Clause 1.—(REGULATION OF EMPLOY MENT OF WOMEN AFTER CHILDBIRTH.)

HC Deb 05 April 1963 vol 675 cc826-74

1.38 p.m.

Mrs. Judith Hart (Lanark)

I beg to move, in page 1, line 6, after, "of", to insert "married".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I think that it would be convenient to the House to discuss also the two Amendments in page 2, line 5: after "State", insert "married"; and after "includes", insert "married".

Mrs. Hart

It is logical to discuss these Amendments together. The Amendment which I have moved has important implications for a small but significant group of people who might well be adversely affected by the provisions of the Bill: that is to say, those who are unmarried mothers and who might seek employment after the birth of their babies and who might find that difficulties arise as a result of the existing provisions of the Bill. The Bill at the moment would, through regulations, restrict the employment of all. I seek by means of the Amendment to make the Bill no longer relate to the restricting of employment of unmarried women.

The concern about the position of the unmarried mother and her child is one that is growing year by year in the country as a whole. Indeed, there has been a considerable amount of discussion recently about the increasing rate of illegitimacy and of the consequences, serious as they are, both for the babies and the mothers who are put in this most unfortunate situation. There has been much discussion of the whole issue of sexual morality, particularly among teen-agers as a result of the increasing problem which is presented by illegitimacy and by the position of mother and baby.

There are two aspects to our concern about the problem. One is the concern we have for the baby. The other is the concern for the mother herself. I am sure that the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) will agree with me that we should be very anxious not to place the unmarried mother in greater difficulties than she has already to face in this very difficult position in which she finds herself, and therefore the question we need to ask is whether the Bill as it stands at the moment would put more difficulties in her way. I think it would.

The reason for my belief is the way in which employers will be liable to penalties under subsection (3), the penalties liable to be paid on conviction of Any person who knowingly requires or permits any woman in his employment to work in contravention of regulations …". So we are here immediately concerned with what position is going to be created by the employer knowingly employing a woman who has recently had a baby. What does it mean in relation to the employer who might seek to take into his employment a woman who has recently had a baby?

It seems to me that we have to have a pretty realistic picture of who are going to be the girls seeking to return to work before the period specified for their complete recovery. Let us look at what I think normally happens to a girl who has an illegitimate baby. Two things, I think, may happen.

The first is that she may be within the care of her family the whole time. She may be at home, she may go into hospital to have her child and may go back home afterwards, and her own mother may help to look after her and the child; the whole unfortunate episode will be, as it were, within the protection of the family. This very often happens, and it is a good thing that it very often happens. Where it does happen we need not have any serious concern that there will be a danger of the girl seeking to go back to work before she is fit to do so. There is no reason to believe that girls in this situation will be driven back to work too soon or are likely to be exposed to the pressures of an employer to bring them back to work too soon. In this situation no problem arises of the kind about which the noble Lord is concerned.

The second kind of situation is a very different one. This is where the girl is no longer in her own home. For various reasons she has left home, perhaps left the very town in which she was living, and gone somewhere else to have her baby. Many of the girls come to London to have their illegitimate babies, which is why we have such a high rate of illegitimacy in London, because of the number of girls who have left their own homes and sought the anonymity of London in which to have their babies. In this situation a girl is likely to be going to a home of some kind for the unmarried mother and her child. She will be under the care of the home, she and her baby, for a considerable period of time, whatever time is specified in the regulations—six weeks. At the end of it she will seek a place to live with her baby, or have the baby adopted. In either case, she is going to need to find a new job.

She is not likely to return to her old job, for she has left home and she will live in a new place with her illegitimate child to make a new start. She is—I believe this to be usually the case—trying to establish herself, perhaps as a widow or a divorced woman, in a respectable position in society with her child. Or if she has had the child adopted she is trying to start a new life with the past left behind her.

In this situation she applies for a job and goes to an employer. Here we are brought immediately face to face with what the employer is likely to ask her as a result of his concern that he shall not be exposed to any prosecution under this legislation as a result of the fact that he is knowingly employing a girl who has had a baby within a fairly recent period.

I know that the noble Lord believes that the inclusion of the word "knowingly" is adequate protection against the kind of pressures which I would imagine to exist upon the girl to give the facts about her recent past. I know, for example, that in a letter which emanated from the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to one of the organisations which have been very much concerned about the Bill—the Six Point Group—the Parliamentary Secretary said: It would be for the prosecution to show that the employer knew the woman had recently had a child, not for him to prove that he did not and could not have known. There will thus be no need at all for an employer to question his employees about their private lives to protect himself from prosecution, or for women to fear that they will be subjected to impertinent or embarrassing questions when they seek employment. I am sure that will be the general tenor of the Joint Parliamentary Secretary's answer when he replies to the debate.

Lord Balniel (Hertford)

The hon. Lady says that this is an added protection which I am putting into the Bill. What I should like to explain is that it is not an added protection. The word "knowingly" has been in the law since 1891. I make absolutely no alteration to the law on this subject. It has existed, so far as I know, without any difficulty since 1891.

Mrs. Hart

The noble Lord will understand that I am referring to one of the discussions in Committee and to what happened about the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Bill. Considerable emphasis was given to the fact that to include the word "knowingly" gives protection on this particular point. Certainly it stems from the past, but, as he will remember, this point was discussed on an Amendment moved to the other Bill and it is to that Bill I am referring.

