HC Deb 13 December 1961 vol 651 cc533-44

8.0 p.m.

Mr. Houghton

I beg to move, in page 7, line 1, to leave out subsection (1) and to insert: (1) For the purposes of unemployment benefit and sickness benefit under the National Insurance Acts, 1946 to 1960, there shall be no distinction between the rate of periodical benefit payable to a married woman and that payable to any other person; and accordingly the Third Schedule to the National Insurance Act, 1960 (which sets out rates of periodical benefits and of increases for dependants, substituted for those in Part I of the Second Schedule to the National Insurance Act, 1946), shall be amended in paragraph 1 by the omission in the first column of all the words after the words "Unemployment benefit and sickness benefit" and in the second, third, fourth and fifth columns of all the figures after the figures "57 6 17 6 9 6 35 0", where those figures first occur respectively in those columns. The Amendment seeks to abolish the present differential between the unemployment and sickness benefits applicable to married women and those applicable to single women. I know that in some circumstances a married woman is entitled to the same level of sickness and unemployment benefit as a single woman and a single man. One example is where a working wife is supporting a disabled husband. It is only proper in such circumstances that she should get the higher rate of sickness and unemployment benefit. For the ordinary married woman whose husband is working and for whom she has no dependency responsibilities, the sickness and unemployment benefit is 18s. 6d. a week lower than that of a single woman and a single man.

Why do we pay married women lower benefits than single women and single men? The answer goes back exactly thirty years, when a stigma was put on the married women workers of Britain. It has never been removed. It goes back to the Anomalies Regulations of 1931 and is dealt with in the Beveridge Report on Social Insurance and Allied Services. The Report states: The Anomalies Act of 1931 was introduced to deal with what was undoubtedly a scandal in unemployment insurance: the drawing of unemployment benefit by women who were in no real sense in search of employment. In districts and industries where married women were never accustomed to work and did not expect to find work, the Unemployment Fund, before the Anomalies Act, was tending to become a means of endowing young married life. I remember 1931. Well over 2 million people were unemployed and had been unemployed for months on end. Many families were destitute. Some couples got married when unemployed, for had they waited until the man got a job they would never have married. The blight which overshadowed the whole industrial and social scene in that year was something we hope never to see again. They were days when the proportion of unemployment among men and women in some areas was as high as 20 per cent.

Those Regulations were introduced in 1931 to economise in what was said to be an economic blizzard—when it was considered necessary to reduce the liabilities on the Unemployment Fund. Whether or not the so-called scandal—referred to in the Beveridge Report—was in truth a scandal or whether it was the only means of self-defence for people for whom Parliament and society could not make better provision, I do not pretend to know. In the immediate circle about which I can speak the scandal did not exist. Married women would have been glad to have jobs, had they been available, because their husbands were not in employment. That stigma has survived until today and I want to remove it.

On what does it all rest? It rests on the assumption that married women may not be sick but doing the spring cleaning, or that they are unemployed because they are really not looking for a job. Surely the atmosphere and conditions of today are different from thirty years ago. Let us face it, the nation could not carry on today were it not for the married women workers. I do not know why when there is an interruption in the wages of married women workers by unemployment or sickness they should have less compensation for that than any other insured person.

We accept equality between women and men for the purpose of National Insurance benefits. We provide for family responsibility by adding to the benefit of the man who has a dependent wife and children. But otherwise the single man and woman gets the same benefit. We had equal pay in the National Insurance Scheme long before it existed in industry, and, believing that principle to be right, I am now seeking to remove one of the disqualifications of being a married woman.

The Beveridge Report also drew attention to the higher proportion of sickness claims among married women compared with single women. I do not know whether current experience bears that out, but, even if it does, I see no reason for any distinction between the level of earnings. There is no real ground—social or economic—for preserving it. All my life I have sought and worked for equality between men and women, For thirty-five years I gave what energy and influence I had to the campaign for equal pay in the public service, which, I am proud to say, now exists.

We have heard all the arguments against equal pay and discrimination against women in almost every conceivable direction, but in the context of National Insurance we want to get rid of differences which rely on past history and cannot be defended in present day conditions. I had intended to move an Amendment to the Bill of 1960, but pressure of time seemed to squeeze it out of the debate on that occasion and I am glad to have this opportunity of raising the matter.

