Vols. for 1898-1968 include a directory of publishers.

The Sessional Papers are also known generally as the Parliamentary Papers. Until 1969, the Sessional Papers were grouped and published as Bills (legislative drafts), Reports of Committees/Reports of Commissions, and Accounts and Papers (statistics, census data, etc.). Since 1969 the Sessional Papers have been published under Bills, House Papers, and Command Papers. The Sessional Papers will include census data, statistical information and abstracts, and correspondence from officials.

It is the author’s contention that an abundance of voluntary action outside the citizen’s home, both individually and collectively, for bettering his own and his fellows’ lives, are the distinguishing marks of a truly free society. This volume is a study of how such action can be kept alive in the face of the inevitable development of State action and suggests the new forms which co-operation between the State and voluntary Organizations may take, leaving a maximum of freedom and responsibility to the individual. Voluntary Action is a text of unique value because Beveridge here develops his vision of how a large ‘voluntary action’ sector could function as a type of buffer zone between the state and the market.

William Beveridge (1879-1963) was a key figure in the modernization of British economic and social policy who published widely on unemployment and social security. Among his most notable works and reprinted in this set are, Full Employment in a Free Society (1944), and Pillars of Security (1943). Beveridge’s Report on social insurance was published in 1942. It proposed that all people of working age should pay a weekly national insurance contribution. In return, benefits would be paid to people who were sick, unemployed, retired or widowed. Beveridge included as one of three fundamental assumptions the fact that there would be a National Health Service of some sort. Beveridge's arguments were widely accepted. He argued that welfare institutions would increase the competitiveness of British industry in the post-war period, not only by shifting labour costs like healthcare and pensions onto the public account but also by producing healthier, wealthier and more productive workers. Beveridge saw full employment as the pivot of the social welfare programme he expressed in the 1942 report. As well as making available some of Beveridge’s key, and in some case, lesser known works, this set includes as its final volume an indispensable overview of Beveridge and his prolific work.