Liberal Reforming Legislation, 1964-1970 (AQA A Level History: Component 2: Depth study): Revision Note

Private members' bills and the end of capital punishment

How liberal reforms became law

• Most liberal reforms between 1964 and 1970 were introduced as private members' bills

  • These were proposed by individual backbench MPs rather than by the government

  • Bills were unlikely to pass unless the government made enough parliamentary time available

• Questions involving personal morality were usually treated as matters of conscience

  • MPs were given a free vote on moral issues

    • This means they could vote according to their own views, rather than following the party line

  • Neither Labour nor the Conservatives made these reforms part of their election manifestos

• Support for reform came from MPs across the political parties

  • Sydney Silverman and Leo Abse were Labour backbenchers

  • David Steel was a Liberal MP

  • The reforms were, therefore, not ordinary Labour government measures

• Roy Jenkins played an important role as Home Secretary from December 1965 to 1967

  • He supported liberal reform and ensured that private members' bills received enough parliamentary time

    • This helps to explain why several reforms became law within a relatively short period

• Other senior Labour figures were more cautious

  • Harold Wilson and George Brown held more conservative views on some moral issues

  • Many working-class MPs were also suspicious of change

  • Allowing backbenchers to lead the reforms meant the government could provide parliamentary time without formally taking responsibility for the outcome

The end of capital punishment

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• The Homicide Act (1957) had already limited the death penalty to certain types of murder

  • The distinctions created inconsistencies

    • For example, a murderer who used a gun could face execution while one who used poison might not

• The execution of Ruth Ellis in 1955 strengthened the campaign against capital punishment

  • Ellis was the last woman to be hanged in Britain

• Labour backbencher Sydney Silverman led the parliamentary campaign for abolition

  • His private member's bill received its second reading on the 21 December 1964

  • MPs supported it by 355 to 170 in a free vote

Approach: Silverman’s speech explains how supporters intended to secure abolition through a private member’s bill. He stresses that the government was officially neutral, although he hoped ministers would allow the bill enough time to pass. As the MP sponsoring the measure, he understood the parliamentary process well, but he also had a clear reason to present government neutrality as helpful

• The Murder (Abolition of Death Penalty) Act (1965) suspended hanging for murder for a trial period of five years

  • In December 1969, the House of Commons voted to make abolition permanent

• The impact of the abolition was debated

  • Supporters had argued that ending hanging would reduce murder and violent crime

  • The expected fall did not occur

• Other changes to the criminal justice system followed during Jenkins's time as Home Secretary

  • The beating of prisoners ended after 1967

  • Majority verdicts were introduced in England, allowing a jury decision when 10 of the 12 jurors agreed

Divorce reform

The law before 1969

• Divorce required proof that one partner had committed a matrimonial offence

  • Adultery was the most common ground, but had to be proved in court

  • Couples who had simply grown apart had no straightforward way to end their marriage

• Access to divorce often depended on income

  • Wealthier people could pay private detectives to collect the evidence required by the courts

• Roy Jenkins believed that the existing divorce laws were outdated and needed reform

The Divorce Reform Act, 1969

• The Divorce Reform Act (1969) replaced the need to prove a matrimonial offence with the principle of irretrievable breakdown

• A couple could divorce after:

  • living apart for two years, where both partners agreed

  • living apart for five years where one partner did not agree

• The Act came into force in 1971

Impact and opposition

• Divorce rates rose sharply after the Act came into force

  • In 1950, there were fewer than 2 divorce decrees per 1,000 married couples in England and Wales

  • By the mid-1970s, the figure was close to 10 per 1,000

• The Act was not the only reason for this rise

  • Divorce rates had already been increasing before 1969

  • Greater financial independence among women also made it easier to leave an unhappy marriage

• The reform faced strong opposition in Parliament

  • Critics argued that easier divorce would weaken marriage rather than strengthen it

  • Some opponents also based their objections on Christian teaching, including Victor Goodhew

Approach: Victor Goodhew opposed the Bill because he believed that easier divorce would encourage couples to give up on marriage too quickly. His speech is useful for showing that the reform remained controversial in 1969 and that religious and moral objections were still influential. However, it represents the views of an opponent and does not show how widely these arguments were accepted