I acknowledge that married women under the National Insurance Scheme must be considered, in certain respects, in connection with the benefits given to their husbands, the provision for widowhood, for dependent children and the dependent wife's allowances payable to a dependent wife not insured in her own right but by reason of her husband's insurance and contributions. There is one respect in which the conditions of married women for the purpose of National Insurance differs compared with years ago. Before 1948 a married woman worker was compulsorily insured. Today she has the option of not being insured under the National Insurance Scheme, although she still is compulsorily insured under the Industrial Injuries Scheme. I mention this because married women in the National Insurance Scheme, to whom the Amendment relates, are those who have chosen—for what they believe to be good and sufficient reasons—to contribute to the National Insurance Scheme to secure benefits in their own right. They are benefits in their own right about which I am speaking, and none else.

When these married women come to retire they get the same retirement pension as a single woman or man. We are aware that, eventually, equality is restored, but this is related solely to unemployment and sickness benefit. Does the Minister intend to defend retaining this differential? The extent of unemployment claims today is, happily, vastly different from that of thirty years ago, and we are glad that nothing like that level of unemployment has been seen in Britain for the last fifteen or twenty years.

Can the Minister say, therefore, that there is any justification now—in 1961—for regarding an employed married woman as being less entitled to the full unemployment benefit than a single woman or man? Why the difference? Upon what does it rest? Does it rest on the aspersion in paragraph 114 of the Beveridge Report that if the married woman is unemployed she is probably not trying to get a job? Is it considered that her zeal to get employment must be regarded as modified by the fact that she has a husband working or that she will set out to deceive the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance to get unemployment benefit when, in honesty, she is not entitled to it? This is a slur upon the morality of the married woman. It cannot be anything else.

Similarly with sickness benefit. If a married woman is at home sick, is it suggested that she is really not as ill as a single woman or man would be if she or he stayed at home? Is it suggested that she is not really ill but decides that it is time to do the spring cleaning, claims sickness benefit, goes to the doctor and says that she is run down? This raises an important question of principle. I wonder that the married women do not rise up against this.

The truth is that women have to have men to fight for their rights. That is why I am having to do it. I am glad that on this occasion the hon. Lady the Joint Parliamentary Secretary apparently will not rise and down the married women as she downed the widowed mother only a few minutes ago. I always hate to see women having to get up and denounce the claims of other women. They have been downtrodden so long that they cannot afford the luxury of having their own cause defeated by their own sex.

I have said enough. I should like to know the answer. I hope that the House will regard this as a matter of considerable importance in our treatment of women under the National Insurance Scheme.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance (Mr. Richard Sharples)

This is the second time that the hon. Member for Sowerby (Mr. Houghton) has moved an Amendment of this kind. The hon. Member made it clear in his opening remarks that the purpose of the Amendment is to abolish the differential in unemployment and sickness benefit between the married and the single woman. In view of the hon. Member's earlier remarks, I will not say anything about the drafting of the Amendment, except in fairness to point out that it goes much further than the purpose which the hon. Member has in mind.

The hon. Member referred to the stigma upon the married woman which dates back to 1931. At the time that the National Insurance Scheme was introduced in 1946, there could not have been any remnant of a stigma upon the married woman. The reasons for the differentiation at the time sprang from the recommendations of the Beveridge Committee and from the actuarial position which had been incorporated in benefit rates under the old National Health and Unemployment Insurance Schemes.

8.15 p.m.

The first and main reason for the differentiation was fully discussed in Committee during the passage of the 1946 Act. The married woman is in a different position from the single woman or the single man. She has a home provided by her husband. She has a legal right to maintenance from her husband if she should be sick or in other difficulties.

That basic consideration of the difference in status between the married woman and the single woman was made clear by the then Parliamentary Secretary, the former Mr. Lindgren, when the subject was debated on an Amendment moved by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) in 1946. This is what the then Mr. Lindgren said: … in so far as a married woman is concerned, her need is not so great because, in fact, marriage is a partnership and there is the basis of fundamental provision within the home provided by the husband, or jointly by the husband and wife."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, Standing Committee A, 10th April, 1946; c. 669.] I could go on to quote the much stronger words that were used in that connection by the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), but as he is not present I will not do so. The basis there was not that of a stigma but the recognition of the fundamental difference in the position of the married woman and of the single woman.

