HC Deb 25 January 1944 vol 396 cc644-54

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Captain McEwen.]

Mr. Lipson (Cheltenham)

I desire to raise the question of the difference in pay given to boys and girls who helped the Post Office during the time of their pressure of work at Christmas. On 15th December I asked the Postmaster-General——

Mr. Maxton (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

Is that the subject about which the Noble Lady the Member for the Sutton Division of Plymouth (Viscountess Astor) was getting excited just now?

Viscountess Astor (Plymouth, Sutton)

Cannot you do something about the hon. Member opposite, Mr. Deputy-Speaker? He is always interrupting.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams)

So far as interruptions are concerned, I seem to have noticed other people doing it.

Viscountess Astor

You always notice me, but not the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton).

Mr. Lipson

As I was saying, on 15th December I asked the Postmaster-General this Question: Whether he will change the prescribed maxima of the rates of pay for school children who help with the postal work at Christmas, so as to provide that they shall be the same for both sexes. The answer given by my right hon. and gallant Friend was: No, Sir."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 15th December, 1943; col. 1548, Vol. 395.] I understand that the actual rates of pay are fixed by local postmasters, but the condition is laid down that boys are always to be paid more than girls——

It being the hour appointed for the interruption of Business, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Mr. Pym.]

Mr. Lipson

I feel that it is wrong that that there should be this discrimination. Everyone appreciates the fact that, in spite of war difficulties, the delivery of letters at Christmas was done remarkably well. The credit for this must go, of course, partly to the permanent staff, but the volunteers must also receive their share of praise. To overcome the difficulties of war conditions at Christmas time the Postmaster General appealed to the schools to allow older children to help in this esrvice. They responded, and they did their work well, but there is no question that the boys were any more or less efficient than the girls. Both boys and girls were doing exactly the same kind of work and they should receive the same remuneration. That, so far as juveniles are concerned, is actually the common practice in the Civil Service. The junior clerical staff, whether boys or girls, start at the same pay, and the same applies to the junior administrative class and also to the junior executive class. It is true that they diverge later, but actually at the outset boys and girls begin alike.

I cannot understand why the Postmaster General should draw a distinction between boys and girls of school age in a service of this kind. The only argument that is advanced for paying women less than men in many kinds of posts is that men have greater financial responsibilities. They have to maintain a home and so on. That argument, of course, cannot apply to the school children, most of whom I imagine are between 14 and 17, who did service of this kind. This does not, therefore, mean that, if the Postmaster General had agreed to pay the same rate to both boys and girls, the Post Office would be committed to the general principle of equal pay for men and women. I wish they would accept that principle, as I stand for it, and this House stands for it because on 19th May, 1920, it passed a Resolution saying that equal pay was expedient, and, since I asked my Question I was very interested to note that in the Report on Post War Reconstruction issued by a Committee of the Conservative party presided over by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lewisham (Mr. Brooke) one of the things advocated was equal pay for men and women doing equal work. Therefore, the Conservative party is, to a certain extent, committed to the principle, and I cannot imagine that, when it has been accepted by them, the other two parties are likely to repudiate it. Therefore, I feel, that the case for treating boys and girls alike, from whatever angle one regards it, is very strong. This principle has also been frequently endorsed by the National Arbitration Tribunal which has been set up by the Government. The principle for this service should surely be the rate for the job whether it is done by a boy or girl.

I would like to draw a contrast between the action of farmers in my area and the Post Office. The Post Office is not the only body that has appealed for school children. The farmers did it for the harvest, and in my area they paid the boys and girls who volunteered the same. The Post Office made a distinction, and at Christmas they paid boys at the rate of 1s. an hour and girls 11d. Is it really right to bring home to school girls at this early age the fact that they are in an inferior economic position? The argument might be used that if the Postmaster-General gave way it might be the thin end of the wedge. It always seems to me to be an undesirable argument that you should not do something which you believe to be right because you might be led later on to do something about the rightness of which you are not yet convinced. I would also remind my hon. Friend who is to reply that a wedge serves a useful purpose when some unnecessary obstruction has to be removed. This is an anomaly that ought to be put right. It may be too late to affect those who volunteered for this service last Christmas, but we shall be calling upon the services of boys and girls on future occasions, and I hope that, as a result of the representations which have been made to him, the Postmaster-General will reconsider the position, and that in future when school boys and girls are asked to render to the Post Office service of exactly the same kind they shall receive the same pay. The rate for the job is the principle for which I plead.

