 226. 9

10 Hilary, R. (1975) ‘Who can delabel the claimant? Welfare rights from the claimant’s perspective’, in M. Adler and A.W. Bradley (eds) Justice, discretion, and poverty: Supplementary Benefit appeals tribunals in Britain, London: Professional Books, p 152.

Timmins, N. (1981) ‘Charter for 1980s warns society of waste of potential’, The Times, 5 January.

11

12

Ibid.

Goodwin, J.P. (1989) More man than you’ll ever be! Gay folklore and acculturation in Middle America, Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, p 82. 13

14

Ibid.

Golding, P. and Middleton, S. (1982) Images of welfare: Press and public attitudes to poverty, Oxford: Robertson, p 102.

15

235

EIGHT

Conclusions Notwithstanding the great expansion of statutory welfare during and immediately following the Second World War, cash and services for disabled people received little consideration from Beveridge, government ministries, and both major political parties. This omission was in part because of the widely held conviction that the majority of their welfare should be the responsibility of other providers within the mixed economy of welfare: formal non-statutory organisations, and families, friends and communities. Yet there was the concurrent belief that Britain was on a ‘collective train’ into the future; for those for whom democratic socialism was not the explicit goal, this meant ‘more equality’ or ‘fairness’. Disabled people boarded in the late 1950s. Both major parties, the Ministry of Health, the media, academics and the House of Commons became aware of their existence, and that they, as a coherent group, had been an oversight of the postwar settlement. Along with the activities of the DIG, major social changes compelled the government to act in the mid and late 1960s: traditionally marginalised groups were seen less as moral failures; real and perceived affluence made it more possible to address unmet need and to concentrate on more particular social problems; the long-existing divide between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor was questioned; and it was recognised that the welfare state was failing to help some of the groups in most need. In the early 1970s, disabled people were part of the ‘revolution of expectation’ – a period where concrete results were demanded after disadvantaged PSS groups had gained recognition in the excitement of the 1960s. But perception always raced ahead of policy. The responses of the state and both major political parties to these pressures and trends was not generated by a coherent philosophy. DIG, at a time when pressure groups were particularly powerful, sought to embarrass the governments of the period, both at home and abroad. By the 1974 elections, there were electoral consequences for not offering new provision for disabled people, and this once unknown group was courted by both parties. One should also not ignore the genuine compassion for the less fortunate that drove efforts for further provision in a period where it was generally believed that the state could and should solve social ills.

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Throughout the welfare state, statutory welfare for disabled people remained largely determined by their comparative exclusion from the settlement of the 1940s. The contributory principle was only circumvented in the 1970s, and the cash benefits had little impact on the lived experience of disabled people and provided little beyond Supplementary Benefit. The CSDP was also ineffective. Further, the underpinning conviction that the state should work to maintain full or near-full employment was never extended to disabled people. Statutory provision for disabled people did improve the lives of many, but it did not change the enduring historical realities of statutory welfare for this group. Those disabled people who did receive some form of statutory welfare might have been subject to dour residential accommodation, inadequate cash benefits as relief outside institutions, the vagaries of informal and formal non-statutory welfare, territorial injustice and the means test.

Personal social services and personal welfare Only towards the very end of the classic welfare state period did disabled people have the political power and recognition to compete for statutory resources with other PSS groups that traditionally possessed more social and political esteem. Until the 1970s disabled people as a group were less visible, less prone to public alarm, and less quantitatively identifiable until the OPCS 1971 survey. It is well established that in the first three decades after the Second World War, PSS generally failed to overturn the traditional difficulties of personal welfare. What was the particular record of PSS in regard to disabled people? Does the experience of disabled people as examined in this book support the overall verdict of little progress? The record seems mixed. While the 1950s and early 1960s were decades of overall stagnation for PSS, statutory provision in services for disabled people overcame the Poor Law and its institutions, with increasing emphasis on outdoor services . The movement for PSS change in the 1960s, however, largely excluded disabled people as they were not part of the social control function of PSS areas such as youth crime, and nor were they discovered sufficiently to be part of the fear of a ‘demographic time bomb’. Non-means-tested, group-based qualification for statutory welfare – as promised, but not necessarily delivered by the CSDP and cash benefits of the 1970s – seemed to suggest that statutory welfare for disabled people as a PSS group came to be seen as an important part of this centralised insurance-based

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Conclusions

system. Gains were also made in recognition of the variety of personal circumstances of disabled living that statutory provision could address. This book, however, supports the overall argument of little progress in PSS. Both provision in cash and in kind were subject to the vagaries of local government. The welfare state did not end the long tradition of forming national policy for the PSS with the idea that local authorities would implement it. So, too, did the pattern of responding retroactively to problems first by enquiry and report, followed by legislation. From 1948, there was inadequate quality and quantity of central monitoring, and great territorial injustice. Shared pooling of risk was not extended fully to those with chronic or periodic needs who did not possess adequate National Insurance contributions: the social insurance system never fully escaped the ‘work ethic’. For disabled people, this was the tyranny of work. It should be noted, however, that evaluations of PSS, or any particular aspect of it, are also determined by how they are placed within the greater historical trajectory of statutory welfare, and how they are compared to other areas of the welfare state. The social control function of PSS was activated in the early 1960s in response to youth crime. So, too, was the Poor Law Act of 1388 enacted to restrict the mobility of labour to deter vagrancy and other social consequences.1 There is no extant evidence that disabled people were viewed in religious or moral terms by the groups discussed in this book. Bickenbach, however, argued that equality of respect was the least substantive definition of equality pertaining to disability and social policy in offering the ‘right to the respect and concern owed an entity possessed of moral worth’.2 Certainly, as the subjects of non-universal personal welfare, this can be seen as a minimum standard of equality for disabled people. The moral judgements of the means test in the 1970s surely violated this right. Bickenbach also identified four normative bases for welfare for disabled people: charity, compensation, need and welfare maximisation.3 In the welfare state, need did not qualify a group for statutory welfare beyond National Assistance/Supplementary Benefit unless grounded in welfare maximisation; need alone did not originally make disabled people, or other PSS groups, worthy of redistribution, and unlike children and elderly people, only in the 1970s was compensation extended to ‘no fault’ provision with the CSDP and cash benefits. As the longest and most persistent influence, Bickenbach argued, charity was not supplanted in the 20th century as the major basis for perceiving the welfare of disabled people. It may then be suggested that the welfare of disabled people in the welfare state was viewed largely in charitable terms, and that changing perceptions of the appropriate combination

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of statutory- and non-statutory welfare were merely shifts in opinion on sources of charity.