What I am anxious about is how this will affect the employer, since the onus will be on the prosecution to establish the employer knew the girl had had a baby within the specified period of time. He will be likely to subject his potential employee to the kind of questions which might prevent the unmarried mother from making a new start. This is the point which should concern us.

It seems to me that this is not an adequate protection for her privacy. It is not an adequate protection of her anxiety that the facts about her recent past should not be known. It seems to me more than likely, when the girl comes to ask for a job and to be interviewed as a result of an advertisement for a vacancy, and she has a gap on her insurance card, that the employer, knowing that this Bill has just come into law, knowing that the interpretation of the word "knowingly" in a court of law may be a delicate matter, will seek to protect himself by making quite sure that he establishes the facts about his new employee who has a gap on her insurance card. He is more likely to say to her, "You do not have to tell me, but you realise that if I do not know the facts about you, it may be that I shall be involved in some legal trouble. I realise that this may be slightly embarrassing for you, but probably you have just been ill, or have been away having a holiday, or for some reason you have not been working in the last six weeks or two months, and if you can tell me why I shall feel in a safer position."

In nine cases out of ten, the girl would say to him, "I have been living in another part of the country. I have not been working; I have been staying with relatives." Or she might say, "I deliberately took two or three months away from work in order to do something else." But in the case where this is a girl who has had an illegitimate baby, who has had it adopted, and who is now seeking to start a new life, at this point it clearly becomes pretty impossible for her, unless she lies, to establish herself in this new job.

This is a point that is of tremendous importance. It involves a very serious principle. I do not know of any other public health legislation or of any factory legislation which seeks to inquire so personally into the private life of an individual as this provision in the Bill would seek to do.

Mr. Harold Lever (Manchester, Cheetham)

I am beginning to feel exceedingly apprehensive as a result of my hon. Friend's closely knit argument. I should like to ask her if any of these lamentable consequences have been observed in relation to the legislation already in force on this subject. Has it produced these dire results? Have any young ladies who have had illegitimate children experienced these anxieties, difficulties and cross-examination about their previous positions, and the like? Perhaps the hon. Lady would add to my anxieties by telling me that these horrible things have occurred or lighten them by telling me that they are only hypothetical?

Mrs. Hart

I wish that I could give my hon. Friend a satisfactory answer. At later stages of the Bill, one of my other objections is that there is no evidence of the need for this legislation at all. There is no evidence that the question arises in practical terms about a girl going back to work too soon after having had a baby. I think that my hon. Friend's question could have been more appropriately addressed to the hon. Member for Hertford. Perhaps he can provide evidence of the number of cases in which he has known of unmarried mothers going back to work too soon after having had their babies, or say whether he has any facts at all about who are the women who have had babies who go back to work, when they go back to work, and what is the factual background of the Bill.

I can assure my hon. Friend that, as far as I am aware, there is no evidence at all, and I hope to refer a little later to one investigation carried out within the last year or two. The noble Lord may know of a book, dealing with the subject of mothers who are working, in which the point was made that there is a lamentable dearth of any information about the number of women who are working. I cannot offer any reassurance to my hon. Friend, and all I can say is that, in the absence of any evidence, my deductions as to what is likely to happen are fairly realistic.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Mr. Bernard Braine)

I have tried to follow the hon. Lady's argument. Can she say whether there have been any instances in respect of factory employment—where, after all, these provisions have existed for a good many years, more than half a century—of undue pressure being brought to bear in this respect upon women who have had illegitimate babies?

Mrs. Hart

With respect to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary, I would have thought that the onus of giving evidence to show the need for including the provision in the Bill was a matter for him rather than for me. It would seem to me that there is every reason to suppose that it is right that one should treat differently, in relation to employment and regulations seeking to restrict employment, unmarried mothers from mothers who have a settled home background.

Mr. Braine

I do not think that the hon. Lady has grasped the point. What my noble Friend is seeking to do is not to introduce anything that is frightfully new. He is hoping to introduce something that is more flexible. We have had this prohibition of work for women after childbirth being employed in factories for well over half a century. If all these fears and anxieties about the pressure which a poor girl who has had an illegitimate baby seems to be subjected to, there should be some evidence, should there not, that girls in factory employment over the last half century have been subjected to this? I wonder whether the hon. Lady could give examples of this.

Mrs. Hart

The hon. Gentleman has not answered my point. Can the Joint Parliamentary Secretary give me any instance of any prosecutions under the old legislation in the last ten or twenty years? To the best of my belief, that legislation is dead.

I asked the Minister this question in the House a few weeks ago: how many prosecutions there had been? He was unable to tell me and said that it was a matter for local authorities to engage in prosecution. I have consulted one or two medical officers of health and I can assure the Joint Parliamentary Secretary that the initial reaction of the medical officers of health is to say, "If you will give me an hour or two I will try to trace the particular legislation I am supposed to prosecute under." To the best of my belief, the legislation is dead, and therefore the question he has asked me is unrealistic.

