EQUAL PAY (Hansard, 13 March 1952)

§ Mr. Cyril Bence (Dunbartonshire, East)
I now wish to bring before the House the important subject of equal pay. I understand that in 1919 this House accepted a resolution on equal pay in the Civil Service. That was 33 years ago. I remember reading once that it was the general opinion that from the birth of an idea to its application took 35 years. On that reckoning we should establish equal pay for women in the Civil Service in at least two years and, I hope, extend it to the teaching profession and local government authorities. I do not intend to keep the House for long, as several of my hon. Friends are anxious to contribute to the discussion. They have expert knowledge of the implications of equal pay on the Civil Service.
In some branches of the engineering trade, the principle of the same rate for the job for both men and women has been established for many years. When the price for a job is fixed in certain branches of the engineering trade, with both men and women working on the job, the unions have succeeded in establishing the principle of one rate for the job—irrespective of whether men or women are employed.
For 33 years we have been having statements that all political parties, all candidates in their constituencies, accept the principle of equal pay; in other words, they accept it in the abstract. The women of this country are getting fed up with this. After 1918 they were complimented on their great work during the 1914–18 war. They were complimented again for their great work in the last war. Since 1945 everybody seems to have been promising them equal pay, in principle. The women are tired of this.
They want to know when they will get equal pay. How long must they wait? Various excuses are given, and when I 1787 look back at the excuses it seems to me—this may be a superficial appearance—that when the finances of the country were good, equal pay could not be granted because the trade of the country was always bad; and when the trade was good, and there was full employment, they could not be granted equal pay because the finances of the country were bad. No matter what the conditions, it seems that equal pay cannot be granted to women in the Civil Service, the teaching profession and local government service.
I understand that the Civil Service do not demand the immediate application of this principle of equal pay, but are prepared to accept the gradual implementation of this pledge which has been given to them for so many years. It is a pledge which no Government seems prepared to implement.
It is an extraordinary fact that entrance into the Civil Service and into the teaching profession demands no discrimination of sex. There is no discrimination in training or in examination—none whatever. Many are trained and educated in co-educational establishments. All take the same examinations. All go through the same training. It is only after they have entered the Service that there is this differentiation—this difference in the rate of pay according to sex, even where they are doing the same job.
If this delay continues much longer, and if politicians—Ministers and candidates—continue to go round the country persisting in the statement that they accept the principle but cannot implement it because of the conditions—a different set of conditions each time—then the time will come when the women will band together in a strike at the ballot boxes, and let us remember that they are the majority in the nation and we shall not be able to find a Government, or else we shall have perpetually a minority Government elected by men and, remembering the stories of the suffragettes, I dread to think what will happen to us men in that situation.
So I beg the Government to take steps immediately, in consultation with the Civil Service, the teaching profession and local government, to draft some scheme so that, in the next two or three years, we shall be able to demonstrate that something once propounded can be carried out with- 1788 in 35 years, and so that at last women can have equal pay for equal work.

§ Miss Irene Ward (Tynemouth)
I am very glad indeed that the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) was fortunate in the ballot and has had the good sense to raise this question tonight. I do not intend to intervene very long because I realise that it is his Adjournment and that it would not be right for me to take up time which really belongs to him and his hon. Friends. However, this is a non-party matter. The hon. Gentleman's party and my own, as well as the Liberal Party, have paid lip-service to the introduction of equal pay for very many years.
It is disappointing to me and to many of my hon. Friends that in this year's Budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been unable to take the very modest step that was suggested to him when the civil servants went to see him to press him to introduce equal pay by graduated steps.
I want to say one word to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury. I do hope that, when he replies to the debate, he will not use the arguments that, I see, were used to the representations of the civil servants on that occasion. I notice that same old argument was used about "inflationary pressure." Considering the concessions the Chancellor has made in the Budget—a great deal of which, of course, I approve of—to the general body of taxpayers, I think that to talk about the small expenditure on equal pay in the initial year as being "inflationary pressure" is just begging the question.
I see the other old chestnut was trotted out, too, about the question of repercussions. Once again I put on record that the Royal Commission reported that the repercussions would be almost negligible. If the Chancellor feels unable to take the first step this year, I beg the Financial Secretary not to come out with the same absurd and irrelevant arguments, because women are tired of them.
We are told that we must have incentives. My party is very rightly committed to incentives. If we are to have incentives, does my right hon. Friend not realise that women as well as men want incentives? Of course, the 1789 difference between the party opposite and my party is that the party opposite made unequivocal pledges, and when the Socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer got the chance to—

§ Mr. Douglas Houghton (Sowerby)
The hon. Lady said that the difference between the two parties was that the party on this side of the House gave unequivocal pledges. Does she mean that her party gave equivocal pledges?

