4. CAPÍTULO 4: INSTALACIÓN FOTOVOLTAICA
4.2. Descripción de la instalación y sus componentes
scholars as Thatcherism, with its characteristic emphasis on a free-market economy that privileges private enterprise over social service provision. During this period, for reasons explored below, Thatcher proposed to extend the frontiers of the state to promote child well- being during the crucial first years of life. She advocated for state-provided nursery schools and classes—framed as education rather than as welfare or as a labor support for women—and even resisted calls from her party to charge parental fees. This is a stark contrast to how American Republicans viewed child care during the same period: as a welfare provision for the poor rather than education for all.
Unaccountably, not much attention has been paid to the White Paper by scholars
analyzing the history of British child care policy. While political scientists Jane Lewis and Vicky Randall have both provided useful and astute surveys of child care policy during the post-war period, neither gives much weight to the White Paper itself nor discusses its development or provisions in detail. Randall, for example, only grants one sentence in her book-length examination of child care policy to Thatcher’s proposal, stating merely that it reflected the recommendations of the Plowden Report (discussed below). Lewis’ discusses the White Paper in just one paragraph. 11 Historian Angela Davis provides a detailed account of the theory, practice, and experience of child care during the post war period utilizing oral history. However, she also does not discuss the White Paper at length.12 These omissions may have several causes. Randall and Lewis approach child care policy with feminist goals in mind (i.e., the care and
11 Vicki Randall, The Politics of Child Daycare in Britain (Oxford University Press: 2000): 65; Jane Lewis, “Continuity and Change in English Childcare Policy, 1960-2000,” Social Politics 20:3 (2013): 363.
12 Angela Davis, Pre-School Childcare in England, 1939-2010: Theory, Practice, and
education of young children is necessary for women to work) that were not the White Paper’s intent, as Thatcher’s proposal framed child care as an educational rather than labor market policy. Additionally, these authors seem to assume that serious reforms of child care would only come from the Left, and thus do not take the Conservative Party’s policy seriously. For example, while noting that it was a “surprising” development, Lewis dismisses it as a political ploy.13 This is a mistake: although several female Labour Members of Parliament were among the most prominent child care advocates at the time,14 and the eventual expansion of child care in the 1990s was shepherded by the Labour Party, historians have demonstrated that the Conservative Party was more successful in cultivating an electorate among women in the postwar era,
although these scholars have focused on issues other than child care policy.15 To dismiss the White Paper outright omits a central turning point in the narrative of British child care policy. The publication of a child-centered, educational justification for preschool intervention denotes a major shift in values about the state’s role in the traditionally private realm of the family, and
13 Jane Lewis, “The Failure to Expand Childcare Provision and to Develop a Comprehensive Childcare Policy in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s,” Twentieth Century British History 24:2 (2013), 264. Lewis characterises Thatcher as being under pressure from the Prime Minister to pursue nursery education as an “unfulfilled” election promise. However, Thatcher is in fact the one to use this language first in her attempts to persuade Heath to allow her to reallocate spending for nursery education (PREM 15/864).
14 Joan Lestor, Renee Short, and Shirley Williams were all part of the National Campaign for Nursery Education. Lestor was also involved with the National Society of Children’s Nurseries, and Short with the Nursery School Association. As Secretary of State for Education and Science from 1976-1979, Williams was in a position to bring nursery education back onto political agenda but did not do so.
15 See, for example, Laura Beers, “Thatcher and the Women’s Vote,” in Making Thatcher’s
Britain, edited by Ben Jackson and Robert Saunders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012); Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Austerity in Britain: Rationing, Controls, and Consumption,
1939-1955 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000); Beatrix Campbell, Iron Ladies: Why Do Women Vote Tory? (London: Virago, 1987).
deserves closer investigation, especially for how it contrasts with the United States. Although both policies fail, the political alignment of child care advocates is distinct.