Mr. Braine

The hon. Lady is drawing entirely the wrong conclusions from the facts. The legislation is not dead. The legislation has been very effective. She cannot give any instance and she will not attempt to give any instance down the years where women have been disadvantaged as a result of factory legislation. In modern conditions it may well be argued that the four weeks' rigid prohibition which applies to factory workers ought to be varied, as I understand it would be in my hon. Friend's Bill, in order to take account of differing circumstances, differing kinds of employment, differing conditions where the mother and her child are concerned. The point, of course, is that the absence of any large number of prosecutions over the years testifies to the adequacy and strength of the legislation rather than otherwise. If this were not the case, if the legislation to which the hon. Lady refers were a dead letter, it seems very odd that the trade unions, the T.U.C. and the Gowers Committee and all the other learned bodies and Members of Parliament—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

I do not want to be unhelpful, but I think that the House should remember that we are on Report stage and we must not proceed as if we were in Committee.

2.0 p.m.

Mrs. Hart

While I am grateful, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for your protection in the debate on this Amendment, I appreciate that the Parliamentary Secretary was trying to draw attention to some of the fundamental issues involved. I shall not seek to follow him. On the question he asked me about evidence of pressure on unmarried girls as a result of this provision, I would merely ask him to appreciate that in so far as the situation in 1963 in regard to the whole field of women's employment is wholly different from that in 1891 when the first provision came into being, not only can I argue that the legislation is dead—and the Minister cannot prove me wrong because there is no way of making it susceptible to proof—but I can also maintain—and the Minister cannot dispute this—that the number of occasions on which girls seek to return to work before they are completely fit to do so is infinitesimal. Therefore, not only is there no basis for rejecting the Amendment but there is no basis for the Bill at all. That is the point at issue.

I would argue as forcibly as I can that even those hon. Members who want the Bill, who are sufficiently enmeshed in nineteenth century ideas to believe it is necessary, should look very carefully at the fundamental point of individual freedom which arises in relation to the inclusion in legislation which is bound to involve revealing facts about personal private lives of married women and unmarried women in one "umbrella" category. There are, clearly, important and relevant differences which must be taken into account in the situation arising in relation to each of them.

I give one instance of what might happen. This is to assume that there will be a few girls who because of the force of economic circumstances—perhaps they want to keep their babies and look after them, and are finding themselves a room where they can do so, with perhaps somebody to look after the baby, such as the landlady, or there may be a day nursery close at hand—want their jobs back as soon as possible, because that is the only means by which they can support themselves and their children. In this type of case, of which there will be a limited number, it might happen that a girl would be anxious to go back to work before she was quite fit to do so. Against this has to be set the fact that because of the provision that the employer will be exposed to prosecution if he knowingly employs the girl, he is bound to subject her to questioning. I cannot see how he can avoid it. If he avoids questioning her and, therefore, can say in court, "I knew nothing about it; I did not know I was employing a girl who had recently had a baby", the whole legislation becomes absurd and there is no basis for it at all. This would bring the law into disrepute.

If the employer is conscientious in seeking to obey the law and not knowingly permit a woman to work for him in these circumstances, he must seek to reassure himself to some degree that he is not knowingly breaking the law. In that case he is bound to expose potential employees to some degree of questioning if there seems to be any doubt about the matter. He may say, "It is all right. I can be prosecuted only if the prosecution proves that I knew the girl had had a baby. So I will not ask her anything about it, even though I suspect that she may have had a baby. Then in court I can say, 'I knew nothing about it', and the prosecution will not be able to prove that I did". That would bring the law into disrepute. It would be a matter of an employer finding a way of avoiding a successful prosecution under the Bill.

One or other of these things is bound to happen. The noble Lord cannot have it both ways. If he includes unmarried women in his legislation at the same time as he is including a provision about an employer knowingly allowing her to work for him in these circumstances, one or other of the situations is bound to arise. I cannot see any possible basis for this carelessness. I know haw well intentioned the noble Lord is and that he would not willingly do anything which would have an adverse effect an unmarried mothers, but there seems to be a certain degree of carelessness in seeking to deal in the same way with two situations which should be dealt with differently.

Mrs. Patricia McLaughlin (Belfast, West)

There is one point that seems to have been forgotten, and that is that later on Report an Amendment will be moved which definitely states that if a medical certificate is provided it will not necessarily be required to state that the woman has had a child. This will be a matter for the doctor. If the doctor produces a certificate saying that the woman, having been off incapacitated, is now fit to work, this is perfectly satisfactory. This does not raise any question whatever. An unmarried mother can go with the medical certificate and there will be no further argument; the employer will be protected and there will be no discussion and no revelation of what the certificate stands for. That would be implicit. The general tone of the Bill is twentieth century, because the pressures on women are getting greater, and, whether we like it or not, we still have the old-fashioned way of having children, and so we must have some protection on that score.

Mrs. Hart

I should be out of order if I anticipated debates on later Amendments. However, I hope to be able at a later stage fully to agree with the hon. Lady that there are tremendous economic pressures which seek to drive women back to work. The noble Lord ought to seek to deal with the economic pressure and not purely to introduce restrictive legislation which takes no account of the economic factors which are the only reality of the situation.

As to the point about he medical certificate, this is anticipating a later Amendment, and I do not, therefore, seek to answer it in detail. I would merely say that if the situation which the noble Lord is envisaging as a result of his Amendment is that of a woman who has been away from work, either because she has been ill or because she has been having a baby, and is eligible for adequate insurance benefits or paid leave while away from work, and returns to work with a medical certificate, there is no need for the Bill at all.

