§ MR. L. HASLAM (Monmouth Boroughs)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, having regard to the fact that, under the present laws affecting the insurance of the lives of children, the death of a child may, by means of insurance, be a source of profit to the person insuring, whether he will consider the advisability of introducing a Bill to provide that there shall be a limit to the amount payable on the death of a child, so that the amount payable shall not exceed such as may be reasonably required to pay for the funeral expenses of the child.
§ MR. GLADSTONEI do not know whether my hon. friend is aware that by {Sections 62–67 of the Friendly Societies Act, 1896, the sum for which a child under five can be insured in one or more societies is limited to £6, and that by the Collecting Societies Act, 1896, Section 13, this limitation is extended to all Industrial Assurance Companies. Great difficulties have arisen in the way of the numerous proposals which have been made to amend the law by further reducing this limit. I would refer my hon. friend to my reply to the hon. Member for Tower Hamlets on February 22nd last, † in which I explained that the criminal law relating to this matter is already very severe, a parent who insures a child and then is guilty of cruelty or culpable neglect being liable to penal servitude for five years under Section 1, Subsection (4) of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904.
† See (4) Debates, clii., 506.