The Churchill caretaker ministry was a short-term United Kingdom (UK) government during the latter stages of the Second World War, from 23 May to 26 July 1945. The prime minister was Winston Churchill, leader of the Conservative Party. This government succeeded the Churchill war ministry which he had formed after he was first appointed prime minister on 10 May 1940. The coalition, which had comprised leading members of the Conservative, Labour, and Liberal parties, was terminated soon after the defeat of Nazi Germany because the parties could not agree on whether it should continue until after the defeat of Japan.
The caretaker government continued to fight the war against Japan in the Far East, but Churchill's focus was on preparation for the Potsdam Conference where he and his foreign secretary Anthony Eden would meet Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and US President Harry Truman. The main concern on the home front, however, was post-war recovery including the need for reform in key areas such as education, health, housing, industry, and social welfare. Campaigning mostly on those issues, the parties canvassed for support in the forthcoming general election, the first held in the UK since 1935. The general election was held on 5 July but, allowing time to collect the large numbers of votes by overseas service personnel, the result was not announced until 26 July. It was a landslide victory for Labour. Churchill thereupon resigned as prime minister, and was succeeded by his erstwhile coalition deputy Clement Attlee, who formed a Labour government.
Background Stanley Baldwin, who had just become Prime Minister for the third time, won a large majority at the 1935 general election. In May 1937, Baldwin retired and was succeeded by Neville Chamberlain who continued Baldwin's foreign policy of appeasement in the face of German, Italian and Japanese aggression. Having signed the Munich Agreement with Hitler in 1938, Chamberlain became alarmed by the dictator's continuing aggression and, in March 1939, signed the Anglo-Polish military alliance which supposedly guaranteed British support for Poland if attacked. Chamberlain issued the declaration of war against Nazi Germany on 3 September 1939 and formed a war cabinet which included Winston Churchill (out of office since June 1929) as First Lord of the Admiralty.
Dissatisfaction with Chamberlain's leadership became widespread in the spring of 1940 after Germany successfully invaded Norway. In response, the House of Commons held the Norway Debate from 7 to 9 May. At the end of the second day, the Labour opposition forced a division which was in effect a motion of no confidence in Chamberlain. The government's majority of 213 was reduced to 81, still a victory but in the circumstances a shattering blow for Chamberlain.
Two days later on Friday, 10 May, Germany launched its invasion of the Netherlands and Belgium. Chamberlain had been contemplating resignation but then changed his mind because he felt a change of government at such a time would be inappropriate. Later that day, the Labour Party decided that they could not join a national coalition under Chamberlain's leadership but agreed to do so under a different Conservative prime minister. Chamberlain now resigned and advised the King to appoint Churchill as his successor. Churchill quickly created the national coalition, granting key roles to leading figures in the Labour and Liberal parties. Churchill liked to call the wartime government the “Grand Coalition”. The coalition held firm despite some critical setbacks and, ultimately, in alliance with the Soviet Union and the United States, Britain was able to defeat Nazi Germany.
Plans to extend the coalition
In October 1944, Churchill had addressed the House of Commons and moved to extend Parliament by a further year pending the final defeat of Nazi Germany and, if possible, Japan. There had not been a general election since 1935 and Churchill was determined to hold one as soon as hostilities ceased. While he could not accurately predict the end of the war against Japan, he was confident that Germany would be defeated by the summer of 1945 and he told the Commons that "we must look to the termination of the war against Nazism as a pointer which will fix the date of the next general election".
In a speech to the Conservative Party Conference in London on 15 March, with victory then imminent in the European theatre of operations, Churchill stated that if it “should fall to him to do so” to form a new government before the election he would form a government of “a national character” rather than a purely Conservative one. Replying to Henry Page Croft’s congratulations for that speech on 17 March, he stated that he was not aiming to form “a National Government” based on a formal cross-party agreement but rather on informal agreements with individuals, designed to make Labour look isolated and extreme.
In early April 1945, Churchill met his deputy prime minister Clement Attlee, who was the leader of the Labour party, to discuss the future of the coalition. Attlee was due to depart for America on 17 April to attend the San Francisco Conference on the creation of the United Nations. Travelling with him were ministers Anthony Eden, Florence Horsbrugh and Ellen Wilkinson. They would be out of the country until 16 May and Churchill assured Attlee that Parliament would not be dissolved in their absence. After VE Day on 8 May, Churchill changed his mind about an early election and decided to propose continuation of the coalition until after the defeat of Japan.