The implications of the question with regard to the unmarried mother are very serious. It must be recognised that to the extent that it is made more difficult for an unmarried mother to start life again with her child there will be an increase in illegal abortion. That is indisputable. There are two ways of dealing with this immense and worrying problem of the increase in illegal abortion. One is to make abortion legal. The other is to make it more socially acceptable for the unmarried mother and her child to take their place in society. One or the other method must be adopted.

I suggest that if the Bill treats the unmarried mother in the same way as the married woman with her settled home and family and does not take account of the special difficulties that face the girl with an illegitimate child, it will be one more thing which will tend to increase the chances that a girl will try to have an abortion rather than have her child.

I hope that the noble Lord will regard this as a perfectly genuine Amendment which seeks to improve this Bill by eliminating one of the dangers that might result. I urge him to accept this improvement to the Clause.

Mr. Charles Curran (Uxbridge)

The hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) has made a most persuasive case for the Amendment. It is a case which must be answered. But, having listened to her with great interest, I believe that while the purpose of the Amendment is reasonable she has not gone far enough. I follow her argument about the differential handicap imposed upon unmarried women unless we give them the protection she urges. But she should have gone a good deal further. She should have faced the basic question posed by this Clause. How far is it the business of the Ministry or of anybody in this century to make regulations restricting the employment of women? That is the key question.

As the hon. Lady suggests, the Amendment would go a small way towards removing one disadvantage from the great area of disadvantages created by the Bill. But it is idle to discuss this question in isolation from the general issues raised by the Clause. As things stand, we have the practice, dating from the 1890s, of making regulations for the purpose of preventing women who have had children from going back to work in certain jobs. As my noble Friend has pointed out, this Bill derives from 1891.

My noble Friend is entitled to argue that what he is doing is not to impose fresh liabilities on women but to accept the protection that some classes of women have been given and extend it to others. But to discuss the Bill on that basis, or to defend it on that basis, is unreal. It does not take account of contemporary conditions.

In the British labour market today, two thirds of the people are women—eight million of them. It was very different in 1891. Roughly half of these women are married. Thus, when legislating about the employment of women, whether married or unmarried, I do not think that it gets us very far to base ourselves on the background of 1891. We must base ourselves on the contemporary scene and accept that more and more women go to work and that we have to look very narrowly at any Bill which seeks to restrict their access to the labour market, however well intentioned the attempt to impose these restrictions.

We must decide what our first principles are to be. Are we to base ourselves on any assumptions, tacit or implicit, that women, because they are women, must have imposed on them by law restraints in the labour market which do not apply to men? This Bill would impose restraints, although with the best intentions. In a free society we have not the right to impose restraints upon women because of their sex, no matter what motives may animate us in seeking so to do.

There is very little need—indeed I can see no need—in the labour market at present for the passing of laws restricting the access of women. It seems to me that the normal mechanisms of the labour market will give them any protection they need. There is no need for us to pass a law forbidding the employment of women as weight lifters any more than there is need for us to forbid the employment of men as nursemaids. The normal processes of selection in the labour market will look after that. There is not the smallest necessity for this House to create artificial restraints where the normal processes will provide all the protection that is needed.

We have to consider whether or not we believe in sex equality. This House would not dream of passing a law to say that when a man has been in hospital for an operation he should not be permitted to go back to work for a specified time. No one would say that after emerging from hospital he should be restricted from returning to work when he feels like it. The question that my noble Friend must answer is why he thinks it necessary in the 1960s to legislate for women as such.

2.15 p.m.

Lord Balniel

The discretion as to when a mother returns to work after her baby rests, under my Bill, solely in the hands of herself and her doctor. No restriction at all will be placed on the mother.

Mr. Curran

I do not think that my noble Friend meets the point. The Clause asserts that Any person who knowingly requires or permits any woman in his employment to work in contravention of regulations under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding sixty pounds. Why should there be regulations at all? Why make any regulations? It can be argued that there is need for them. But the burden of proof rests upon those who suggest that there is need. I am not satisfied that the burden of proof has been discharged so far.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that we are discussing three Amendments—whether or not to insert the word "married". That is the detail upon which which we are engaged.

Mr. Curran

I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. Perhaps I missed my way. But I am certain that the question raised by the Amendment is one that goes further than the alteration proposed by the hon. Lady.

Mrs. Hart

To the extent that there is a need for regulations at all, and only to that extent and within that context, one can discuss what one needs to do about married, as opposed to unmarried, women.

Mr. Curran

I appreciate that. The hon. Lady is supporting my argument that we must consider whether we are discussing the position of married women or of unmarried mothers. We must ask ourselves what our assumptions are. There is a strong case for saying in the 1960s that we should leave these matters to be settled by the woman through her own decision as to when she is to go back to work. We do not impose such a restraint on men who have been in hospital. I do not see why we should impose it on women. I suggest that the whole approach of the Bill is wrong.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. That is just what the hon. Gentleman should not do. He should not suggest anything about the whole approach of the Bill. These three Amendments deal with the same narrow point.

Mr. Curran

I quite agree, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. But I point out that the Clause and the Amendments derive from the approach which the Bill makes, and I am looking at the Amendments against the assumptions on which they are based—assumptions which I want to challenge. No case has been made for imposing restraints, either upon married or unmarried mothers, of the kind that this Clause suggests. I hope that the House will not accept the Clause.

