§ 4. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Minister of Labour if he will make a statement on the number of working mothers in Britain as a whole and in Scotland alone, respectively, indicating the proportion to the whole population of Britain and Scotland, respectively.
§ Mr. HughesDoes the Minister realise that that Answer is quite unsatisfactory and insufficient? Does he realise that the facts referred to in the Question are an index of the very real and difficult social problem relating to wages being too low and also to juvenile delinquency? Will he say what efforts he is making to solve these problems?
§ Mr. HareThe hon. and learned Member will be interested to know that this information must be based on the census. In 1951 the Government of the day did not collect this information. I am glad to say that this Government, in 1961, have rectified that omission.
§ Mr. ManuelSurely the Minister will agree that this information is available? Is it not available in the employment exchanges and Ministry of Labour offices? He will know the number of women who are working and whether they are married or single. This is a matter of collating information.
§ Mr. HareI think the hon. Member is wrong. He is quite right in saying that we know the number of married women in employment, but we do not know how many of them are mothers.