Viscountess Astor (Plymouth, Sutton)

I shall be interested to hear what excuse the Government can give for this difference in pay to boys and girls. It is one of the most shaming things we have to face. We politicians are on our trial now. When we go to the country the people say they are tired of the promises of politicians. What can they think of a Government composed of all the talents or all the parties who are pledged to equal treatment of men and women, who start off by trying to give girls an inferiority complex? Do they not know that it would be the worst thing in the world for the women to get an inferiority complex, just as it would be devastating for the men to have a superiority complex? We do not want any complexes. We are not asking anything unreasonable. We are just asking that boys and girls should have the same wages for the same work. There is a movement in the country and among some women in the House of Commons which would go much further than the House of Commons and many women would want to go. I am not an extreme feminist, but I put it to the House of Commons and to men who have daughters that they must see that at this moment in the history of the country we must be prepared to give equal pay for equal work. I cannot go as far as those women who say that they want the Government to make it a law that a man shall share his wages with his wife. That would mean the end of many a happy home, and there would be many a home that would not be started if you told the men that they would compulsorily have to share their wages with their wives. I honestly feel that the Government are making things very hard for some of us who are backing them in the country and are trying to back them in this House, if, at this late moment, they cannot put it down that women shall have equal pay for equal work, no matter how high up they go.

They used to talk about women being weaker than men, but that is all thrown over now. There is a very interesting thing that happened in the blitz. A voluntary driver had to fetch a man and take him to give blood at one of the hospitals, but he was in such a state of agitation when he got to the hospital that the girl driver had to get out and give her blood instead. It shows that men are not always stronger, physically and in other ways, than girls. That idea is all burst now, and we all know it. I do not want to be provocative, but let us remember that this is the first war in which women have had to go by the side of men and in which people have seen that women have just as much physical courage, and a lot more moral courage, than some of the men. We want that to go on. It is the first war in which women have done so much——

Mr. Speaker

Perhaps I might point out to the noble Lady that, while she is quite in Order to discuss the whole question of equal pay, and so on, this is a limited matter in which the Postmaster-General is to answer, and that he cannot answer on the subject which she is raising now.

Viscountess Astor

Quite right, Mr. Speaker, but I thought that the Postmaster-General might have some say with the Cabinet, and might be able to say to them: "Look here, we can't go on like this." After all, women have never worked harder, or been so little represented in the Government, and no Government have ever paid less attention to the equality of women and done less to put them on the map; yet no Government have ever been so helped. Are we not fighting for liberty, justice, equality and freedom? It is almost the whole Atlantic Charter which is at the basis of this matter, and I hope that the Postmaster-General is not going to put us off. I wan him to go back and pay these girls the extra 1d.

Mr. Tom Brown (Ince)

This matter is causing a great deal of dissatisfaction in the country, particularly in most of the cities where girls have responded to the call to come forward at Christmas time and help the Postmaster-General and his staff with the volume of work at that time. This matter, as the Noble Lady has just said, involves a principle which is not lightly to be disregarded. The time has gone by when this question of equal pay ought to be brought forward at this hour. Looking over the records of this House I found, that in May, 1920, this House passed the following Resolution without a Division: That it is expedient that women should have equal opportunity of employment with men in all branches of the Civil Service within the United Kingdom and under all local authorities, and should also receive equal pay. In 1936 the House of Commons passed the following Resolution: That, in the opinion of this House, the time has come when the Government should give effect to the Resolution voted by the House of Commons on 19th May, 1920, and forthwith place women employed in the lower classes of the Civil Service on the same scales of pay as apply to men in those classes. Even the Tomlin Commission, in 1931, spoke in unusually strong terms about the differentiation of pay between male and female workers. Does anyone seriously assert that a girl should be paid less than a boy when she is doing the same class of work? It makes no difference to me whether the name is Michael or Muriel or Peter or Priscilla; if they are doing the same class of work they ought to receive the same pay. I hope that the Postmaster-General will give us an assurance that not only will he give equal pay for equal work in the future but that he will pay these girls who responded so nobly when he was in difficulties. What does it matter? It is only a paltry shilling. It is about time these trivial matters never saw the light of day in the British House of Commons.