Mr. H. Lever

The resentful feminism of my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) and the uncompromising Manchester liberalism of the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) smell more of the nineteenth century than of the mid-twentieth century. One might say that this resentful feminism and Manchester liberalism make surprising bed fellows, especially in a context of illegitimate births. Perhaps it will give those who take my hon. Friend's view on this matter pause to think when, as must inevitably happen in the near future, a Labour Government comes into office and gives effect, or attempts to give effect to the international convention on this subject, and the economic requirements for which my hon. Friend has justly argued, although slightly out of order, are incorporated, from the Opposition Benches, opposing not this but the much more enlightened Bill which the Labour Government would bring in and which would give effect to the international con- vention, will be heard the very arguments which my hon. Friend has just addressed to the House.

Every argument which my hon. Friend has directed against the noble Lord's Bill would be equally effective in opposing that Bill, including the Clauses recommended by the International Labour Office which my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark has so warmly supported from time to time. My hon. Friend might be the Minister in charge of such a humane Measure under a Labour Government. We might hear her own words thrown back at her. She might be told that she was proposing further illegal abortions among unmarried mothers. The argument used by my hon. Friend was rather horrifying hyperbole. Are we really to suppose that there is liable to be an increase in illegal abortions because young ladies will be afraid of meeting an exacting cross-examination when they return to work at their places of employment?

Mr. Curran

I do not want to intervene in the private debating match which the hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. H. Lever) wants to start with his hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart). When he accuses her of obstinate feminism and me of moth-eaten Manchesterism, or whatever his phrase was, I ask him to consider the friends and allies and colleagues who think with the hon. Lady and who have their criticisms of the Clause. To start with, we have the support of the National Council of Women.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran) is quite out of order on more than one count.

Mr. Lever

I am perfectly well aware that when one takes up a matter of this kind one is at best floating a frail raft of masculine rationality upon the turbulent sea of feminine prejudice, and I am therefore not in the least surprised to find that the National Council of Women supports the argument which my hon. Friend has put to the House; but if the hon. Member for Uxbridge will contain his soul in patience, I will elaborate upon my criticism of his contribution. I want, first, to warn my hon. Friend of mixing in dangerous company, because her arguments will defeat the very purpose which she so cordially supports.

Mrs. Hart

I fail to see the logic of my hon. Friend's argument that if one provides paid leave and increased benefits for women having babies, whether married or unmarried, that will lead to an increase in difficulties for the unmarried mother that result from pure prohibition, as in the Bill.

Mr. Lever

If an employer were prohibited from employing people too soon after they had had a baby because State assistance was provided to the unmarried mother, which is what my hon. Friend has urged, the unmarried mother would be liable to precisely the same cross-examination as would result from the Bill. What I am arguing is that the Bill does not provide any of the social welfare financial benefits which my hon. Friend desires, but that if they were added to the Bill that would not make the slightest difference to the narrow point which we are now discussing.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

I wander whether the hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. H. Lever) would explain how these benefits could possibly be added to the Bill while we are discussing three Amendments dealing with the one restricted point.

Mr. Lever

May I respectfully submit that I am perfectly in order. The argument has ranged thus: my hon. Friend has said that the Clause as it stands cannot be accepted and that we must protect the unmarried mother, and that is what the Amendment is about; she said that if we did not protect the unmarried mother by accepting the Amendment we would get a frightful increase in the already appalling level of illegal abortions. What I am pointing out to my hon. Friend is that even if we had these wonderful financial provisions, the argument would still be maintainable by someone moving a similar Amendment to a slightly different Bill containing a similar Clause but complying with the provisions which my hon. Friend now wishes to incorporate. I also think that my hon. Friend is mistaken in supposing that the Bill must result in detailed cross-examination or become a dead letter and an insult to our law, as it were. There are many in-between situations.

Pregnancy is not altogether unobservable in employees, and if one wanted to sustain a charge against an employer of employing a woman within a month of her giving birth to a baby, one of the matters which might come into the consideration would be whether the lady had worked more for an employer during her period of pregnancy so that the employer knew that she took time off not because of toothache but in order to be delivered of a baby.

Mrs. Hart

The essential point about the girl with the illegitimate baby is that she seeks to go to a new place of work and not to the old place; so that the question of her pregnancy does not arise.

Mr. Lever

My hon. Friend has alleged that the Amendment is necessary to protect the woman against searching cross-examination; when it is suggested that there will not be any searching cross-examination of a female employee, she says that the law must be a dead letter. I am giving her an example in which it would not be a dead letter. It is the example of someone who had worked for an employer and who had gone back to the same place of employment after she had had her baby. If she came back within a month of having the baby, a prosecution would be sustainable on evidence that the lady had worked at the factory up to 31st January, say, had been away for a fortnight to have a baby and had then resumed employment. The case would rest on the fact that pregnancy is observable in its ninth month to most human eyes and in most individual cases. Consequently the law would not be a dead letter.

For any young lady whose pregnancy was observable and whose failure to attain the married state had been noted in the factory, the place she came back to would be precisely the place of employment where, as it were, she had made peace with her reputation. If she had gone on working, as many unmarried mothers do, in a factory or in some other normal place of employment—and this happens in very exalted employment these days and it is probably just as well—the unmarried mother-to-be who continued to work in her employment—and it is difficult to get new employment when one is pregnant—would have to continue where she had been working and where her pregnancy would have been perfectly observable by the employer and the employees. When she went off to have her baby, that fact would inevitably be known to the employer.