§ Miss Ward
That interruption is unnecessary because I had not dealt with my party. The Socialist Chancellor of the Exchequer failed to implement the specific pledges which had been given. The difficulty in the Conservative Party has been to get the party to make pledges. [Interruption.] Oh yes, there is all the difference. When we make a pledge we implement it. I realise that before the next General Election we shall be getting equal pay. I only want to tell my hon. Friend tonight that I beg him not to bring out these two reasons in his reply, because, if he does, he will infuriate a vast body of women who are called upon to bear heavy burdens in the national interest.
Although we are prepared to do everything we can to support the country, we do expect to get the same consideration as the rest of the community. Recently £30 million or £32 million was granted in additional salaries to the Civil Service. I am sure that those additions to salaries were justified, but one could equally argue inflationary pressure and its repercussions. Therefore, so that he may keep pace with his own party I am expecting to hear from the hon. Gentleman some other reasons why we have not been given at any rate an equal incentive to get on with the job as that given to the rest of the community.

§ The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Boyd-Carpenter)
I have listened with a great deal of sympathy to what has been said by the hon. Member for Dunbartonshire, East (Mr. Bence) and the hon. Member for Tyne-mouth (Miss Ward). But the House will appreciate, I am sure, as both the hon. Members will appreciate, that the substantial financial and economic considerations which this issue inescapably raises have to be looked at not only on their individual merits but against the 1790 background of our national economic difficulties. I am sure that neither of the hon. Members, however strongly he or she may feel about the merits of this issue, will dispute that.

§ Mr. Houghton
Why should the rate for the job for women be discussed in a different context from the rate for the job for men?

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
It is impossible to discuss any issue involving financial factors of this kind and disregard the national economic position. I am certain that the hon. Gentleman appreciates that as well as I do. That was all I suggested, and that is the proposition which I am putting to the House at this stage of my argument. If the hon. Member will contain himself for a moment, I think he will find that the line of argument I propose to take will deal with the further considerations he has in mind.
It is important to recall—and I would ask the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) to pay regard to it—that during the last few years the late Government, of which the hon. Member was a very distinguished and very vocal supporter, felt unable by reason of the nation's financial position to take the action which the hon. Gentleman and his hon. Friend are urging now. They refused to take it expressly on those very financial and economic grounds which the hon. Member for Sowerby now seems to be seeking to push aside.
Let me remind the House of what the right hon. Member for Leeds, South (Mr. Gaitskell) said on this issue as recently as 20th June of last year: The Government therefore do not consider that they can proceed to extend the principle until the full consequences for the economy as a whole, including any necessary increase in family allowances, can be accepted within a relatively short period of time. That being so"—

§ Mr. Michael Foot (Plymouth, Devonport)
rose—

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
The hon. Gentleman is a little too anxious to intervene. This is what his right hon. Friend said. I leave it to the hon. Gentleman to argue what his right hon. Friend meant, but I am telling the House what his right hon. Friend—

§ Mr. Foot
rose—

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
I am sorry, but I am in the middle of quoting to the 1791 House what was said by the right hon. Gentleman who was then the Chancellor of the Exchequer. With great respect to the hon. Member for Devonport (Mr. Foot), there could be no conceivable point at this stage which could possibly justify him intervening. I will finish what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds, South said: That being so they have come with great regret to the conclusion that they cannot for the present depart from the decision announced in 1947. I am informing the National Staff Side accordingly."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th June, 1951; Vol. 489, c. 529.] That was the view expressed by the right hon. Gentleman who then held the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer, and it was based, as I understand it, upon the financial position of the country. No one is going to argue that our financial position now is better than it was last June, and therefore the House, and in particular hon. Members opposite, must give some weight to the considerations advanced by a leading member of their own Government on this issue in those circumstances.

§ Mr. Harold Davies (Leek)
And the hon. Member for Tynemouth (Miss Ward).