Mixed economy of welfare The welfare state, or welfare under any government in the period, can be criticised for failing to make a significant impact on the lived experience of disabled people. So, too, can the imperfect mixed economy of welfare be deemed a failure for not levelling up the welfare of disabled people with that of able-bodied people. Yet notwithstanding the overall failure to affect positively the welfare of disabled people, central government bodies and both major parties developed a greater concern than has previously been supposed. There were genuine humanitarian attempts at inclusion in statutory welfare in cash and services, as well as in greater terms of societal integration and normalcy from relative exclusion. As Kowalsky has argued for ex-servicemen from the First World War, the history of statutory welfare for disabled people is not purely one of exclusion, as is often claimed.4 For disabled people in the welfare state, there were benevolent, albeit largely ineffective, impulses for greater inclusion in statutory welfare. In the absence of a major statutory advance into the welfare of disabled people, formal and informal non-statutory efforts were vital, not redundant. Statutory welfare, formal and informal non-statutory services, and non-statutory representation of disabled people were not negatively related, but often positively related and symbiotic. In the 1950s and early 1960s, perceptions that the state would take on a greater role in their welfare existed, but developed slowly, and with little tangible effect. This change in perception was not part of a greater irresistible movement toward the state. DIG was vital and very much a part of the reinvigoration of and new roles for non-statutory efforts in the 1960s in areas where the state was found lacking. With notable rapidity, DIG succeeded in accelerating this change in perception about the place of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare. It set agendas for government in the mid and late 1960s, and its focus on abject foreign comparisons and the situation of disabled housewives in particular guided government perceptions about new provision for disabled people through the 1970s. From 1948 to the mid-1970s, there was a major change in opinion about the appropriate place of disabled people within the mixed economy of welfare. By 1975, it was felt that the state should provide,

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Conclusions

and sponsor through attendance benefits, a significant portion of their welfare. This change in perception, however, was never actualised. By the time the partial discarding of the contributory principle became the subject of consensus, statutory welfare was beginning to recede. Some have argued that non-statutory informal care provided the greatest proportion of the welfare of PSS groups between the mid-1970s and early 1980s.5 Notwithstanding changes in perception, this appears true for disabled people. Disabled people were always a threat to the underpinning assumptions and status quo of the welfare state. They can be compensated for the effect their physical impairment has on their incomes and lives by imposing non-statutory liability, as with tort law, or by statutory welfare. To limit the latter, Stone has suggested, the state must continually struggle to limit the definition of ‘deserving’ need for disabled people in the face of popular attitudes.6 When disabled people gained increasing recognition in the late 1960s and 1970s, it became increasingly difficult to exclude them from the welfare state’s particular definition: the contributory principle. It may be argued, however, that the possibility of new statutory welfare for disabled people was linked closely to the welfare state; faith in the steady expansion of statutory welfare was necessary to broaden the definition of which disabled people had deserving need. This faith, however, ended just as the state was finally being forced to extend the definition of deserving need to include disabled people, because of the change in perceptions about their appropriate place within the mixed economy of welfare.

The welfare of disabled people and the governments of the period The Attlee governments can come under criticism of the ‘we wuz robbed’ variety for their perceived failures to bring about a social democratic revolution and the end of inequality. Certainly, the situation of disabled people and other disadvantaged groups could be viewed as part of this failure. This view aside, the experience of disabled people reinforces the fact that the Attlee governments recognised and accepted the presence of non-statutory welfare and created limits on the state’s expansion into the mixed economy of welfare. ‘Some socialism’ through an employment-earned ‘equality’ did not include those with disabilities who did not have gainful and regular employment. It is difficult to make conclusions about what the welfare of disabled people might say about the Conservative governments of 1951–64, as they were a low priority for the Ministry of Health and government

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain

in general. Yet it was quickly realised in the 1950s that disabled people as a group should and would receive additional statutory provision in services. It seems that ‘humane Toryism’, however, did not lead to calls for new provision within the Party. It is probable that provision in kind and National Assistance, which was paid to increasing numbers in the period, were viewed as adequate support to prevent destitution among disabled people, and to avoid further redistribution of wealth. Notwithstanding the highlighting of personal welfare and the rediscovery of poverty, disabled people did not yet have sufficient recognition or political necessity for the introduction of a cash benefit as part of the Conservative philosophy of selective provision to address the most severe need. In power in the 1960s, Labour reconsidered the flat-rate contribution at the heart of the social insurance system, but because of both philosophical conviction and economic considerations, disabled people were viewed as something of an anathema to the contributory scheme. DIG was not a reaction to the dashed optimism during the first Wilson government; it was a reaction to the relative exclusion of disabled people from the welfare settlement in an expectant climate, and became a powerful force for change. Yet for a government with a great deal of commitments in social spending – and facing economic crises, the ‘demographic pull’ and the ‘technological push’ – disabled people as an issue arrived too late for significant new provision. As with the more generous Supplementary Benefit, the 1969 Attendance Allowance was a targeted response by a government under much pressure and with many commitments to meet. It may be seen as the first recognition of the special circumstances of disabled people, or as another failure of the Wilson governments of the 1960s to significantly improve the welfare of a needy group. Its adoption by the Heath government is another example of a consensus in welfare between Labour and the Conservatives, like Joseph’s faith in the Seebohm reorganisation of social services. So, too, are the similarities between the 1969 Attendance Allowance under Labour and Conservative plans for selective provision in the early 1970s. The Heath government recognised individual welfare in terms beyond income, including political freedom and the opportunity for self-improvement. The free market and the state were symbiotic: competition and economic growth created affluence, but crucially, they were also to create wealth for the expansion of statutory welfare for those in the greatest need. The Constant Attendance Allowances recognised informal care as the first provider of welfare, despite the overall growth in statutory provision for PSS groups. In terms of state-

