I wish to congratulate the Government upon this new Clause. It was, I think, an omission from the Bill as originally drafted. It was one of the recommendations of the Cohen Committee that more detailed information should be available dealing with this im- portant matter of industrial assurance. The Treasury has a responsibility to Parliament for supervising this activity. It is common ground that since the Act of 1909 that supervision has not always been very effective. I hope and believe that, after this Bill, it will be more effective. It has been a curious anomoly that the two different kinds of bodies which were concerned with this form of insurance were dealt with under two different statutes.

The friendly societies operated under the Friendly Societies Act of 1896, and the only particulars for which the Industrial Assurance Commissioner could call were those which were authorised under that Act. In the case of industrial life offices, the matter of industrial assurance is dealt with under the general insurance Act of 1909. There the returns which have to be sent in to the Industrial Assurance Commissioner are contained in a Schedule to the Act. Therefore, in the past it was impossible legally to obtain from both kinds of bodies the full information which really was necessary in order that industrial assurance should be surveyed as a whole.

It is a good feature of the new Clause that there is a certain flexibility. The figures in the returns which have to be sent in are to be in a form prescribed by the Industrial Assurance Commissioner. I am sure that the Government will give an assurance that this elasticity will not be used in any unreasonable way, and that the information which is required will be called for in a form which will fit in reasonably with the mechanical apparatus of the industrial offices concerned. Therefore, I feel that a most important Amendment has been made to the Bill. It goes a long way to rectify one of the omissions of the past. I thank the Government for what they have done in the matter. I would not like to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I do not think that this is a particularly gracefully drafted Clause. There seem to be an Extraordinary number of verbal repetitions. I wish that it might have been a better example of elegance in Parliamentary draftsmanship. However, I will overlook any deficiencies that there may be.