Mrs. Tate (Frome)

Whenever we ask for equal pay we have one of three answers given. Either we are told that the woman is doing less work than a man, or we are told that the man has more responsibilities than a woman, or we are told that the Government cannot afford to pay the extra. The Post Office makes a very large profit out of the country. There is no question that a penny in the shilling will decrease its profits. There is no suggestion that a boy of school age has responsibilities which a girl of school age has not got. We, therefore, come to the question of whether the work done by the two sexes is absolutely equal. I think the reply we shall get to-day is that the boys shoulder heavier bags than the girls do. I have taken a little trouble to find out what the work done by the boys and girls was. The headmistress of the Bedford High School asked her girls to volunteer for this work, and she said it had a very unfortunate effect on them when they found themselves side by side with boys who volunteered. In that place it is considered that the girls, on the whole, proved more reliable, and it was not good for the girls to have the irritation of doing exactly the same work, exactly the same hours, and finding they were paid a little less.

With regard to whether or not heavy bags are carried by the girls and the boys, there was a letter in one of the papers, I am sorry I did not cut it out, in which a temporary civil servant expressed his dismay at having seen girls shoulder much heavier bags than the boys. There is an office not far from this House of Commons where once a week extremely heavy mail bags containing periodicals are delivered. On many occasions the men driving the vans have said that the bags were too heavy for them to take up the steps into the house. On every single occasion when that has happened the bags have been taken from the pavement into the building entirely by women. I therefore hope we shall not have the excuse, because we all know there is no real foundation for it, that the boys are doing work of greater value than the girls. I think no one will deny that a girl of 16 is a little more advanced in age than a boy of 16. Girls develop more quickly. If we had to choose between entrusting a letter, which we wished to be sure would be delivered, to a little girl or a little boy we should, I think, very often choose the little girl, because perhaps at that age the temptations of life are less great.

There never was a time when it was so important to make adolescent girls realise how vital it is that they should be trustworthy and give a maximum responsibility to the country. They are the future mothers and the future wives, and to-day there is not one of us who does not feel great anxiety on their behalf. Do not let us add to that anxiety by giving them a sense of discontent and frustration and a reasonable grievance. That is the one thing we do not wish to let them have. We want them to realise that they have a very vital part in the building up of this country after the war and to develop their sense of responsibility and not to lessen it.

Mr. Hannah (Bilston)

I should like to support my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson), but I do not want to make a speech. This Adjournment Debate seems to me to have illustrated a new thing, and I felt that, as a mere man, I could not compete with a woman in saying exactly the same thing in slightly different and exceedingly eloquent language. Therefore, I shall not make any effort to do so.

The Assistant Postmaster-General (Mr. Robert Grimston)

As you have said, Mr. Speaker, I am not in a position now to speak on the general question of equal pay for men and women, and I must, therefore, confine myself to the matter which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Mr. Lipson), namely, the equal remuneration or otherwise of the boys and girls who came into the Post Office to help us at Christmas-time. I can best help my hon. Friend if I briefly say how the Post Office has dealt with this problem hitherto, and why. As my hon. Friend will see, he has made one or two false assumptions in the, I must say, powerful case which he made for his point of view. This problem of employing boys and girls arose only in 1942, because up to then we had been able to get all the casual labour we required from other sources. Since then what I might call the depredations of the Minister of Labour have gone far and wide, and we have had to call upon these children, who, as my hon. Friend has said, have nobly responded. We prescribed maximum rates, but we left it to our regional authorities to fix different rates in different localities, because different conditions very often prevailed. They were left with a pretty free hand. They were enjoined to consult the school authorities and also the local Employment Exchanges. How it happened is that the regional authorities fixed the rates in localities on the recommendation of the local postmasters.