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Conclusions

sponsored self-help, individual freedom and addressing ‘gap groups’, disabled people were part of this project that ended incomplete in February 1974. Without engaging in counterfactuals, a Conservative government elected in 1974 would have introduced a series of cash benefits little different from those created by Labour. Joseph’s concern for the general classes in particular is an example of his genuine compassion for needy groups before he turned away from collective welfare in the late 1970s. The experience of disabled people, however, may suggest that the twin goals of compassion and competition were incompatible – considerable expenditure on non-contributory benefits for a group that could generate comparatively little wealth and had less potential to be incentivised off statutory welfare did not fit with the ideological focus on competition and demanded increased taxation of high-income earners. In the case of disabled people, the Wilson governments of 1974–76 cannot be accused of a lack of new ideas as they have in their dealings with the unions, economic strategy and child benefits. The cash benefits went far beyond the 1969 Attendance Allowance, but notwithstanding humanitarian concern, the new cash benefits were something of a foregone conclusion by 1974, with the revolution of expectation and because of political expediency in a year with two elections. The limited cash benefits also serve to dispel the notion that social spending was out of control in 1974–75 before restraint and rolling back began in 1976. In terms of equality, the Wilson and Callaghan governments failed to positively affect the incomes of disabled people. Disabled people became subject to increasing means tests, while comparatively, women and minority ethnic groups made tangible and psychological gains with the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 and the Race Relations Act 1976. The Disability Alliance were vociferous critics of the rolling back of statutory welfare for disabled people under the first Thatcher government, but its and others’ criticisms of the failures of the CSDP and the cash benefits seemed to suggest that Labour had failed to establish the viability of public spending for needy groups, and social democracy in general, at a critical juncture. The Wilson and Callaghan governments enacted much social legislation in a difficult economic climate: the Disability Cash Benefits, SERPS, Child Benefit, the Employment Protection Act 1975, the Housing (Homeless Persons) Act 1977, and the Domestic Proceedings and Magistrates’ Courts Act 1978. These measures, however, did not amount to a more general case for the welfare state as a whole. The cash benefits and their ineffectiveness also call into question the notion of Castle’s hyperactive years and 1974–75 as the height of the welfare state. When one considers the failures of the cash

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benefits, Castle may appear as something of a false idol. Conversely, one may argue that without Castle’s efforts, less would have been offered, and she saw the benefits as a first step.7

The welfare state The welfare state, as many viewed it, seemed to promise equality in welfare, and it has often been judged on the equality that it created, both generally and for particular groups. While there was much redistribution of wealth and power and improved living standards for many, the experience of disabled people seems to support Le Grand’s thesis: Tawney’s formula for equality (general taxation to fund social welfare to minimise inequality and need) was not achieved.8 Equality of treatment by the state, as implicit in the Beveridge report, was not intended for disabled people. The overall failure of the state to help disabled people attain ordinary levels of socioeconomic participation meant a failure to create equality of opportunity. Disabled people did not experience equality in incomes, outcomes or wealth. The psychological and representative gains made with new statutory provision in the 1970s were fleeting. The welfare state was not universal, nor was it excessively generous to disabled people, a group that could give comparatively little back to the economy. Aside from the limited statutory employment programmes for disabled people, their welfare was seldom viewed in terms of efficiency. With Labour and the Conservatives generally viewing economic growth and full or near full employment as the means to support statutory welfare, the welfare of disabled people, many of whom were unemployed, was viewed by both parties as an expense, and subject to a minimum standard of provision. Unlike the 1980s and 1990s, I have found no evidence in this period of the belief that the private market was a more efficient or desirable provider of welfare for this group: their welfare was perceived only as the sum total of statutory and non-statutory efforts. Mrs Thatcher did not snatch the benefits given to disabled people by a benevolent and egalitarian welfare state. The turn in attitudes against disabled people in the early 1980s, as well as the recent turn under the current Conservative government as this book went to print in spring 2016, proves that perceptions of what disadvantaged groups deserve from the state are not on a great march towards a more egalitarian future. Nostalgia is memory tinted with the hues of desire. This book should serve to dispel rose-coloured notions about a now fallen utopian welfare state.

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Notes Fraser, D. (2009) The evolution of the British welfare state: A history of policy since the Industrial Revolution (4th edn), Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, p 38. 1

Bickenbach, J.E. (1993) Physical disability and social policy, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, p 242. 2

Bickenbach used the term ‘welfare maximisation’ for economic rationality and the efficiency of statutory welfare. Ibid, pp 192-220. 3

Kowalsky, M. (2007) ‘Enabling the Great War: ex-servicemen, the mixed economy of welfare and the social construction of disability, 1899-1930’, PhD, University of Leeds, pp 231-3.

4

5 See Finch, J. and Groves, D. (1983) Labour of love: Women, work, and caring, Boston, MA: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Moroney, R.M. (1976) The family and the state: Considerations for social policy, London: Longman.

Stone, D. (1984) The disabled state, Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, pp 143-4.

6

This was the case with pensions. As a minority government in 1974 under the Social Contract, Labour’s increase in flat-rate pensions would not have led to much vertical redistribution. Castle’s efforts led to what Thane called a ‘modest compromise’, with an earnings-related benefit scale that created vertical redistribution. Thane, P. (2000) Old age in English history: Past experiences, present issues, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp 377-8.