The legalisation of abortion, 1967

The law before 1967

• Abortion was illegal except on strict medical grounds

  • The Offences Against the Person Act (1861) governed the law in England and Wales

  • The Bourne case of 1938 established that a doctor could act where continuing a pregnancy would seriously damage a woman's health

    • However, the legal limits here still remained unclear

• Illegal abortion was widespread and dangerous

  • Estimates suggest that 100,000–200,000 illegal abortions took place each year

  • Around 35,000 women a year were admitted to hospital with complications

  • Between 1958 and 1960, 82 women died following illegal abortions

• Access depended partly on income

  • Women who could afford private fees could obtain treatment in a clinic

  • Women without the money often had fewer and more dangerous options

Approach: David Steel argued that the existing law was unequal because wealthier women could pay for private treatment while poorer women faced greater risks. His speech is useful for showing that supporters presented reform in terms of safety and access to medical care rather than abortion as an unrestricted personal choice

Pressure for reform

• The Abortion Law Reform Association had campaigned for change to the law since 1936

• The thalidomide disaster of 1959 to 1962 increased support for reform

  • Thalidomide had been prescribed to some pregnant women for morning sickness

  • It caused severe abnormalities in some unborn children

  • Public opinion polls showed majority support for abortion where abnormalities had been detected

• Reform also faced organised opposition

  • The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) was founded in 1967

    • It opposed any further liberalisation of the law

The Abortion Act, 1967

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• Liberal MP David Steel introduced the bill as a private member's bill

  • Roy Jenkins arranged an all-night Commons sitting so that the bill could complete its parliamentary stages

• The Abortion Act (1967) legalised abortion where two doctors agreed the pregnancy met the legal grounds

  • The Act itself set no time limit

  • In practice, abortions were limited to 28 weeks, under the earlier Infant Life (Preservation) Act (1929)

• The Act applied to England, Wales and Scotland

  • It did not extend to Northern Ireland

Impact of the Act

• The number of recorded abortions increased after the Act came into force

  • The rate rose from 4 per 100 live births in 1968 to 17.6 per 100 in 1975

  • This does not prove that the overall number of abortions increased by the same amount

    • Some abortions that had previously taken place illegally were now carried out legally and included in official figures

• The Act made legal abortion more widely available

  • However, access still depended on the approval of two doctors

The legalisation of homosexual relations, 1967

The law before 1967

• Sexual acts between men were considered a criminal offence

  • Men convicted of "gross indecency" could be imprisoned for up to two years

  • Enforcement varied between police forces

    • This means that prosecution rates were inconsistent

• The Wolfenden Report (1957) recommended that homosexual acts between consenting adults in private should no longer be criminal

  • The Conservative governments of 1957 to 1964 did not act on the recommendation

  • Labour was also divided on the issue after taking office in 1964

• The law made homosexual men vulnerable to blackmail

  • Reporting a blackmailer could expose the victim to prosecution

The Sexual Offences Act (1967)

• Labour backbencher Leo Abse introduced the reform as a private member's bill

  • Roy Jenkins helped by allowing enough parliamentary time for the bill to pass

• The Sexual Offences Act (1967) decriminalised some homosexual acts between men:

  • both men had to consent

  • both had to be aged 21 or over

  • the act had to take place in private

• The conditions were narrowly defined

  • "In private" meant that no third person could be present elsewhere in the building

  • The age of consent remained higher than the heterosexual age of consent of 16

  • Members of the armed forces and merchant navy were excluded

• Some men welcomed the change but remained cautious about being open about their sexuality

  • The reform did not end social prejudice or discrimination

• The Act applied only to England and Wales

  • Scotland and Northern Ireland were not covered by the 1967 Act

Approach: Leo Abse argued that the existing law forced homosexual men to live in secrecy and denied them privacy. However, he did not argue for full legal equality. His speech reflects the limited nature of the reform, which removed criminal penalties only in tightly defined circumstances