Secondly—and this was referred to by the hon. Member for Sowerby—the married woman at work alone amongst all insured people, has the option not to pay contributions. Two out of three such married women have elected not to pay National Insurance contributions. The hon. Member for Sowerby was quite right when he said that the reason why married women have decided to pay contributions when there is no legal need need for them to do so is because they consider that they will benefit from the Scheme and that it will pay them to contribute. That is a proper reason for doing so.

The hon. Member referred also to the number of claims submitted by married women. On the sickness benefit side, we have the Report of the Government Actuary covering the five years from 1953–54 to 1957–58, inclusive. The figures are revealing. The employed man claimed an average of two weeks' sickness benefit per year over the whole of that period. The single employed woman claimed sickness benefit for an average of two and a quarter weeks and the employed married woman claimed sickness benefit for an average of three and a half weeks per annum for that period.

In the case of unemployment benefit, the proportion of married women drawing benefit is much higher than that of other contributors to the Scheme. The figures for November, 1960, and May, 1961, the most recent available, show a rate for insured married women 60 per cent. higher than for men. What is even more significant—

Mr. Loughlin

I do not understand the significance of those dates. Why has the Minister chosen November, 1960, and May, 1961?

Mr. Sharples

The explanation is that they are the most recent figures available.

Mr. Loughlin

If the hon. Gentleman is quoting figures of that kind for unemployment and sickness and making comparisons from one year to another, all sorts of factors influence the periods when people are sick. The figures for November do not tie up with those for May the following year. I know that the hon. Gentleman does not intend to mislead the House, but I wondered why he had chosen this method. If he uses these figures for such different periods, is it possible that they might give a wrong picture?

Mr. Sharples

There is no significance in the dates. I have simply taken these figures as being the most recent ones available. One is comparing like with like when contrasting the rate for married women with that for employed men in that the extraneous factors would be exactly the same in each case. I have not taken these figures with any regard to seasonal factors.

In comparing unemployment benefit claims between married and single women, the rate for married women is two and a half times the rate for single women during the same period.

The additional cost to the National Insurance Fund of the Amendment would be about £7 million and this would have to be met by additional contributions. The Government Actuary has estimated that to meet this cost, an additional contribution of 6d. would be required, divided between employers and all women contributors to the scheme. This would mean that there would have to be an addition of 3d. per week to the contribution for all women, including not only married women, but single women and widows who are in employment. The whole of the additional benefit raised in this way would go to the married woman, who is the only person with the option not to pay the contributions, including the additional contribution, if she does not wish to do so.

The hon. Member for Sowerby rightly referred to the rates of unemployment and sickness benefit which are payable to the married woman who has to support and maintain a husband who is not able to maintain and support himself. In this Bill we have not forgotten the married woman. Clause 7 (1) provides a substantial safeguard for the married woman who is separated from her husband and who gets only a derisory amount in maintenance. I think that that is a very important concession to the married woman and that it will do quite a lot to help a married woman in these particularly difficult circumstances.

For the reasons which I have given, and above all the difference in status—there is no question of stigma—which there is between a married and a single woman, and the additional rights which she has and Which she has enjoyed since the 1946 Act came into force, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will see fit to withdraw his Amendment; but I must in any case advise the House not to accept it.

Mr. Prentice

I had not intended to speak on this Amendment but I feel compelled to do so with a certain feeling of indignation because of some of the points made by the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, and particularly because he did something which has been a constant habit of himself and his colleagues through the stages of this Bill—and on other occasions on which we have debated amendments to the National Insurance Scheme—and that is continually to hark back to the days of 1946 and to quote what Labour Ministers at the time said and did in that immediate post-war period. In the very early stages of comprehensive National Insurance they could not go further than they did. I think it a bit feeble that when in 1961, after years of experience, we come forward with amendments to the Scheme Ministers of today cannot do better than to make quotations from that earlier time. We must try to bring our thinking up to date on these matters, and although we do not expect Conservative Ministers to keep up with us, at least they should not be so far behind us as they are on some of these matters.