7

Le Grand, J. (1982) The strategy of equality: Redistribution and the social services, Boston, MA: George Allen & Unwin, pp 3-4.

8

245

Appendix: Ministerial periods of office Anthony Barber, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 25 July 1970–4 March 1974 Tony Benn, Minister of Technology, 4 July 1966–19 June 1970 Ernest Bevin, Minister of Labour and National Service, 13 May 1940–23 May 1945 Rab Butler, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 28 October 1951–20 December 1955 Barbara Castle, Secretary of State for Social Services, 5 March 1974–8 April 1976 Richard Crossman, Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, 1 November 1968–19 June 1970 Judith Hart, Minister of Social Security, 26 July 1967–1 November 1968 Peggy Herbison, Minister of Pensions and National Insurance, Minister of Social Security, 18 October 1964–26 July 1967 Keith Joseph, Secretary of State for Health and Social Services, 19 June 1970–4 March 1974 Walter Monckton, Minister of Labour and National Service, 28 October 1951–20 December 1955 Enoch Powell, Minister of Health, 27 July 1960–19 October 1963 Kenneth Robinson, Minister of Health, 18 October 1964–1 November 1968 William Ross, Secretary of State for Scotland, 18 October 1964–19 June 1970 Margaret Thatcher, Secretary of State for Education and Science, 20 June 1970–4 March 1974 Peter Thorneycroft, Chancellor of the Exchequer, 13 January 1957–6 January 1958 Robin Turton, Minister of Health, 20 December 1955–16 January 1957 Dennis Vosper, Minister of Health, 17 January 1957–16 September 1957 Derek Walker-Smith, Minister of Health, 17 September 1957–26 July 1960

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Bibliography Archives and collections Albert Sloman Library Special Collections, University of Essex Alf Morris Library, London School of Economics and Political Science British Library British Library Newspaper Reading Room, Colindale Conservative Party Archive, Bodleian Library, University of Oxford Commonwealth Party Archive II, University of Sussex Labour History Archive and Study Centre, Manchester Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick The National Archive, Kew

Newspapers and periodicals Birmingham Post British Medical Journal Daily Echo Daily Express Daily Mail Daily Mirror Daily Sketch Daily Star The Daily Telegraph The Economist Liverpool Daily Post Marxism Today Ministry of Labour Gazette The Morning Star New Society New Statesman News of the World The Observer Sunday People The Scotsman The Sheffield Morning Telegraph The Spectator The Sun Sunday Mirror

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The Sunday Telegraph The Sunday Times The Times Yorkshire Post

Audio sources Macgregor, Sue, ‘Megan du Boisson: A story of our time’, 22 February 1973, BBC Radio Four.

Dissertations Bergen, A. (2006) ‘The blind, the deaf and the halt: physical disability, the Poor Law and charity c. 1830-1890, with particular reference to the County of Yorkshire’, PhD, University of Leeds. Brown, M. (1972) ‘The development of local authority welfare services from 1948-1965 under Part Three of the National Assistance Act 1948’, DPhil, University of Manchester. Gagen, W.J. (2004) ‘Disabling masculinity: ex-servicemen, disability, and gender-identity, 1914-1930’, PhD, University of Essex. Grigg, F.N. (1997) ‘Spheres of influence: women in the British Conservative Party’, PhD, Harvard University. Kowalsky, M. (2007) ‘Enabling the Great War: ex-servicemen, the mixed economy of welfare and the social construction of disability, 1899-1930’, PhD, University of Leeds. Meyer-Kelly, M. (2001) ‘The Child Poverty Action Group, 1965-1974: the origins and effectiveness of a single issue pressure group’, PhD, University of Bristol. Millward, G. (2013) ‘Invalid definitions, invalid responses: disability and the welfare state, 1965-1995’, PhD, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Parliamentary debates Hansard, 5th series

Parliamentary papers Ministry of Health (1955) Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1954, Cmd 9566. Ministry of Health (1956) Report on the Ministry of Health for the year ended 31 December 1955, Cmd 9857.

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268

Index

Index

A Abel-Smith, B. 87, 89, 97, 184, 191 access issues 105, 115, 154, 163, 198, 212, 214 Advisory Council on the Welfare of Handicapped Persons (1949) 59–61 American Civil Rights Movement 85, 87 Anderson, J. and Pemberton, N. 35 Angry Silence, The (1960) 101 anti-discrimination legislation 232–3 artificial limb provisions 39 Ashley, Jack 95, 103–5, 144, 158, 164–5, 183 asylums 31–2, 44n. Asylums Act and Lunatics Act (1845) 31 Attendance Allowance 71–4, 170n. early industrial injuries based benefits 55 under Labour (1964–69) 84, 88, 97–9, 104–11, 118–20 1966 Working Party 107–11 1969 introduction of the ‘severe’ AA 13–14, 84, 97, 107–11, 120 extending the Constant AA 135–9, 145, 148–9, 161–2, 169–70, 185–6, 188–9, 193–4, 207 Attlee governments (1945–51) 56–7, 59, 241 concerns about a general disablement allowance 56–7 on the role of the voluntary sector 6 Aubert, Vilhelm 87 awareness of benefit entitlements 205

B Baldwin, P. 12, 53 Barnett, Joel 183–4, 201–3 Bartrip, P.W.J. and Burman, S. 36 Bath Society for the Suppression of Vagrants and Impostors 26 Benn, Tony 157

Beresford, P. 41n. Bermondsey Institution for Blind Children 26 Beveridge, W. on local authority responsibilities 56 on role of non-statutory agencies 3, 56 Bevin, Ernest 58 Bickenbach, J.E. 10, 239 Blaxter, M. 3, 203 blind and deaf adults pre-1948 welfare provisions 35–6, 40–1 for ex-servicemen 40 post-1948 local authority responsibilities 57–8 Blind Persons Act (1920) 34, 35–6, 50, 58 Borsay, A. 5, 211 Boucher report (1954-55) 66 British Epilepsy Association 63 British Legion 39–40 British Rheumatic Organisation (BRA) 63 Butler, Rab 51, 65 Butler, Robin 167–8

