The Social Contract was a policy by the Labour government of Harold Wilson in 1970s Britain. In return for the repeal of 1971 Industrial Relations Act, food subsidies, and a freeze on rent increases, the Trade Union Congress ensured that its members would cooperate with a programme of voluntary wage restraint. It was to be the foundation on which the Chancellor Denis Healey could introduce a stronger budget in order to control the high inflation that Britain and most other Western nations had begun to confront, which Edward Heath's previous government had failed to do.