Introduction

The cycle of deprivation hypothesis is particularly associated with Sir Keith Joseph, and the then Secretary of State for Social Services gave three speeches on this theme in the period June 1972 to June 1973. The first, which was the most interesting and best known, was given on 29 June 1972, at a conference for local authorities organised by the Pre-School Playgroups Association, at Church House, Westminster, London. The second was given in Brighton, on 27 March 1973, at the Spring Study Seminar of the Association of Directors of Social Services. The third, which stressed the links between the cycle and a DHSS initiative called Preparation for Parenthood, was given on 27 June 1973, again at Church House, Westminster, a year after the original cycle speech, at the annual conference of the Pre-School Playgroups Association. As well as these three speeches, Joseph mentioned his theory on numerous other occasions, in radio broadcasts, more minor speeches, and other writings. On 27 September 1972, for instance, he appeared on Woman's hour, on BBC Radio 2, where he debated the cycle with Frank Field of the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), and Margaret Croucher, a social worker with Family Service Units (FSUs).

The cycle speech has received little attention in general surveys of social policy under the Heath government, and indeed the full text of the speech is not easy to find. Morrison Halcrow, in the first biography of Joseph, noted that the speech went through 11 drafts, and while it failed to hit the headlines, was welcomed by both Left and Right, establishing Joseph as a thoughtful observer of social policy (Halcrow, 1989, pp 51-2). Timothy Raison (1990, p 84) suggests that it illustrates the genuine sense of commitment that characterised the Heath government's social policy, Rodney Lowe (1996, p 210) observing merely that the expansion of nursery and primary schools was designed to break the cycle of deprivation with which Joseph had become increasingly concerned. Nicholas Timmins has written that the cycle speech ‘brought forth profoundly different interpretations. To some on the left it looked like an appeal for community action.