C Callaghan, James 183, 231, 243–4 cash payments 1600s to 1800s 23–6 under NAB provisions 55, 73 under 1964–69 Labour governments 88, 96–7, 106, 109–11 DIG calls for ‘national disability income’ 139–42 1973–79 period 199–209 failures of 203–9 PAR review of 199–201 qualifying criteria and access to 204–9 1980s period 231–2 stigma concerns 203, 205–8, 213, 215

269

Disability and the welfare state in Britain see also Attendance Allowance; National Allowance; other named benefits Castle, Barbara 183–4, 187, 191, 193, 197, 200–3, 207, 216–17, 231, 243–4 Cathy Come Home (Loach, 1966) 92 The Central Council for the Care of Cripples (CCCC) 39, 63–4 Central Council for the Disabled (CCD) 63–5, 94, 115, 143 Central Policy Review Staff (CPRS) 135, 201–2 Chamberlain Circular (1886) 32 ‘character’ and the ‘deserving’ poor 26, 28–9 see also moral judgements of character ‘charity’ 239–40 Charity Organisation Society 28–9 A charter for the disabled (Topliss and Gould, 1979) 138 Cheshire Homes 116 child abuse 53, 112, 144, 168, 183 Child Allowance 38–9 Child Benefit 184 Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) 87, 103 child welfare pre-1948 provisions 34–5 1948–64 provisions 54 1964–69 provisions 111–12 post-1970 provisions 213 Children Act (1948) 54 Children and Young Persons Act (1963) 112 chiropody services 63, 118, 154, 161 Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (1970) 2, 133, 138, 139, 154–61 failures of 209–16, 232 funding and expenditure concerns 145, 158–60 registers and identification responsibilities 209–10 sections 154–5 Circular-32/51 59–61 claiming benefits 204–9 ‘classes’ of disabled people see ‘general classes’ of disabled people Clockwork orange, A (Burgess, 1962) 121 Cohen, D. 38–9 Collick, Percy 67–8 Collini, S. 28–9 Colwell, Maria 144, 168, 183 community care trends

during 1948-64 period 53, 59–63, 65–72 post-1970 199 Conservatives 1951–64 period 50–3, 60–4, 65–72 1964–69 views on selectivity 98–100, 149 1970–72 Heath government 134–8, 148–70 1973–79 period 193–5 welfare successes and failures 241–4 ‘constant’ Attendance Allowance 135–9, 145, 148–9, 161–2, 169–70, 185–6, 188–9, 193–4, 207 ‘contributory principle’ for selective aid 56–7, 65, 69, 72, 88, 96–9, 101, 106, 137–9, 148, 169–70, 182, 187, 193–4, 201, 215–16, 231–2, 238, 241 and Labour governments 96–8 Council for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled 64 Coventry DIG 140–1 Creating a national disability income (DIG, 1974) 143, 149–50, 190 Crime – A challenge to us all (Longford Group) 112 ‘Cripples Council’ 59–61 Crosland, Anthony 86 Crossman, Richard 84, 95, 97–8, 158, 191, 199 CSDP see Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (1970) Curtis Committee (1946) 54

D Daily Express, with Keith Joseph 198–9 Dalyell, Tam 158 deaf adults see blind and deaf adults Denmark, welfare provisions 142 ‘deservedness’ and disabled people 57, 104 see also moral judgements of character Designing for the disabled (Goldsmith, 1963) 95, 105 DHSS (Department of Health and Social Security) creation of 97–8, 114 during the early 1970s 136–7 influence of Barbara Castle 183–4 Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) group 199–201 DIG see Disablement Income Group (DIG)

270

Index disability 4–5 models of 9–10 overview of social policy towards 9–12 post-1974 interest in 183–5 post-2000 interest in 5 see also disabled people Disability Alliance 187, 205, 207–8 Disability Discrimination Bill (1985) 233 disability history see history of disability studies disabled children, education provisions 34–5 disabled elderly people pre-19th century 32–3 see also older people disabled ex-servicemen see ex– servicemen and welfare provisions disabled housewives 89, 92, 98, 103, 108, 110, 117, 119, 142, 149–52, 156, 162, 192–3, 240 Non-contributory Invalidity Pension (HNCIP) 201–2, 203–6 Disabled Living Foundation 160 disabled people definitions 4 ‘general classes’ of 2–4 data challenges 103–4, 161–3 registers of 55–6, 58–9, 62, 205, 209–10 financial circumstances (1970s) 206–7 (1600–1940s) pre-welfare state provisions 21–41 specialisation trends 33–40 ‘moral judgements’ of character 22, 26, 40, 85, 204–5, 215, 237, 239 1964–69 emergence of 83–121 government records on welfare 241–4 1970–72 legislation for 133–70 1973–79 raised profile of 182–5, 216–17 post-1948 exclusion from welfare state settlement 53–9 Disabled Persons Employment Act (1944) 58–9 Disablement Income Group (DIG) 8–9, 88–96 and Megan du Boisson 90–4, 191 and Mary Greaves 138–42 income and fundraising 141 and the media 94–6 on creating a national disability income 149–51, 185–9

on international welfare comparisons 136, 141–2, 152–4 on the Jimmy Martin scandal 188–9 on the thalidomide crisis 167 providing information on benefits 140–1 reviewing the impact of DIG 189–91 Distillers Company 163–8 Donnison, David 184 Drakeford, M. and Butler, I. 168 du Boisson, Megan 90–4, 191 Dwoskin, Steven 234

E economy (policy) model of disability 10 education, introduction of compulsory schooling 34–5 Education Act (1921) 35 Elementary Education (Blind and Deaf Children) Act (1893) 34–5 employment opportunities quota schemes and the TUC 195–7 sheltered workshops and Remploy 59–60, 65, 100, 146, 153, 196 employment-based welfare, as state policy 39, 47n., 53, 58–9 Engels, Friedrich 30 Ennals, David 148, 153 European welfare provision comparisons 141–2, 152–4 see also international schemes Evans, Edward 67–8 Evans, Harold 163–4 ex-servicemen and welfare provisions 35–6, 37–40, 99, 207

