George Barnes
In 1902 George Barnes, General Secretary of the Amalgamated Society
of Engineers, formed the National Committee of Organised Labour for Old
Age Pension. Barnes spent the next three years travelling the country
urging this social welfare reform. The measure was extremely popular and
was an important factor in Barnes being able to defeat Andrew Bonar Law
, the Conservative cabinet minister in the 1906 General Election.
David Lloyd George, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Liberal
government led by Herbert Asquith in 1908, was also an opponent of the
Poor Law in Britain. He was determined to take action that in his words
would "lift the shadow of the workhouse from the homes of the poor". He
believed the best way of doing this was to guarantee an income to people
who were to old to work. In 1908 Lloyd George introduced the Old Age
Pensions Act that provided between 1s. and 5s. a week to people over
seventy. These pensions were only paid to citizens on incomes that were
not over 12s.
Although most Labour Party members of the House of Commons welcomed
Lloyd George's reforms, politicians such as James Keir Hardie, George
Barnes, Fred Jowett, Joseph Clynes, and George Lansbury argued that the
level of benefits were far too low. They also complained that the
pensions should be universal and disliked what was later to be called
the Means Test aspect of these reforms.
|
|
History
of Pensions 
