HC Deb 25 February 1943 vol 387 cc274-5
8. Lieut.-Colonel Sir Thomas Moore

asked the Minister of Labour the reason for discriminating between assistants employed in the book-publishing trade and those in the book-selling trade; and will he consider placing them both on the same basis in regard to withdrawal from these industries?

Mr. Bevin

I am not clear what my hon. Friend means by assistants in the book-publishing trade. The difference in treatment of women employed in the book-publishing trade and the book-selling trade, as described in my reply to my hon. Friend on 28th January, is in accordance with the principles applied in dealing respectively with women employed in production and those employed in the retail non-food distributive trades.

Sir T. Moore

Why should my right hon. Friend make this distinction between those who assist or take part in publishing books and those who take part in selling them, and is he not aware that in the publishing trade they can be substituted, but that in the book-selling trade they have to be taken away altogether?

Mr. Bevin

I cannot distinguish between selling books and selling boots. They are sold in a shop, and, therefore, I have to deal with the selling side over the whole of the non-food distributive trades.

Mr. Rhys Davies

Does not the answer lie in the fact that those who are in publishing firms are well organised and those in the retail businesses are not?

Mr. Bevin

No. There is no need to answer that question for me. I assure my hon. Friend that that does not influence our minds at all. What we have to do is to treat like with like.

Mr. Evelyn Walkden

Is my right hon. Friend aware that his conclusions on this very difficult problem with regard to this particular trade very largely meet with the approval of those in other trades who are regarded as distributive workers essential to the war effort?

Mr. Bevin

My two hon. Friends can settle it outside.

Mr. Cocks

If my right hon. Friend cannot distinguish between books and boots, does not that show that the Government are very illiterate?

Mr. Bevin

I was dealing with the selling of the two things. I thought the understanding of my hon. Friend was quite sufficient to know the distinction between producing a book and selling it.