F Fabian Society 30 Family Allowances Act (1945) 54, 136 Family Income Support (FIS) 136, 149, 158 Family Planning Association 52 family services 112–13 Fanon, Franz 231 Finkelstein, V. 21–2 foster care 54 France, welfare provisions 142, 153 François-Aubert, Jean 153 Frankenstein (Dwoskin) 234 Fraser, D. 4 Friendly societies 26

271

Disability and the welfare state in Britain hospitals for ex-servicemen 37–8 pre-1860s 31 Houghton Review of the Social Services 83, 106–7 Houghton, Douglas 103 House of Commons ministerial committees 105–6 official committees 106–7 working parties 107–11 housewives with disabilities 89, 92, 98, 103, 108, 110, 117, 119, 142, 149, 151–2, 156, 162, 192–3, 240 Housewives Non-contributory Invalidity Pension (HNCIP) 201–2, 203–5, 206, 231–2 housing for disabled people (1970s) 212 Howe, Geoffrey 193 Hunchback of Notre Dame (Dwoskin) 234 Hyman, M. 206

G Galsworthy, John 38 gender, and statutory welfare provisions 118–19 ‘general classes’ of disabled people 2–4 Germany, welfare provisions 153–4 Goldsmith, Selwyn 95, 105 Gould, Donald 94 Gould, Tony 95 ‘Great Society’ project (US) 87 Greaves, Mary 89, 91, 134, 138–42, 149–51, 159, 185 Green, Samuel 30 Grier, J. 8 The Guardian on European welfare 142 on housing for the disabled 144 Guide Dog Association 36 Guillebaud report (1956) 66–8 on NHS spending 51 Guthrie, Duncan 143

I

H Hahn, H. 10 Harrington, Michael 87 Harris, J. 9, 33 Hart, Judith 97, 103–4 healthcare Ministerial responsibilities and funding 51–2 within workhouses 30–1 Heath government (1970–72) 133–70, 242–3 plans for future developments 149–52 rolling out the CSDP act 154–61 studies of international schemes 152–4 and the thalidomide crisis 163–8 Heidi (Spyri) 34 Herbison, Peggy 101, 103–4 Hill, M. 52 Himmelfarb, G. 32 history of disability provisions 1600–1940s pre-welfare state provisions 21–41 1948–63 promotional welfare 49–74 1964–69 emergence of disabled people 83–121 1970–72 legislation 133–70 lack of studies 4–5 holiday provisions 212 home alterations 61–2, 211, 212 home helps 71 home visits 49–50, 55, 61–2, 66, 118

incapacity benefits, pre-welfare state 36–7 indoor (workhouse) relief 30–3 industrial injuries, pre-welfare state provisions 36–7 Industrial Injuries Act (1946) 54–5 Industrial Rehabilitation Units (IRUs) 58–9 Industrial Relations Act (1971) 147–8 industrial training schemes (1930s) 39 Ingelby Committee (1956) 112 inspection regimes 70 Institute of the Blind 68 institutional care, decline of 53 international schemes during 1950s–60s period 64, 73, 92 during 1970s period 136, 141–2, 152–4 see also individual countries International Year of the Disabled (1981) 233 Invalid Care Allowance (1976) 15, 181–3, 186, 201–4, 207, 231–2 Invalidity Allowance (1971) 150 Invalidity Benefit (1971) 98, 133–4, 149–51, 186, 201–2, 207

272

Index

J Jersey, welfare provisions 153–4 John Grooms Association for the Disabled 160 Johnson, Paul 85 Joseph, Keith 99, 133, 136–41, 148–9, 165–7, 169, 183, 193–4, 198–200, 242–3

K Kearney, Neil 145 Kilbrandon report (Scotland 1964) 112 King’s National Roll scheme 39, 47n. Knatchbull’s Act (1723) 24 Kowalsky, M. 240

L Labour governments (1945–51) 56–7, 59 (1964–69) 83–121 attitudes to the ‘contributory principle’ 96–8 House of Commons representations 102–16 influence of the TUC 100–2 presence of the disabled in society 116–19 the Seebohm Committee 111–16 (1974–79) 182–5, 193–7, 199–209, 216–17, 231–2 welfare successes and failures 241–4 Labour in opposition (1951–63) 67, 69–70 (1970–73) 144–6, 191–3 Lady Hoare Thalidomide Fund 167–8 Large, Peter 89, 91, 134, 185–7, 188–9 The last refuge (Townsend, 1962) 70–1 League of Hospital Friends 52 legislation see Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act (1970); social legislation Lewin, H.B. 110–11 Lewis, J. 21 Liberal welfare reforms (1906–14) 34 A life apart (Miller and Gwynne, 1972) 159 Loach, Ken 92 local authorities beginning of social service provisions 55–6 impact of CSDP (1970) 159–60 challenges and responsibilities 209–16

impact of National Assistance Act (1948) 57–8, 59–60 introduction of mandatory schemes (1960s) 62 regional independent initiatives 62–3 responsibilities under the 1949 ‘Circular 32/51’ 59–63 Local Authority Social Services Act (1970) 135 Local Government Act (1929) 35, 55 Longley, Henry 29 Lynes, Tony 69, 87, 167 Lyon, Stewart 141