Much has been written about Thatcher and Thatcherism. Her once-seemingly dogmatic ideology has proven illusory as historians have begun unraveling its genealogy and the
consistency of its tenets. Biographer John Campbell provides a detailed analysis of Thatcher’s tenure as Education Secretary, describing the White Paper as “the last throw not only of
expansion, but of consensus in education.”16 However, Campbell’s account draws primarily from Thatcher’s memoirs and oral interviews with officials who worked with her, rather than from engagement with the archival record. As such, he misses how much of the impetus came from Thatcher herself, as well as the disagreement between Thatcher and the Conservative Party on the issue of charging parental fees (discussed below). Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite has persuasively argued that Thatcherism was both coherent and flexible in its tenets, and was “driven by a vision of moral rejuvenation” that privileged the place of families.17 As she
explains, in Thatcherite logic “individuals working in the interests of their family would produce a prosperous but also a moral society.”18 In support of this interpretation, during Thatcher’s tenure as leader of the Shadow Administration in the late 1970s, the Conservative Research Department bundled nursery education into a newly conceptualized focal area, Family Policy. As will be discussed in Chapter 4, this would go on to become a centerpiece of Thatcher’s policies as prime minister, particularly the Parents’ Charter which emphasized parental choice of
16 John Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, Volume One: The Grocer’s Daughter (London: Jonathan Cape, 2000), 238.
17 Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, “Neo-Liberalism and Morality in the Making of Thatcherite Social Policy,” Historical Journal, 55 (2012), 520.
schools.19 Although little expansion would occur during the Thatcher governments, nursery education remained conceptually part and parcel of a larger policy agenda of supporting families that was at the heart of Thatcherism, albeit one that emphasized parents’ rights over public provision. Although nursery education ceased to be a priority for Thatcher, she never disavowed it as Prime Minister.
Nursery education was not the only government policy affecting the care of children under compulsory school age during this time.20 The Department of Health and Social Services, led by Sir Keith Joseph during the Heath administration, was responsible for both administering a separate day nursery program and supporting private play groups to a limited extent. Thatcher was often quick to deflect any departmental responsibility for these two programs as they fell outside of her purview.21 Day nurseries provided full-time care only to a limited population of children with special needs, and most local health authorities administering the provision
prioritized admission for the children of unmarried working mothers.22 These child care facilities explicitly supported women workers, but only those in the most desperate of circumstances. Play groups, by contrast, were primarily organized by parents (largely middle class, nonworking mothers) and required their participation, and were focused primarily on children’s socialization. These two types of programs thus served very different populations and purposes, although
19 Conservative Party Archives, Oxford University [Hereafter CPA], CRD 4/23/1-6.
20 See Davis for a detailed analysis of the differences in theory, practice, and experience among nursery education, day nurseries, play groups, and childminders.
21House of Commons Debate [Hereafter HC Deb] 13 July 1972 [840/1817-38]; she said
something almost identical in HC Deb, 7 December 1970 [808/1534-56], HC Deb, 12 May1972 [836/1756-80], and HC Deb, 21 December 1972 [848/1543-64].
22 See, for example, TNA, MH 156/52, MH 156/53, MH 156/54, and MH 156/55 for discussion of how DHSS and local health authorities determined prioritization for day nursery admittance.
nursery education could appeal to families utilizing either type. Indeed, one civil servant in the Department of Education and Science commented on a perceived difference between the “need” for nursery education in the more disadvantaged communities that were more likely to be served by day nurseries, and the “demand” for nursery education “particularly from better-educated and more affluent parents,” who were also the parents involved in forming play groups.23
This chapter first examines the pressure for nursery reform from advocacy organizations and official government committees. It then turns to the inner workings of the Wilson and Heath governments of the late 1960s and 1970s, examining nursery education policy itself. The third section highlights the rationale for nursery education as posited in Thatcher’s White Paper, emphasizing its perceived role in promoting optimal child development and examining its relationship to contemporary feminist projects. Finally, the chapter concludes by considering how an examination of the White Paper contributes to a growing literature that questions the coherence of Thatcherism, revealing fluidity in Thatcher’s ideology during the early 1970s. Because Thatcher understood nursery education primarily as an educational intervention rather than as a welfare or redistributive benefit or as a work support for women, it was a crucial exception to her laissez-faire rhetoric during this period.