Now I come to the reasons why we fixed the differential maximum. This is, I think, the bone of contention. We fixed it for two reasons. One is that we thought that this type of casual employment, which, after all, is for only 10 days up to Christmas, was more in keeping with conditions prevailing in outside industry, not with those in continuous Civil Service employment. As hon. Members know, there are differential rates outside. I could quote a number of cases, such as employment on the railways, in co-operative societies, in the food distributive trades, and so on. That is the first reason. The second reason is that, in spite of what my hon. Friend the Member for Frome (Mrs. Tate) has said—and I have been into this matter rather carefully—the boys are asked to perform heavier work in nearly every case. I see that she shakes her head, but it is a fact that in the main the girls are kept entirely on letter sorting and delivery, and the boys are put on parcels. If the boys go out on delivery they usually carry heavier loads than the girls do. I do want to stress this—that we do not want the boys' loads to be larger than they should be for boys of that age.

Mr. Ellis Smith (Stoke)

I cannot speak of the whole country, but my own daughter was taking parcels, and her friends from the same secondary school were carrying parcels just the same way as boys.

Mr. Grimston

I would not dispute what my hon. Friend says. What I am saying is that, by and large, we do ask the boys to do heavier work than the girls, although, of course, in certain localities, as obviously in his case, they may do the same. Here I want to say that there is no injunction to our Regional authorities that equal rates should not be paid, and I think it would be useful if I gave the House the result of an analysis of a certain number of offices which I have had made and which I thought would be of use to the House. Of 70 cases which I have had reviewed—head offices throughout the country—in nine of them equal pay has, in fact, been granted to the boys and girls at the request of the local Headmistress. In most of these cases, as a matter of fact, the boys do heavier work than the girls and there has been no complaint. I would like to assure the hon. Lady that the age of chivalry is not past and that they carry the extra burden for the same pay. By and large, I do claim that the Post Office has endeavoured to deal fairly in these matters. What we have done in fixing rates is this. We have, as we think rightly, conformed to practice in industry and commerce. We have given each locality discretion to make a local arrangement for equal pay if it is desired. We do, in the main, although there are exceptions, ask the boys to do the heavier work, and at the time my hon. Friend asked this Question, he got the answer that the arrangements could not be altered for this year because some of the school children were already at work. I hope he will appreciate that that was the reason why he got the answer that nothing could be done this year.

So much for the past. In future, I should like to say to the House, our minds are not closed on this matter. I am not going to give a specific undertaking that, if we employ boys and girls next Christmas, we will give them equal pay, but I will give the undertaking that we will re-examine this matter between now and next Christmas and the suggestions put forward by this House will be taken into account. The Union of Post Office Workers said they could not agree with the maxima being differential, and we promised them that we would look into the matter again. That promise I now repeat. I hope, therefore, that my hon. Friend will think we have not adopted an unreasonable attitude in the matter, and will be satisfied with the reply I have given. However, I would like to take the opportunity in this House of paying tribute to the work these boys and girls have done. I went round to see them actually myself, and found them working cheerfully and well everywhere. It is true that on Christmas Eve they took back Christmas boxes, but they had been earned.

Mr. Lipson

I should like to thank my hon. Friend for the promise to look into the matter, and I hope the decision he arrives at will be the right one.

Mr. Muff (Kingston-upon-Hull, East)

The Assistant Postmaster-General has been ready to hide behind the skirts of these old ladies in the regions. He has been "passing the buck." These young workers, boys and girls who did such splendid work, ought not to be ex-ploited——

Mr. Grimston

I cannot agree about there being exploitation. I do not think there is any suggestion of that.

Viscountess Astor

He means the trade unions and the co-operatives.

Mr. Muff

I do not care what the Postmaster did. It is the responsibility of St. Martins-le-Grand, or wherever these people congregate, and they are ready to hide themselves behind skirts up and down the country.

Viscountess Aston

I do not know to what ladies the hon. Member is referring.

Question, "That this House do now adjourn," put, and agreed to.