Catalogue description War Cabinet and Cabinet: Lord President's Committees: Minutes and Papers (LP, ARD and Other Series)

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Details of CAB 71
Reference: CAB 71
Title: War Cabinet and Cabinet: Lord President's Committees: Minutes and Papers (LP, ARD and Other Series)
Description:

This series consists of minutes and papers of the Lord President's Committee, the Air Raid Damage and Shelter Policy Committee, the Service Travel Committee, the Committee on Emergency Legislation, the Industrial Sub-Committee, and the Sub-Committees on Accommodation and Supply of Books.
Date: 1940-1946
Arrangement:

Subject and chronological
Related material:

See also the records of the Offices of the Lord President of the Council, Minister of Reconstruction and Minister for Science

Division within CAB
Held by: The National Archives, Kew
Former reference in its original department: LP, ARD, HA(I) and EL file series
Legal status: Public Record(s)
Language: English
Physical description: 34 volume(s)
Immediate source of acquisition:

From 1969 Cabinet Office
Accruals: No future accruals expected
Administrative / biographical background:

The Lord President's (LP) Committee was the principal committee covering home affairs. Its function was to ensure co-ordination of the Production Council and the Economic Policy (EP), Food Policy (FP), Home Policy (HP), and Civil Defence (CD) Committees.

On 4 June 1940, it was announced in Parliament that Clement Attlee (as chair of the HP and FP Committees), Arthur Greenwood (as chair of the EP Committee and Production Council), Sir John Anderson (as chair of the CD Committee), and Sir Kingsley Wood (Chancellor of the Exchequer), would meet under the chairmanship of Neville Chamberlain (Lord President of the Council) to direct and co-ordinate their work.

Chamberlain resigned due to ill-health on 3 October 1940 and was succeeded by Anderson as Lord President of the Council. The Committee was restructured as a steering committee consisting of Attlee, Greenwood and Wood, plus Ernest Bevin (Minister of Labour and National Service), Sir Andrew Duncan (Minister of Supply), and Herbert Morrison (Home Secretary). Its terms of reference were:

  • to keep continuous watch on behalf of the War Cabinet over the general trend of economic development
  • to concert the work of the economic committees, and to deal with any differences not requiring reference to the War Cabinet
  • to deal with any residual matters and special questions which arise from time to time

The range of subjects dealt with by the LP Committee were varied. From its inception, the Committee dealt with prices, wages and financial policies, home consumption, foreign trade, and export surpluses. From the beginning of 1941, the Committee gradually emerged as the principal body of the War Cabinet in co-ordinating the social and economic aspects of the war on the home front, taking over many of the functions of the EP Committee (abolished in January 1941), and the HP and FP Committees (both abolished in 1942). From 1941, the LP Committee also had at its disposal the economists who had previously formed part of the Central Economic Information Service.

On 24 September 1943, Anderson became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was succeeded by Attlee as Lord President of the Council.

The LP Committee continued throughout and after the Second World War, until October 1951 when it was dissolved and succeeded by the Home Affairs Committee.

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