Growing Pressure for Nursery Reform
Civil servants in the mid-1960s began to re-scrutinize the care and education of children under the age of five as the publication of several influential reports—the Yudkin, Seebohm, and Plowden Reports—came to their attention and as a National Campaign for Nursery Education crystallized to push for policy reform. While each publication made slightly different
23 TNA, ED 192/211.
recommendations about child care, and reflected various constellations of concerns—from increases in immigration and the racial composition of British society, to the proportion of mothers working and the increase in single motherhood—the significance of all three reports arises from their confluence. Taken together, they urged policymakers to consider the needs of young children to a greater extent than they had since the war. In addition, various groups, ranging from organizations focused solely on the under-five age group such as the National Society for Children’s Nurseries and the Nursery School Association, to more general groups like the National Union of Teachers, increased the pressure placed on the governments of the late 1960s and early 1970s.24
Simon Yudkin, a pediatrician, served on the Council of the National Society for
Children’s Nurseries and chaired a working party of advocacy organizations and local authorities that produced the 1967 Yudkin Report, titled, The Care of Children Outside Their Homes. The purpose of the working party, created in 1964, was “to discuss the whole care of the pre-school child, gather evidence, and to press for an official enquiry.”25 It focused mostly on the perceived dangers of unregulated child minding rather than on care in formal settings. However, it argued that unregulated minders were commonly used because of a lack of supply of the more formal and higher quality, arrangements. While the government largely brushed aside its
recommendations, as it was occupied with the official reviews of policy affecting the under-five population taking place under the Seebohm and Plowden committees, the Yudkin Report
24 TNA, CAB 134/3522, HS (72)98: 23 August 1972.
25 Papers of the British Association for Early Childhood Education, London School of Economics, London [Hereafter BAECE], BAECE 2/12, National Society of Children's Nurseries, Report of the Executive Committee, 28 May 1964.
generated a good deal of publicity.26 The media sensationalized its findings, with dramatic titles such as “The Shocking Truth About the Baby Minders” and “The Children Nobody Cares About.”27 This attention should be understood in racialized terms: childminding was largely perceived to be utilized in West Indian communities in which women with young children were more likely to work at low wages. Contemporary analysts Brian and Sonia Jackson, for example, explained this animus in their pioneering sociological study of childminding in the 1970s as searching for the answer to the question, “Where were the children of all those unmarried West Indian girls?”28If single, West Indian mothers were working, someone else must be looking after their children—and the Jacksons as well as the Yudkin Report determined that this population was relying on informal, often poor quality arrangements.
The 1968 Report of the Committee on Local Authority and Allied Personal Social Services, or Seebohm Report, also brought questions regarding the care and education of the under-five population to the attention of the public, politicians, and civil service. It recommended that all social services for families, including but not limited to day nurseries and nursery
education, should be housed within the same government department to reduce the ill effects of fragmentation. It also addressed the way that social services were aligned within some local health authorities.
Perhaps of most influence was a three year long review of the primary education service by the Central Advisory Council for Education (the Plowden Report) published under Harold
26 TNA, MH 156/236.
27 News of the World, 9 April 1967; Daily Mail, 6 April 1967.
28 Brian Jackson and Sonia Jackon, Childminder: A Study in Action Research (London: Routledge Kegan Paul Ltd, 1979): 32.
Wilson’s Labour Government in 1967 as Children and Their Primary Schools. One major component of its recommendations was its call to expand part-time nursery education. During one of the early meetings, the Working Party responsible for writing the section on the under- five population was clear that they saw nursery education as distinct from women’s employment, as “members urged that the Working Party Report should stress that an expansion of nursery provision was not recommended as a means of attracting more mothers to go out to work; national economic policy should not determine or influence educational considerations.”29 The members expressed concern that the report would be attacked if the recommendations were understood as being designed to increase the labor force participation of mothers. Women who needed to work in order to support their families, in turn, were not seen as the ones pressing for nursery care. Rather, the Working Party believed there was a “discrepancy between need and demand: Lady Bridget Plowden said that the council must ensure that nursery provision was expanded in the worst areas first; demand would be heaviest in middle class areas.”30 This perception that the middle classes were most eager for child care reveals that to Lady Plowden and other child care advocates, nursery education was framed not as a welfare provision, but as an educational intervention that parents wanted for their children even as it could also be utilized to support work or help even the playing field for disadvantaged children.