Leaving aside the fact that most employers do not deliberately wish to break the law and hence would wish to observe such a law if it were brought into being, any employer who employed a female employee who went off to have a baby and who returned a fortnight later would be bound at law to risk of prosecution if the Bill were carried into law.

Accordingly, I do not think that my hon. Friend has made her case, that there must either be a fabulous cross-examination of unmarried mothers or the law will fall into disrepute and disuse. I am confirmed in that view by my knowledge of factory conditions in the mid-twentieth century and by the fact that no such complaint has been raised in relation to existing legislation and by the fact that my hon. Friend and those who hold her view of the Bill are very anxious to have the Bill, with all its terrifying implications, provided that they can get some other irrelevant—irrelevant to this issue—if desirable benefits. In all the circumstances. I am bound to reject by hon. Friend's attempt to make my flesh creep and I consider that her case against the Clause and for the Amendment fails.

2.30 p.m.

The hon. Member for Uxbridge must not distort the reality of the situation. The arguments that he was addressing to the House were confidently and self-righteously addressed to the House of Commons in the last century every time an effort was made to improve working conditions for anybody. Every time an effort was made to save young children being driven to the pits at an early age, people with views similar to those held by the hon. Gentleman self-righteously defended the right to exploit these children by saying that they had the same right of access to the labour market as anybody else, and why should the House of Commons or anybody else intimidate their parents by threatening them with fines and imprisonment if they sent their children to work at a tender age?

Mr. Curran

By using that illustration the hon. Gentleman is giving away his case. He is asserting that we have to treat everyone as though they were children. I am asserting that we should consider this problem from the point of view of adults having access to the labour market.

Mr. Lever

I am saying that the arguments which the hon. Gentleman used today were similar to those used in the last century to oppose every form of social advance. I am not an expert on the subject, but regulations have been made to keep women out of certain dangerous occupations. The hon. Gentleman may be unable to recognise any distinction between male and female in industrial employment, or in human capacity, or even in physiological weaknesses but the law has recognised it, and I suspect that most sensible people also have recognised that there is a difference between male and female in the capacity to endure certain industrial conditions.

The hon. Gentleman will fairly say to the House that we should leave it to the market; that, after all, the market can deal with these things. But if the market is able effectively to deal with these things, we shall not do any harm by reinforcing the market by stating what is the national conscience in a Statute and making it illegal for those who are not curbed by the market to be curbed by law. The hon. Gentleman is defeating his own argument. If the market will prevent women going back to work too soon after childbirth in accordance with the objective standard which we might expect from the Minister, then no woman will lose any of the precious liberty which the hon. Gentleman is busy defending by reason of the Bill because she will not go back to work anyway. The market will see that she does not have access to work prematurely and the Bill will merely be declaratory of the consequences of the market.

Mr. Curran

The hon. Gentleman is not discussing this Bill at all if he is using that line of reasoning, because the Clause imposes on employers of women certain penalties which it would not impose if women were not being employed. How can he say that the market mechanism will do that, if we are interfering with it in the Bill he is supporting.

Mr. Lever

The hon. Gentleman must make up his mind. The market mechanism in the mid-twentieth century is such that it would not bring pressure to bear on women to go back to work prematurely. If that be so, then any law we pass preventing women from going back to work prematurely would merely be declaratory of what would be the effect of the market. If the market does not prevent women from going back to work prematurely after childbirth, surely we stand in need of precisely the interference with the market which the Bill proposes to introduce?

The Bill is harmless if it declares in law what would be the result of market forces. It is not interfering with anybody's freedom. On the other hand, if market forces allow women to go back prematurely then it is time the market forces were interfered with in the manner intended by the Bill, precisely in the way in which men and women of good will throughout the world intend to interfere with market forces, as evidenced by the International Labour Organisation on the subject, and precisely in the way in which the market is interfered with in almost every civilised country in the world.

I beg my hon. Friend not to support an argument as reactionary as that adopted by the hon. Member for Uxbridge. My hon. Friend should see the error of her ways. Whatever the merits of the Bill as a whole, I beg her not to put forward arguments of the kind she has done, nor to support the arguments adduced by the hon. Gentleman, that the Bill proposes to impose restraints on women, that it proposes to impose unfair disadvantages on women, and so on. The Bill does not make women pregnant, and it does not bring about the physical disadvantage that results from delivering a child. This is due to providence and to the structure of the human female.

Mr. Speaker

Order. I have only just returned to the Chair and I am somewhat puzzled to relate the hon. Gentleman's observations to these Amendments to which they must be confined.

Mr. Lever

I do not dispute that in the course of endeavouring to reach a suitable peroration I have strayed slightly from the strict words of the Amendment.

Mr. Speaker

I should much dislike to do anything to interrupt that.

Mr. Lever

I shall bring my argument to a close. The two arguments are purely reactionary. There is the argument of the feminist mind and the argument of the excessively Manchester nineteenth century liberal mind. Whatever the House does with the Bill as a whole, I beg hon. Members not to accept either of the arguments advanced against the Clause.

Miss Joan Vickers (Plymouth, Devonport)

I had not intended to take part in this discussion, because I have a later Amendment on the Notice Paper. It is a stronger Amendment than the one under discussion, but I intervene because of what was said by the hon. Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. H. Lever) about feminism and what might happen if his party came to power.

I thought that in these days feminism was as dead as the other things suggested by the hon. Gentleman. We are not doing this as feminists but purely on the basis that women should have an equal right to work as and when they think right, and that is why the Amendment was put forward by the hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart).

