§ MR. STANGER (Kensington, N.)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he can give any estimate of the number of female workpeople, including domestic servants, who, in the United Kingdom, come under the provisions of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906; and whether he has placed or is intending to place any duly qualified female medical practitioners on the list of persons to act as medical referees or medical assessors under that Act, so that female work-people, making claims under the Act, may, where the County Court Judge allows it, have the services of a female medical practitioner.
§ MR. GLADSTONEIt is estimated that the number of female employees who come within the Act is approximately 3,000,000. The question of appointing women doctors to act as medical referees in cases where women are concerned is one of much administrative difficulty. It has been carefully considered, but I have not seen my way to make any such appointments at present. There 1093 were only two references to medical referees in women's cases during the year 1907. I should always be ready to consider an application by a County Court Judge for the ad hoc appointment of a woman doctor to act as referee in a particular case where the circumstances were exceptional.