Editing Clement Attlee (section)

====Nationalisation====
Attlee's government also carried out their manifesto commitment for [[nationalisation]] of basic industries and public utilities. The [[Bank of England]] and civil aviation were nationalised in 1946. [[National Coal Board|Coal mining]], the [[British Rail|railways]], road haulage, canals and [[Cable & Wireless plc|Cable and Wireless]] were nationalised in 1947, and electricity and gas followed in 1948. The [[Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain|steel industry]] was nationalised in 1951. By 1951 about 20 per cent of the British economy had been taken into [[public ownership]].<ref name="A History of the British Labour Party"/>

Nationalisation failed to provide workers with a greater say in the running of the industries in which they worked. It did, however, bring about significant material gains for workers in the form of higher wages, reduced working hours,<ref>{{cite book |last=Pelling |first=Henry |title=The Labour Governments, 1945–51}}<!--publisher, page(s), ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref> and improvements in working conditions, especially in regards to safety.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cawood |first=Ian |title=Britain in the Twentieth Century}}<!--publisher, page(s), ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref> As historian Eric Shaw noted of the years following nationalisation, the electricity and gas supply companies became "impressive models of public enterprise" in terms of efficiency, and the [[National Coal Board]] was not only profitable, but working conditions for miners had significantly improved as well.<ref name="ReferenceB">{{cite book |last=Shaw |first=Eric |title=The Labour Party since 1945}}<!--publisher, page(s), ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref>

Within a few years of nationalisation, a number of progressive measures had been carried out which did much to improve conditions in the mines, including better pay, a five-day working week, a national safety scheme (with proper standards at all the collieries), a ban on boys under the age of 16 going underground, the introduction of training for newcomers before going down to the coalface, and the making of pithead baths into a standard facility.<ref>Kynaston, David. ''Austerity Britain 1945–1951''.<!--publisher, page(s), ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref>

The newly established National Coal Board offered sick pay and holiday pay to miners.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/intermediate2/history/cradle_to_the_grave/welfare_state/revision/11|title=The Labour Government 1945–51 – The Welfare State: Revision, Page 11|access-date=25 March 2016|work=bbc.co.uk|archive-date=28 March 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160328121655/http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/intermediate2/history/cradle_to_the_grave/welfare_state/revision/11/|url-status=dead}}</ref> As noted by [[Martin Francis]]:
<blockquote>Union leaders saw nationalisation as a means to pursue a more advantageous position within a framework of continued conflict, rather than as an opportunity to replace the old adversarial form of industrial relations. Moreover, most workers in nationalised industries exhibited an essentially instrumentalist attitude, favouring public ownership because it secured job security and improved wages rather than because it promised the creation of a new set of socialist relationships in the workplace.<ref name="autogenerated5">Francis, Martin. ''Ideas and Policies Under Labour, 1945–1951''.<!--publisher, page(s), ISSN/ISBN needed--></ref>{{page needed|date=May 2024}}</blockquote>