M Macleod, Iain 52–3, 60–1, 136 Macmillan, H. expansion of NHS 68–9 reduction in welfare spending (1955–57) 68 Major, John 233 Malthus, Thomas 27 Martin, Jimmy 167, 188–9 Martin, R.M. 146–7 Mason, David 165 Mass Observation 6 Meacher, Michael 215 meals-on-wheels 63, 211–12 means-testing 23–6, 38, 40, 201–6, 215, 232–3, 239, 243 Means, R. and Smith, R. 11 media 123n. 1970s coverage of disabled people 198–9 and the DIG 94–6 during 1960s–1970s 143–4 on a national disability income 142, 143–4 medical model of disability 10 Mellish, Robert 156 Mental Health Act (1959) 69, 73 mental health provisions emergence of asylums 31–2 studies and analysis 6 Miller, E.J. and Gwynne, G.V. 159 miners 30 Ministerial Committees (1964–69) 105–6 Ministry of Health (1957–64) 51–2, 59–60 on local authority responsibilities 55–6, 59–63

273

Disability and the welfare state in Britain on State responsibility for disabled people’s welfare 61 Ministry of Health Circular (11/61) 70–1 Ministry of Health Circular (14/57 and 57/86) 66 Ministry of Health Circular (15/60) 69–70 Ministry of Health Circular (32/51) 50 Ministry of Pensions 38–9 mixed economy of welfare 7–8, 240–1 Mobility Allowance 15, 181–3, 202, 204, 222–4n., 231–2 Mockler, C. 194 models of disability 9–10 Monckton, Walter 65 moral judgements of character 22, 26, 40, 85, 204–5, 215, 237, 239 Morgan, K.O. 85 Morris, Alf 89, 155, 158, 183, 192–3, 200, 209, 212, 214–15, 217, 231, 233 Multiple Sclerosis Society (MSS) 52 Muscular Dystrophy Association 63

N Napoleonic Wars and aftermath 26–7 National Assistance Act (1948) 3, 6, 50 Part Three, Sections 29–30 57–9, 67–71, 113–14 National Assistance Board (NAB) 55 National Cripples Reform League (NCRL) 63 ‘national disability income’ campaigning by DIG 139–42, 149–51, 185–9 Labour (1970s) policies on 144–6 National Insurance Act (1911) 37 National Insurance Act (1946) 54–5 National Insurance Act (1970) 148–9, 150 National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act (1946) 36–7 National Insurance officers 204 National League of the Blind (NLB) 35–6, 160 National Pension Plan 184 NCIP see Non-contributory Invalidity Pension (NCIP) Netherlands, welfare provisions 142, 153–4 New Society 95, 184 New Statesman 85, 94–5

News of the World, on abuse cases (1972) 144 newspaper coverage of disability, during late 1960s 94–6 NHS economic cost concerns 51 and mental health 69–70 post-1959 expansion 68–9 pressures on hospital beds 62 Non-contributory Invalidity Pension (NCIP) 15, 181–4, 200–2, 203–6, 231–3 non-statutory agencies 3, 6 during 1948–63 period 52–3, 61, 63–5, 74 the ‘discovery’of disability 67–8 as part of the mixed economy’ 7–8 Nuffield College Social Reconstruction Survey (1941–43) 57

O objectivity 11–12 occupational injuries see industrial injuries and welfare provisions occupational therapy 115 Official Committees (1964-69) 106–7 Old Age Pensions Act (1908) 34, 40 Old Poor Law see Poor Law Act (1601) older people provisions of outdoor relief (1800s–1900s) 28, 29 Labour government (1964–69) policies 106–7, 112–13 post-1970 provisions 213 O’Malley, Brian 183, 192 O’Neill, Dennis 53 OPCS (Office of Population and Census Surveys) 161–3 criticisms of 211 on financial difficulties of disabled people 206 Part One (1971) 144, 151–2, 161–3, 169–70 OPEC crisis 182 oral testimonies of disabled people 11 Orange Badge scheme 214 outdoor relief see cash payments (outdoor relief) ‘overseers’ of the poor 23

P PAR see Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) group

274

Index pension entitlements, international comparisons 154 pension schemes, introduction of SERPS 207 Pentland, Norman 103, 156–7 Personal Social Services (PSS) 3, 5–6, 238–40 1968–73 growth and expenditure on 134–5 categorisation of groups 111–12 early reluctance to expand 51–2 legacies of the Poor Laws 213–14, 238–40 Seebohm Committee and report (1968) 111–16 Physically Disabled Persons League (PDPL) 63 Piercy Committee (1953–56) 49, 64, 65–7, 68–9, 118 policy directions see social policy on disability Poor Law Act (1601) 23–6 Poor Law Act (1834) 26–33, 213–14 indoor (workhouse) relief 30–3 outdoor (benefits) relief 27–30 Poor Law Act (1930) 35–6, 40 demise of 55–6 Poor Law Amendment Act (1868) 31–2 Poor Law Commission 27, 31 Poor Law Unions 27–8 The poor and the poorest (Townsend and Abel-Smith, 1965) 87 poor relief (1600s–1800s) 23–6 ‘poverty’ during 1950s–60s 69–71 during 1964–69 Labour government 87–8 post-1970 and disabled people 206–8 Poverty in the United Kingdom (Townsend 1979) 207 Powell, Enoch 51–2, 69 Prior, James 95 Programme Analysis and Review (PAR) group 199–201, 223n. promotional welfare (1948–63) 49–74 definitions of 50 disabled people and the Welfare State Settlement 53–9 moving towards community care 59–63 role of voluntary organisations 63–5 discovering disability 65–72 PSS see Personal Social Services (PSS)