If the hon. Gentleman and his party come to power I hope that it will have a forward look at the question of employing unmarried women, because there is the new international convention on maternity which proposes to give leave of absence in connection with childbirth, based upon a certificate of incapacity for her work given to her by her doctor, and we are working towards this. It is for this reason that I support not the Amendment but the general purpose of the hon. Lady, and it is the reason why I do not like the Bill as it stands.

This is going back to the ancient legislation mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran). We are looking forward to the new type of international convention which I think will be very much preferable to having these selective Bills—

Mr. Speaker

Order. As far as I can see, all these benefits would be the same whether or not these Amendments were accepted. It is the issues arising on the Amendments that we can discuss now.

Mrs. McLaughlin

I recognise that it is difficult to deploy all the arguments affecting the Amendments and keep within the terms of your Ruling, but I shall do my best, and as briefly as possible.

The arguments which have been put forward from both sides of the House have been put forward with the idea that everything affecting women's rights and women's right to be equal in every sense is paramount. This is one of the difficulties in discussing the Amendment, because whereas we want to recognise equality in every sense, there are some things in which both sexes cannot be equal, and there are certain times when we have to recognise that there are special circumstances which apply to one sex, and the Amendments endeavour to prevent the special circumstances pertaining to this Bill. The hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) has put forward an able argument for virtually altering and preventing the passage of the Bill by tabling so many Amendments, the first of which we are discussing.

Mrs. Hart

Surely the hon. Lady must recognise that it is the duty of every hon. Member to try to improve Bills if they seem to be in need of improvement? If a Bill needs improving, that is not the fault of hon. Members on this side of the House.

Mrs. McLaughlin

That is just the point that I am coming to. I am certain that the hon. Lady is endeavouring to improve the Bill, but I am equally certain that this Amendment will not do so. Let us take, first, the case of the unmarried mother, about which the hon. Lady made such a powerful argument. There has been a great deal of concentration upon the problem of the unmarried mother and her child. Many organisations endeavour to look after both, and in all those organisations we find that the endeavour is to keep the mother and child together as much as possible until such time as the mother, thinking calmly and carefully, is able to decide whether she wants to keep her child or to have it adopted.

There is no question of rushing through this process in a couple of weeks, or even six weeks. All the societies involved in helping women in this way are anxious that they must have time to be able to arrive at a true decision for themselves. Many pressures are put upon a woman to go back to work as early as possible, and the period of six weeks is the period recommended by the medical profession as being the shortest period after childbirth before which a woman can be examined in order to determine whether she is properly fit to return to work. Not many medical practitioners would wish that time to be shortened.

When we are discussing the problem of equality, and the rights of women, we must remember that there are different aspects of these rights. I am anxious that we should not forget that when we are dealing with married women the question is not so difficult. We must try to prevent unmarried women being discriminated against, but we must take into account the fact that the physiological condition of all women, married or unmarried will be the same, in the question of having a child.

The future of the child is very important. If the Amendment were accepted I feel that it would help to force the separation of the mother and the child before the mother was in a fit mental state to make a final decision upon the child's future. In trying to avoid the creation of special protective legislation we must ensure that we are not sweeping away some protections which already exist.

It is difficult for anyone to say what will happen if access to the labour market is changed. At the moment heavy pressures are put on women to return to work as quickly as possible after childbirth. Many employees are almost forced back because they are skilled or key people, and their employers do not want to have to take on someone else and train them, or to do without their former employees longer than is absolutely necessary. This situation applies to all sorts of work, whether it be manual, skilled, or purely intellectual. We cannot get away from the fact that these pressures do exist today.

I know personally two or three women who have gone back to work sooner than they should have done. If they had waited for a few months they would have realised that it would have been wrong to go back earlier, because they would have known that they were not then completely fit, and able to say, "I am now in a position to go back to work, because I feel utterly well." A woman may feel absolutely well and able to return to her past business life, but she may soon find that the work is a little harder than she expected, whereas if she had waited a few more weeks and relaxed completely, and taken up her previous occupation without any haste, and quite normally, she would have been much healthier.

If the Amendment were carried it would act to the detriment of the unmarried mother more than anyone else. It would make certain that one type of mother was different from another. Society now tries to help the unmarried mother to fulfil her job as a mother as well as possible, and to do what she can for her child. If the Amendment were accepted it would mean that only those women with the word "Mrs." before their names would derive benefit from the Bill. It is quite easy for a woman to change her name by deed poll and become a "Mrs.", and to have her insurance cards altered, and so on. That would defeat the purpose of the Amendment.

Mrs. Hart

That would be quite all right, because the woman would not then be placed in the position of an unmarried mother, with no protection and no status. If she were accepted as a "Mrs." everything would be all right.

2.45 p.m.

Mrs. McLaughlin

Then there is no reason for the Amendment. The majority of unmarried mothers who decide to keep their children take on the honorary title of "Mrs.", and there would appear to be no real reason for the Amendment.

Mr. Braine

But would it be all right? Is not there a second party to be considered—the child? Would my hon. Friend like to develop that argument?

Mrs. McLaughlin

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I have not yet had sufficient time to develop my argument about the future of the child, but I shall move on to that as quickly as possible.

