According to the historian G. D. H. Cole, Labour's claims were arguably justified: profiteering was kept down, and there was greater equity both in the allocation of supplies and in taxation. In addition, social services were not merely kept up, but also expanded to meet wartime needs. [18] Nadhim Zahawi made chancellor after Rishi Sunak resigns - as Steve Barclay replaces Sajid Javid as health secretary". Sky News. 5 July 2022 . Retrieved 5 July 2022. During the war years, the Labour Party was continuously active (with some success) in pushing for better arrangements of housing and billeting both of evacuees and of workers transferred for war services to already congested industrial areas, for fair systems of food rationing and distribution, for more effective control of prices, and for improvements in service pay and allowances. Labour also pressed hard for better provisions for the victims of air warfare, for more and better civic and industrial restaurants and canteens, and for war-time nurseries for the children of female workers. [18]

In the field of workmen's compensation, Labour succeeded in getting what Labour saw as an unsatisfactory bill withdrawn, and a new Bill introduced "to include single persons and to give improved allowances." The new Workmen's Compensation (Supplementary Allowances) Act, which came into effect in August 1940), provided a supplementary allowance not exceeding 5s a week to all disabled workers, together with a supplementary allowance of 4s a week each for the first and second child, and 3s for each other child younger than 15. For a man with 3 children, the improvement represented 16s a week. For agricultural workers, a bill increasing the maximum unemployment benefit for agricultural workers by 3s a week was amended by Ernest Bevin, with a more generous increase of 6s a week introduced. [70] The party said ministers would be forced to open their books to the forecasters, though any government wanting to disregard them could seek to reverse the legislation.In the 1906 election, the LRC won 29 seats—helped by the secret 1903 pact between Ramsay MacDonald and Liberal Chief Whip Herbert Gladstone that aimed to avoid splitting the opposition vote between Labour and Liberal candidates in the interest of removing the Conservatives from office. [15] The Cabinet was characterised by a moderate trade union feel, although it also contained a few Liberals. Only three members had previously been ministers (two only briefly): Richard Haldane, 1st Viscount Haldane (ex-Liberal), Arthur Henderson and J. R. Clynes; though others had been under-secretaries. Labour representatives on the Boards of Guardians in the 1920s and on the Public Assistance Committees of the early 1930s sought to offset the effects of unemployment and poverty as best as they could within existing structures. This often led to interventionist measures such as the provision of free school meals or ensuring that benefit claimants received the relief that was owed to them. Labour councils sought to administer the means test in the most favourable terms possible, which involved accepting a higher percentage of applications for transitional benefit than in non-Labour localities and providing the maximum rate of relief available. In Poplar, Bethnal Green, and Stepney, for instance, Labour took positive steps on behalf of its working-class supporters, providing protection, jobs, and relief at a time of economic uncertainty. [17] Jenkins, Roy. The Chancellors (1998); 497pp; covers entire career as well as term in office of 19 chancellors from 1886 to 1947. Progress continued in local government. In 1919 John Adams (later Baron Adams of Ennerdale) led a successful election challenge to the sitting members of Arlecdon and Frizington District Council in Cumberland. This established the first all-Labour local council to be elected in England.

The election of May 1929 left the Labour Party for the first time as the largest grouping in the House of Commons with 287 seats, and 37.1% of the popular vote (actually slightly less than the Conservatives). However, MacDonald was still reliant on Liberal support to form a minority government. MacDonald's government included the first ever woman cabinet minister Margaret Bondfield who was appointed Minister of Labour. [34] Snowden retained the position of Chancellor during the National Government of 1931. As a consequence he was expelled from the party, along with MacDonald and Jimmy Thomas. In a BBC Radio broadcast on 16 October 1931, he called Labour's policies " Bolshevism run mad" and contrasted them unfavourably with his own "sane and evolutionary Socialism". [19] Snowden decided not to stand for parliament in the election of November 1931. At that election, Labour's number of seats declined catastrophically from 288 to 52. It was during that year he had prostate gland surgery, following which his health and mobility declined. [3] Seldon, Anthony. The Impossible Office? The History of the British Prime Minister (2021) excerpt major scholarly history. Covers the relations with Prime Minister in Chapter 9. Labour authorities also sought to humanise the services provided by local authorities, to reduce the harshness of the way in which welfare services operated and to enable working-class people to enjoy the benefits of open space and culture. In Norwich, Labour ensured that school architecture was made bright and modern, while the Labour administration in Glasgow put an end to a controversial system in which elderly couples claiming poor relief could be split up into separate hostel units. In many Labour authorities such as Norwich and West Ham, assistance was given to poor mothers as well as the disabled.

As observed by Kenneth O. Morgan, "Labour ministers were uniquely associated with the triumphs on the home front." Herbert Morrison at the Home Office, assisted by his friend Ellen Wilkinson, was noted for his effective involvement in home defence and presiding over the repairs carried out on major cities affected by the Blitz. [64] Arthur Greenwood, in his capacity as minister without portfolio, commissioned the Beveridge Report which would lay the foundations for the post-war British welfare state. [65] For those in rural areas, Labour in the wartime coalition government was successful in raising unemployment benefits for agricultural workers to a maximum of 41s per week and in introducing a new national minimum wage of 43s. [66]

Philip, Viscount Snowden, An Autobiography. Volume One. 1864-1919 (London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson, 1934), p. 19.By tradition, the chancellor has been allowed to drink whatever they wish while making the annual budget speech to Parliament. This includes alcohol, which is otherwise banned under parliamentary rules. By 1924, Labour, drawing away working-class Liberal support, as well as some of its progressive intelligentsia, secured enough seats to form its first government, albeit a minority and short-lived one. During the course of the First World War, while serving both inside and outside of government, the Labour Party was able to influence a number of progressive developments in social policy. At a time when 90% of housing was privately rented, landlords sought to increase rents in the face of rising wartime prices (and in some cases as a means of profiteering). This resulted in a range of largely spontaneous protests in 1915 which were then often co-ordinated by local Labour movements, such as that in Glasgow, where the ILP played a leading role. This forced the government to pass legislation which fixed wartime rents at pre-war levels. This was significant in that it showed labour to be the party that would defend working-class interests in housing, more than its rivals, while also helping Labour to move away from trade union related issues towards areas which had some direct appeal to women, in particular. In addition, as argued by Andrew Thorpe, it also "added credibility to the idea of state action to control market forces which disadvantaged the working class." [13] Labour and war pensions with an introduction by the rt. hon. F.O. Roberts, J.P., M.P. Minister of Pensions (Joint Labour Publications Department)