Educational reform and comprehensivisation

The case against the tripartite system

• The Butler Education Act (1944) divided state secondary education into three types of school:

  • grammar schools

  • secondary modern schools

  • technical schools

• By the 1960s, the claim that the three types of school had equal status had largely broken down

  • Pupils were allocated to a school through the 11-plus examination

    • Secondary modern pupils were often treated as having failed at the age of 11

    • Most grammar school places went to middle-class children

  • Selection, therefore, reinforced existing social divisions

Circular 10/65 and the spread of comprehensive schools

• Some local education authorities had introduced comprehensive schools before 1965

  • By 1964, 1 in 10 pupils attended a comprehensive school

    • This was ten times the 1951 figure

• Tony Crosland became Secretary of State for Education and Science in 1965

  • He issued Circular 10/65, a government circular sent to local education authorities

    • It asked them to submit plans for replacing selective secondary schools with comprehensive schools

    • It was not a law, meaning local authorities could delay or refuse

• From 1966, access to government funding for new school buildings depended on submitting reorganisation plans

  • This encouraged more local authorities to introduce comprehensive education

• By 1970, only eight local education authorities had failed to submit plans

  • There were 1,145 comprehensive schools

  • Around one in three state secondary pupils attended a comprehensive school

• Reorganisation remained uneven

  • Direct grant and independent schools continued, allowing some middle-class families to opt out

  • Grammar schools also survived in some areas

  • Where selective schools remained, comprehensive schools did not always include the full range of pupils

  • Mergers and changes in school status caused disruption in the early years

Approach: The wording of Circular 10/65 shows that the government wanted local authorities to move towards comprehensive education, but it did not have the force of law. This makes it useful for showing both the government’s intention and the limits of central control over local education policy

Higher education

• The Robbins Report (1963) led to a major expansion of higher education

  • It warned that Britain was falling behind countries such as the United States, France and Germany

• The government expanded the number and range of institutions

  • Ten Colleges of Advanced Technology became universities, including Bath and Bradford

  • Colleges of Technology became polytechnics, with a stronger focus on applied courses

• Thirty polytechnics were planned in 1966 and created between 1969 and 1973

• The expansion created more opportunities for students from families with no previous experience of university

  • However, middle-class students still remained more likely to attend university

The Open University

• Jennie Lee led the creation of the Open University

  • It was established in Milton Keynes, a new town, in 1969

  • The first courses began in January 1971

• The Open University was designed for students who had not followed the traditional route into higher education

  • Most students studied part-time

  • Many were from working-class backgrounds

• Teaching combined distance learning with radio and television

• By 1980, the Open University had 70,000 students

  • It awarded more degrees each year than Oxford and Cambridge combined

How far did liberal legislation transform Britain?

• This question weighs the scale of legal change against the limits of the reforms and the attitudes they did not immediately change

  • Some key evidence for each side is outlined below

The impact of liberal reform

• Four major areas of law changed within a short period, alongside a major government push on secondary education:

  • capital punishment

  • divorce

  • abortion

  • homosexual relations

• The reforms reduced state control over parts of private life:

  • executions ended

  • divorce became easier where a marriage had broken down

  • some homosexual acts between consenting men were no longer considered criminal offences

• The reforms lasted

  • Later governments did not reverse the main changes

  • They provided the basis for further reform in later decades

The limits of liberal reform

• Several reforms were narrow in scope

  • The Sexual Offences Act (1967) decriminalised rather than fully legalised homosexual relations

  • The Abortion Act (1967) still required approval of two doctors

  • Neither Act applied across the whole United Kingdom

• Changes in the law did not mean that public attitudes changed immediately

  • Most reforms passed through free votes rather than appearing in a general election manifesto

  • Opponents inside and outside Parliament argued that reform had gone too far

  • Concerns about social change remained important during the 1970 election

• Comprehensive education remained incomplete

  • Circular 10/65 asked local authorities to reorganise but did not force them

  • Grammar, direct grant and independent schools continued

  • Some pupils, therefore, remained outside the comprehensive system

• The reforms did not remove wider social and economic inequalities

  • Changes to the law did not automatically improve access to housing, employment or income