HC Deb 20 June 1906 vol 159 cc170-1
MR. WEDGWOOD (Newcastle under-Lyme)

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether in view of the difficulty of insuring compensation to some of the new classes compensated for accident and disease by the present Workmen's Compensation Bill, based on individual responsibility, and in view of the unnecessary expense to which employers and the community are put by individual insurance with private companies, he will take steps to set up or advise a Royal Commission to consider the possibilities of collective or State insurance based on collective responsibility.

* MR. GLADSTONE

I must refer the hon. Member to the speech I made on the Second Beading of the Bill† when the right hon. Baronet the Member for the Forest of Dean, moved, "that this House desires such recognition and guarantee of insurance as to prevent the defeat of legal expectation of compensation created under the law." I have nothing to add to the statement I then made.