Q quota employment schemes (TUC) 195–7

R Rathbone, Eleanor 54, 191 Red Cross Society 40 registers of disabled people 55–6, 58–9, 62, 205, 209–10 rehabilitation reviews, Piercy Committee (1953-6) 49, 64, 65, 68–9, 118 religion and disabled people 25, 40, 239 Remploy 59–60, 65, 100, 146, 153, 196 residential accommodation 1960s local authority provisions 114 spending on 116 post-1970 provisions 212–13 and young disabled people 159–60, 212–13 Reveille journal 38 Roberts, Robert 208 Robinson, Kenneth 115 Rose, M.E. 233 Rowntree Trust 208 Rowntree, Joseph 32 Royal Commission on the Aged Poor 29, 32 Sainsbury, S. 6 St. Dunstan’s 40 schooling provisions, for disabled children 34–5 ‘Section 29 groups’ 57–9, 68–71 Seebohm Committee and Report on PSS (1968) 84, 111–16, 135 key failings 116 section-10 115–16 ‘selectivity’ 98–100, 149–50 servicemen’s welfare see ex-servicemen and welfare provisions ‘severe’ Attendance Allowance 13–14, 84, 97, 107–11, 120 Shah, S. and Priestley, M. 63 Shearer, Anne 142 sheltered workshops 100 see also Remploy sickness benefits 37 Social Contract 183, 195, 217, 245n. social legislation Poor Law (1601) and beyond 23–6 Poor Law (1834) and beyond 26–33

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Disability and the welfare state in Britain specialisation in welfare (1870-1940) 33–40 social models of disability 10 social policy on disability (overview) 9–12 Social Security Act (1973) 199 social services (overview) 3–4 early expansion of 51 impact of the Seebohm report (1968) 84, 111–16 1968–73 expenditures 134–5 post-1970 213–14 see also National Assistance Act (1948); Personal Social Services (PSS) South Africa 154 Soviet Union 154 Spastics Society 63–4 specialisation and early indoor relief 31–3 late 19th century to WW2 33–40 Speenhamland System 24 spending on welfare (1948-63) 50–1 State Earnings-related Pension Scheme (SERPS) 207, 243 statutory services after the CSDP Act (1970) 154–61, 210–16 promotional welfare measures (194863) 50–63, 65–72 campaigning pressures under 1964-69 Labour governments 84–121 stigma concerns 28, 32, 55, 96, 203, 205–8, 213, 215 Straw, Jack 183 Sunday Mirror 143 Sunday People 144 The Sunday Times, on thalidomide 143, 144, 163–7 Supplementary Benefit 96–7, 110, 120, 124n., 135–6, 150–1, 184, 192–4, 200–7, 216, 225n., 233 surveys on numbers of disabled people 103–4, 161–3 Sweden and disability provisions 107–9, 142, 153–4

T telephone provisions 211 thalidomide crisis 163–8 Thatcher, Margaret 243–4 The National Archive (TNA) records from the 1960s on Ministerial Committees 105–6

on Official Committees 106–7 on Working Parties 107–11 records from the 1970s, on CSDP Act 156–9 Thompson, P., Buckle, J. and Lavery, M. 211 Thomson, D. 28 Thorneycroft, Peter 69 The Times newspaper 94 Titmuss, Richard 69, 87 Tomlinson Committee on the Rehabilitation and Resettlement of the Disabled 58 Topliss, E. and Gould, B. 138, 143, 155, 158 Townsend, Peter 70–1, 87, 90, 95, 117–18, 120, 149, 207–8 Poverty in the United Kingdom (1979) 207 ‘The disabled in society’ speech (1967) 117–18 Townshend, John 26 Toynbee, P. and Walker, D. 183–4, 215 Trade Union Congress 100–2, 146–8, 195–7 history of welfare for industrial injuries 36–7 and the Industrial Relations Act (1971) 147–8 on the quota scheme 195–7 on working conditions for the disabled 146 Turner, D.M. 21 Turton, Robin 68

U UPIAS 220n., 232

V Veldkamp, Gerald 153 Voluntary action (Beveridge, 1948) 56 voluntary sector see non-statutory agencies Vosper, Dennis 59

W Walker-Smith, Derek 68 ‘water tower’ speech (1961) 51–2 Webb, Sidney and Beatrice 31 Webster, C. 68 welfare officers 62, 71, 118–19 Welfare rights handbook (1977–) 205

276

Index Welfare Services Act (1947) 55–6 ‘welfare state escalator’ 7 welfare state (overview) 244 attitudes to disability (overview) 4–5, 53–4 concerns about a general disablement allowance 56–7 and the mixed economy 7–8, 240–1 post-1973 collapse of 14–15, 182–5, 209–17 see also promotional welfare (1948-63) Whiteley, P.F. and Winyard, S.J. 8, 191 Wilson, Harold 85–6, 182, 184–5, 190, 208, 242, 243–4 see also Labour governments Winzer, M.A. 22 workhouses 24–5, 30–3 teaching in 29 ‘test’ introduction 29 Working Parties, 1960s TNA records 107–11 Workmen’s Compensation Act (1897) 36, 100 workplace injuries see industrial injuries and welfare provisions

Y young disabled people, residential care provisions 159–60, 212–13 Younghusband report (1959) 61–2

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Created during and after the Second World War, the British Welfare State seemed to promise welfare for all, but, in its original form, excluded millions of disabled people. This book examines attempts in the subsequent three decades to reverse this exclusion. It is the first to contextualise disability historically in the welfare state and under each government of the period. It looks at how disability policy and perceptions were slow to change as a welfare issue, which is very timely in today’s climate of austerity. It also provides the first major analysis of the Disablement Income Group, one of the most powerful pressure groups in the period and the 1972 Thalidomide campaign and its effect on the Heath government. Given the recent emergence of the history of disability in Britain as a major area of research, the book will be ideal for academics, students and activists seeking a better understanding of the topic. Jameel Hampton is a lecturer at Liverpool Hope University. He was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Society, Work and Development Institute of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.

DISABILITY / HISTORY

ISBN 978-1-4473-1642-8

www.policypress.co.uk @policypress

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PolicyPress

9 781447 316428

Disability and the welfare state in Britain  Jameel Hampton

“For the first time Hampton shows how disabled people, neglected by the post-war welfare state, changed things from the 1960s by campaigning, like other excluded groups, achieving inclusive reforms in the 1970s.” Patricia Thane, Kings College London

Disability and the welfare state in Britain Changes in perception and policy 1948–79

JAMEEL HAMPTON

4/29/2016 3:22:59 PM