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
Yes, and by my hon. Friend who was not a supporter of the late Government. Nevertheless, Her Majesty's present advisers retain the sympathies and intentions in this matter which they have held all along. My hon. Friend referred to our election manifesto from which we do not retreat in any degree. We repeated in our manifesto what we said in our manifesto of 1950, which was this: We hope that during the life of the next Parliament the country's financial position will improve sufficiently to enable us to proceed at an early date with the application in the Government service of the principles of equal pay for men and women for services of equal value. The question really boils down to a matter of judgment as to when our national financial position will permit actual steps to be taken to implement equal pay.
It can be of some help to the House in making up its mind on this matter to be reminded of the facts which this or, indeed, any Government have got to consider in this connection. In the first place, let us take the Civil Service in the 1792 strict sense of the term. There are 233,000 women in the Civil Service; of these approximately 200 receive equal pay and they are, mainly, doctors or medical women; 136,000 are doing what can be described as equal work; 97,000 are doing what is usually regarded as women's work. I do not know whether hon. Members seek to draw a line of distinction between those who are clearly doing equal work and those who are equally clearly not doing equal work. The matter is not an easy one—nothing in this particular subject is.
Of course, the concession of equal pay to those doing equal work and the implementation of the specific suggestions the hon. Member made would obviously involve the possibility of what I might call sympathetic increases in respect of those not doing equal work. It stands to reason that if we have women clerks and typists on closely related rates, we cannot put the women clerks' pay up on the grounds that they are doing equal work without the possibility of having to put up the pay of the typists who are not doing equal work.
Outside the Civil Service there are 1,500 policewomen, 500 firewomen, and 25,000 in the armed forces, all of whom are in that category, that is are not doing equal work, but are very likely to be affected by the sympathetic increase.

§ Mr. Ede (South Shields)
Does the hon. Gentleman say that policewomen do not do equal work to policemen?

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
As I understand it, in the technical sense they do not, because they perform duties of women police officers and not of men.

§ Mr. Ede
The hon. Gentleman has been grossly misinformed.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
I know the right hon. Gentleman has great experience in this department, and if he expresses that view I have no doubt that there is a great deal in it. But it would not affect the purport of my argument if I concede the point to him. I am advised it is not the case, but if I may I will communicate with the right hon. Gentleman when I have cleared it up.
Then there is the Health Service, with 175,000 women, the majority of them being nurses. Of the 175,000, 2,000 or 3,000 administrative or professional 1793 workers get equal pay. There are some 7,000 more who do equal work and do not get equal pay at present. Then there is the great mass of nurses—the greater part of the total. They are working at what is generally regarded as women's work. There are a certain number of male nurses, and it is at least arguable that they should be subject to equal pay. Besides the categories I have mentioned, there are women in such activities as local government and so on. The cost of making the concession in full would be £11 million a year for the Civil Service, in the narrow sense; £13 million additional in respect of teachers; and £4 million for the other categories mentioned. That involves a total increase in pay of £28 million a year.

§ Mr. Foot
That is exactly the figure the hon. Gentleman's colleague has given away in the Budget.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
If the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to contain himself I am going to deal with that in time. My hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth referred to the recent pay increase in the Civil Service—the figure was actually £30 million and not £32 million. That followed the ordinary principle that rates of pay in the Civil Service should follow the comparable rates outside, and it seems to me that unless it is suggested that the Civil Service generally should be worse treated than other services, it is not really an argument that bears on this matter.

§ Miss Ward
It is not fair to use that argument, because it was never suggested. I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman should try to put that on the record. It is an entirely fallacious argument that I never raised at all.

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
I am only too glad to acquit the hon. Lady of using the argument which, in my imperfect understanding, I understood her to use. The matter does not stop there. It is all very well for the hon. Lady to say she cannot bear to hear the repercussions—

§ Mr. Harold Davies
A stab in the back!

§ Mr. Boyd-Carpenter
It is all very well for her to say that and to refer to the Royal Commission. Let me remind her that a Royal Commission did report in 1794 1946 and that there have been a good many changes in economic conditions in this country since 1946. Therefore, what the Royal Commission then found is not necessarily true in all respect in the changed conditions of today. It is, I think, the view of most people who have studied this matter—and it is one of the arguments put forward in defence of equal pay and in its favour—that were it to be introduced in the Government service it would not stop there and that, taken in industry outside.
That is a matter which must be considered when we are considering the economic repercussions of such a subject. The lead that the Government gives in this respect and others is generally and understandably followed by industry outside, and we must look at it, as the right hon. Member opposite did, on the basis of whether or not it is possible to release this considerable additional quantity of purchasing power at this particular time.
This is the issue that the House has got to face. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer made it clear in the Parliamentary answer he gave, and in the letter that he wrote to the Secretary of the Staff Side, that as soon as the country's position had improved he hoped to be able to take steps towards implementation. That remains the policy of the Government.
We must be free to judge what is the moment at which this step can be taken without danger to our national economy. We shall judge the situation with due sympathy and with due regard to what we have said in the past and what we believe upon this issue. But we must remain free to judge—and this is part of the inescapable responsibility of government—when it is possible to take this step without endangering the national economy; and just as soon as it is possible we shall take steps to introduce these proposals. This Government have been in office four and a half months and—