At the invitation of Winston Churchill he entered (1908) the Board of Trade and published his notable report, Unemployment, in 1909. In it he argued that the regulation of society by an interventionist state would strengthen rather than weaken the free market economy. He was instrumental in drafting the Labour Exchanges Act (1909) and the National Insurance Act (1911). In 1941 he was commissioned by the government to chair an inquiry into the social services and produced the report Social Insurance and Allied Services (1942). This was to become the foundation of the British welfare state and the blueprint for much social legislation from 1944 to 1948.