In the meantime, however, Labour's Herbert Morrison, home secretary in the coalition, had published a declaration called Let Us Face The Future which was effectively a party manifesto for the election. Several leading Conservatives made speeches in response. The electioneering may have been premature and it subsided after the death of Hitler on 30 April but quickly regathered pace after VE Day. On 11 May, Churchill met Morrison and Ernest Bevin, the coalition's minister of labour, telling them that he wished to maintain the coalition until Japan had been defeated. Their view, confirmed by Labour's National Executive Committee (NEC), was that the general election should be held in October regardless of the situation in the Far East as it was then widely thought the war against Japan might continue for another 18 months. With Labour refusing to extend the coalition beyond October, Churchill began receiving calls from his own party to announce an election in June or July – leading Conservatives like Lord Beaverbrook and Brendan Bracken wanted to cash in on Churchill's personal popularity as "the man who won the war". Labour, on the other hand, wanted Churchill's popularity to subside and, in addition, Morrison pointed out that a new and more accurate register of voters would be available by October.
Attlee and Eden returned from America on 16 May and Attlee met Churchill that evening. While Attlee himself favoured continuation until the defeat of Japan, he was aware that the majority of Labour Party members thought differently. Churchill sought a compromise and wrote a letter to the Labour National Executive Committee which was amended by Bevin to include a pledge on social reform, but it was not enough. On Sunday, 20 May, the NEC voted for an October election and their resolution was backed overwhelmingly by the conference delegates next day. Attlee phoned Churchill with the news and an element of discord arose between the two which was fuelled by Beaverbrook in his newspapers.
At noon on Wednesday, 23 May, Churchill tendered his resignation to King George VI. He insisted on returning to Downing Street to keep up the pretence that the King had a free choice as to whom to invite to form the next government. He was summoned back to Buckingham Palace at four o'clock and the King asked him to form a new ministry pending the outcome of the general election. Churchill accepted. It was agreed that Parliament would be dissolved on 15 June and the election would be held on 5 July. With many service personnel out of the country, it was decided that votes would not be counted until 26 July, allowing time to collect the service votes.
Formation of the caretaker government Churchill's new government was known officially as the National Government, and unofficially as the Caretaker Ministry. The official title implied a continuation of the Conservative-dominated coalition of the 1930s, especially as it was composed mostly of Conservatives, supplemented by the small Liberal National party and some other individuals like Sir John Anderson who had been associated with that government. Churchill had completed his Cabinet appointments by the morning of 26 May, and drove with his wife Clementine to his Woodford constituency where he gave his first speech of the election campaign. In that speech he commented on the "caretaker" nickname, saying: "They call us 'the Caretakers'; we condone the title, because it means that we shall take every good care of everything that affects the welfare of Britain and all classes in Britain". Churchill was formally reappointed prime minister by the King on 28 May.
The Labour and Liberal parties formed the Opposition, except that one Liberal member, Gwilym Lloyd George, accepted Churchill's invitation to continue as Minister of Fuel and Power, the office he had held since 3 June 1942. While Churchill was obliged to replace all the other Labour and Liberal ministers in the coalition, he made no significant changes to the structure of the government. There were just two new posts: a Parliamentary secretary (Peter Thorneycroft) was appointed to the Ministry of War Transport, and there was an additional Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs—Lord Lovat was appointed to share the role with future prime minister Lord Dunglass.
The vestigial National Labour Organisation was dissolved in June 1945, its five remaining MPs chose to use the 'National' label instead. Churchill went out of his way to attract non-Conservatives to join his government. Gwillym Lloyd George stood in the election “as a Liberal candidate supporting the National Government”. Leslie Hore-Belisha (a former Liberal National) stood and lost as a “National” candidate.
Domestic events and policies Pending the general election, Parliament sat on only fourteen days from 29 May to 15 June during the caretaker ministry. There was some controversy on Thursday, 7 June, when Churchill refused a demand from the House of Commons to reveal all that was discussed at the Yalta Conference, but said that there were no secret agreements. A total of 27 Acts received the Royal Assent on 15 June immediately prior to the Prorogation of Parliament. They all enacted legislation proposed and debated during the term of the wartime ministry, among them the Family Allowances Act 1945 which came into effect on 6 August 1946. This Act is important as the first UK law to provide child benefit and it is seen as a tribute to the work done over thirty years by Eleanor Rathbone who championed the family allowance cause.