One of the points which the hon. Gentleman made was that in some way or another married women had smaller needs because they had husbands and because marriage was a partnership and they were given the normal support of their husbands, and all that. That, I think, is a rather dangerous argument, because the benefits laid down in the National Insurance Scheme are not subject to a test of means. The hon. Lady, quite rightly, on a previous Amendment, spoke about the Scheme providing an insurance and the interruption of earnings. All in the Scheme insure against interruption of earnings and, if they suffer interruption of earnings, to get the benefits of the Scheme irrespective of their means—in any other sense: it may be a private income, it may be help by other people. The benefits, however, are not subject to a means test.

It is really impossible to generalise about the means of married women. Their husbands may or may not be in good jobs. They may have very considerable outgoings and responsibilities. Their situations vary, just as do those of men or of single women. It is not fair to make this generalisation as a reason for discriminating against the benefits which married women could get.

If marriage is a partnership it is also a partnership the other way round: a man may be sick. May be his wife is earning quite good money, but that does not disqualify him from getting sickness benefit. That is not subject to any private means test.

Another point which the hon. Gentleman made was that married women had the privilege of opting out of the Scheme, but surely if a woman decides to opt into the Scheme and pays full contributions she ought in return to be entitled to the benefits on the same scale and of the same nature as other people who pay full contributions. I do not see why she should be penalised in any sense because she has the right to decide whether to come into the Scheme or not. If she has paid the rate she should get the benefits.

8.30 p.m.

The final point I would make is simply that gradually in other ways we are, I think, moving towards the concept of equality between men and women. The concept of equal pay for equal work has, after a very long struggle, been recognised amongst civil servants, teachers and other groups, and it will, we hope, in time spread to industry. I think that if it were in order I would say that we are not satisfied that the Minister of Labour will not meet the point of view of many of us that this country should ratify the I.L.O. convention on the subject. We hope to make some progress on that. The Government are negotiating to enter the European Common Market. The Treaty of Rome lays down certain rules about equality between men and women.

I should have thought that the general climate of opinion was moving towards this concept of equality, and it is very relevant to the Amendment, and I feel that in this matter as in others the Government ought to try to shift with the times and meet the points we are making.

Mr. Loughlin

I do not want to delay the House to any great extent but I am rather disappointed with the reply we have received from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary. If he was absolutely honest on this matter he would have restricted himself to the analysis on an actuarial basis. We appreciate that there is a higher incidence of unemployment and sickness among married women than among other groups of insured contributors. There are very good reasons for that.

I do not think it is quite as logical to argue that a married woman should not receive the same benefits largely or solely because—and this was the substance of the hon. Gentleman's case—she is entitled to maintenance by her husband. We are moving into a period, as one of the Minister's hon. Friend's said—not somebody on this side of the House—when it is recognised by almost everybody that women, married or otherwise, are entitled to go into industry and to reflect their personalities outside as well as inside the home. I do not know why the Minister looks so surprised about it. He was not here. If we accept this concept of industrial equality and we have an insurance scheme we ought to accept equality of rights under that scheme.

We pay to an insurance scheme not to insure the continuance of the same standard in the event of our having to suffer unemployment or sickness but to maintain a standard, a standard which constitutes at least a minimum comfort standard. There are quite a lot of women who go out to work today because their husbands—and here I am arguing the other side of the medal—are not in receipt of wages which will maintain anything like a comfort standard.

I know that it is quite customary for a lot of people today to talk about average earnings in industry, but I think the Minister will accept that in many trades and industries the husband's rate is a pretty low one. Let me quote just for example the laundry worker's rate. The rate of the Laundry Wages Council, about which some controversy has been raised in this House in the last three weeks, is £7 7s. 10d. The woman who is married to a laundry worker goes out to work and helps to augment the income. Between them they manage to maintain a decent standard. When the wife is sick she is entitled to the comfort standard reduced to the level of the sickness benefit, but in this case there is an additional reduction. There is something which is not equitable about this.

I appreciate the Department's problems in this matter on an actuarial basis but when we are considering this issue at a time when more and more married women go out to work it should be possible for the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to have another look at the problem. It creates an injustice, and even though it might require an increase in contribution to meet the problem—and I do not accept that it necessarily does—that is a hurdle which we have had to face in the past and which we shall have to face in the future. If the Minister will have a look at this problem with a view to adjusting this inequity he will do himself as well as other people justice.

Question put, That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill:—

The House proceeded to a Division; Mr. GORDON CAMPBELL and Mr. MICHAEL HAMILTON were appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.