29 TNA, ED 146/84, Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Plowden Report, Agenda and Minutes of Meetings of Working Party No. 3, Meetings 1-13, 1964-1965, 23 October.
30 TNA, ED 146/84, Central Advisory Council for Education (England), Plowden Report, Agenda and Minutes of Meetings of Working Party No. 3, Meetings 1-13, 1964-1965, 17 July 1964 Meeting.
A significant “note of reservation,” signed by eight members of the Council including its chair, Lady Plowden, provided an alternative proposal for financing its nursery expansion recommendations: charging parents who could afford to pay for services. They explained, “if resources were more plentiful we would not favour charges,” but that “without a parental contribution we fear that nursery education will not be extended at all and such children be no better off than they are today.”31 Knowing that this argument would be countered by claims that a means-test would deter the families who most needed care, the authors posited that “new traditions can be created. Few parents are now too proud to accept State support for the education of their children in universities. If in universities, why not in nursery schools?”32
While the Conservative Party would take up this alternative proposal, its Secretary of State under the Heath administration would vehemently disagree, as will be discussed below.
The National Campaign for Nursery Education, founded in 1965, organized petitions in 1967 and 1972 to generate support and publicity for the implementation of the Plowden
recommendations to expand nursery education.33 The Campaign’s leadership included members of the House of Commons and representatives from organizations such as the Nursery School Association, National Society of Children’s Nurseries, and the National Union of Teachers. The Labour MP Renee Short was its president during the later campaign.
Demand for public child care as an educational intervention came from explicitly Conservative corners as well. Less publicly visible, perhaps, but of great importance to
31 Central Advisory Council for Education, Children and Their Primary Schools, Volume 1 (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office: 1967): 487-9.
32 Ibid., 489.
33 E.M. Osborn, “National Campaign for Nursery Education,” International Journal of Early
Conservatives like Margaret Thatcher, was the 1966 publication of Elspeth Howe’s pamphlet,
Under 5: A Report on Nursery Education.34 The report was “based on discussion and research by a group of younger Conservative women” convened by Howe, the wife of notable Thatcher government official Geoffrey Howe, under the auspices of the Greater London Conservative Women’s Advisory Committee.35 In the group’s first meeting, Howe explained the need to write such a report because she sensed that while the Conservative Research Department was
interested in the topic, which was in her words “an extremely important subject” that “had strong political appeal” because it would increase families’ “freedom of choice,” its Educational Policy Group was neglecting it.36 The resulting report presented a “case for pre-school provision” both for child-centred reasons and as a support for working mothers, and decried the “failures in the present system,” namely shortages of provision and obstacles for the private sector market to compensate for the lack of public places. It recommended increasing the provision of publicly- provided part-time nursery facilities.37
Outside of government, advocates were optimistic about prospects for nursery expansion during the later years of Harold Wilson’s second government elected in 1966, especially after the Plowden Report’s publication. The Nursery School Association (NSA), for example, wrote in its 1967-1968 Annual Report that “despite serious national economic crises [of devaluation, for
34 A copy of Howe’s report can be found in Thatcher’s personal papers, Churchill Archive Center, Cambridge University [Hereafter CAC], THCR 1/6/4, as well as the CPA, CCO 170/5/44.
35 Elspeth Howe, Under 5: A Report on Nursery Education (London: Conservative Political Center, 1966): 5.
36 CPA, CCO 170/5/44, Minutes of a Meeting of a Discussion Group Set Up to Consider Nursery Schools and Pre-Five Education, 29 June 1965.
example], [this year] augurs well for the development and expansion of nursery education.” Even more buoyantly, the NSA labeled 1969 the “year of hope.”38
Government Plans for Nursery Expansion
However, inside Whitehall prospects were dim as funding nursery education would require reprioritizing the services already provided by the Department of Education and Science or increasing the budget to account for new spending. As one civil servant put it, the required financial resources necessary to implement the Plowden recommendations were seen as “most unsatisfactory” for “there seems to be no escaping the logic of the point that this would in nearly every case amount to additional expenditure and therefore in order to get it through the financial hoops, the Sec of State ought to be able to offer some compensating economy.”39 In order to