§ 3. Captain LOSEBYasked the Minister of Pensions the total number of women and ex-service men, respectively, employed in the Pensions Issue Office.; and what steps have yet been taken to put into operation in this Department the substitution committee recommended in the Lytton Report?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONThere are 5,580 women (of whom 118 are typists and 214 messengers or cleaners) and 59 ex-service men (including 30 messengers) employed at Pension Issue Office. A substitution committee was duly appointed, and the ex-service men's representative claimed that all the posts filled by women should be regarded as suitable for men, but the other representatives claimed that the office had always been regarded as a woman's branch. The question whether substitution shall be carried out in this section of the Ministry has consequently been referred to the Lytton Committee, of which my hon. and gallant Friend is a member. In the meantime steps are being taken to carry out the recommendations of the committee in regard to the married women and pin-money workers employed in this branch.
§ Captain LOSEBYIs it a fact that there are 5,000 women employed in the Pensions Issue Office and only 200 men, ex-service men and otherwise. Has the right hon. Gentleman or his predecessor given anything in the nature of an assurance that this should be mainly a woman's Department? What is meant by a woman's Department? Does it mean more than half women?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONMy predecessor gave such a pledge and I followed it somewhat haltingly. It is true that the main employés are women. My hon. and gallant Friend knows better than anybody else that at the time we instituted this special branch of the Ministry no men were available. At present the vast majority are women who are specially trained for the special work. I am awaiting the Report of the Committee, of which my hon. and gallant Friend is a member, to bring forward a new suggestion.
§ Mr. MACPHERSONI do not agree with my hon. Friend. I think that they are now performing extraordinarily efficient work. The House never hears of the thousands of cases which are dealt with efficiently, but hears only occasionally of a case that is inefficiently dealt with.
§ Captain LOSEBYIf 60 per cent., say, of the employés were women, would that make it mainly a woman's Department?
§ Mr. MACPHERSONI think it would. The Government have appointed a Committee to revise the whole situation. I do not consider that I am at present bound by any pledge which I gave in altered circumstances. Meanwhile, I am awaiting the Report of this Committee, which I will consider most sympathetically and carefully.