Why Britain needs a new Beveridge and why politicians need to defer to the evidence

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ABSTRACT In 1945 and 2024 the UK electorate returned Labour governments to Westminster with large majorities. The 1945 election campaign was framed around post-war reconstruction, with the Labour manifesto inspired by the 1942 Beveridge Report and centred on a plan for implementing it. This laid the very foundations for post-war evidence-based policymaking. In 2024, the Labour leadership promised a ‘decade of renewal’ and ‘change’, with five pledges, but with rather nebulous practical policy proposals for their mission-driven government based on a thoroughly evidenced assessment in their Manifesto, Change. In this article we critically reflect on the role played by social scientists in post-war planning, argue that looking back can help us contextualise the present, and suggest that the challenges the UK faces today needs a clearer articulation of a plan with a similar vision to that of the Beveridge Report. We conclude that politicians have every reason to defer to the evidence underpinning such a programme of reform.