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

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.