The child has its place in the community, and it has its rights. I believe that there is no such thing as an illegitimate child; there are only illegitimate parents. The concern of this House must be to see that no unnecessary difficulties are placed in the way of the child's happiness in life if it is born outside wedlock. The whole object today is to allow such a child to develop as naturally as possible. The child should have some say in what its future will be. It cannot do this for itself, so we, in Parliament, together with other authorities, have to act for it, and decide whether it should stay with its mother or be separated from her.

I should be out of order in discussing the economic aspects of the matter, which are outside the terms of reference of the Bill. They are matters for the Ministry of Health. But I am convinced that our object should be to endeavour to allow the natural relationship of mother and child to exist in this modern society and that childbirth should not be regarded as something for a mother to take in her stride and then, after two or three weeks, when she is positive that she is better, to rush back to work. This may be all right for some married women in industry and professional life, but it may be a very different matter for the much smaller number of unmarried mothers in the same category.

The whole problem comes back to the child. If the child is to have a fair start in life its mother should not be anxiety-ridden from the time the child is born; she should not be worrying all the time how quickly she should return to work. We must try to create a climate of opinion and practice which says that whether a child is born at home or not, the mother should have six weeks in which to devote her attention to bringing the child forward into a healthy and satisfactory life. For at least that period she should not be subjected to undue outside pressures.

If she happens to be a woman whose physiological condition enables her to take childbirth fairly lightly, she and her medical adviser have the right to decide between them that she can return to work earlier. Furthermore, if the child should be stillborn, or so badly deformed that it has to be taken away from the mother and put into hospital, her medical adviser can help her to decide when to return to work. No one else should have the right to do so.

The hon. Lady talked about the nineteenth century. This is the twentieth century, and the faster and more rapidly children are forced into an unnatural relationship, in the modern, high pressure world in which we live, the more difficult it is for them to develop as stable citizens. It would be wrong to accept the Amendment, because the Bill does not seek to put women back into the nineteenth century; it merely seeks to provide that on one occasion when a woman cannot be equal to a man—during the period when she produces a child—there should be a little oasis of time in which she is free, by right, not to be forced to return to work by her employer. Women should have the opportunity to regain their health without outside pressures. Whether it be the nineteenth, the twentieth or the twenty-first century, as far as we can see this provision will become increasingly and not less necessary.

Mr. Richard Marsh (Greenwich)

The hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) made the point that we did not live in the nineteenth century. I should have thought from her speech, when she spoke of nineteenth century paternalism and of women having babies, that that was something which the House would applaud. The hon. Lady said that no woman should be forced against her will to go back to work when she wants time to look round. The whole objection that some have to this part of the Bill is precisely that it takes the ability to make the decision out of the woman's hands and says that we in Parliament shall decide whether a woman can be employed within a period of six weeks after the birth of her baby.

This Amendment dealing with the unmarried mother is an important one. It is not an argument about equality, about women's rights. It is an argument about the specific inequalities between unmarried and married mothers, and those inequalities are primarily economic. One of the big factors in determining whether the unmarried mother keeps her child or not is her ability to produce the economic wherewithal to keep it. To say that for six weeks an unmarried mother cannot work is to increase the economic difficulties with which she is faced.

The other factor to which I object is this. I note that my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. H. Lever) is rumbling away.

Mr. H. Lever

The same argument would surely apply to any other regulation for the protection of ill people or women in factories, that it reduces their ability to earn, and if there happened to be unmarried mothers in the cases we are discussing it would reduce the possibility of their earning money for their children.

Mr. Marsh

I should have thought that many people, including my hon. Friend, would now accept that there is at least a difference between a woman having a baby and a woman having an injury, certainly over a period of six weeks. What we are asking is that the unmarried mother shall not be forced into a position where she cannot earn a living for a period of six weeks in the event of this Bill becoming law.

But there is another factor, a very real factor, and that is that it makes it an offence for an employer knowingly to employ a woman who does not—the noble Lord looks worried—

Lord Balniel

I am staggered by the hon. Gentleman's argument. I have here a copy of a part of the Bill which the hon. Gentleman introduced and which has commanded universal support of the Conservative benches, the Opposition benches and the Liberal benches. The Bill was introduced only three years ago and it contains the following words: The Secretary of State may provide by regulations for restricting the employment of women in offices after childbirth. There is no discrimination there at all between the married and the unmarried woman.

Mr. Marsh

The noble Lord has made a perfectly fair point, and my only answer to it is that these matters were not made with the crystal clear clarity on that occasion with which my hon. Friend has made them this afternoon. I would also make the point that that passage was included subsequent to the drafting of that Bill, but that I did not draft it, that it was not in the original Bill, and that, subsequently, an Amendment was included with the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House.

However, whatever has happened—and I accept responsibility for it—the position of the unmarried mother is, I think, a very real one, and a very different one. It places upon the employer the task of establishing whether any member of his female staff has just had a baby or has not. Whatever one says, the position in relation to unmarried mothers ought to be, and I should have thought—[Interruption.] Of course they are different standards, different conditions. I wish that unmarried mothers were treated in the same way as married mothers, but they are not.

It is not only embarrassing but it can be a serious handicap to an unmarried mother for it to be known that she is, in fact, an unmarried mother. It can equally be a handicap to the child in these circumstances. A Bill which makes it an offence for an employer knowingly to employ a woman who has had a baby within a period of six weeks and which forces the woman to make the fact known to her employer, especially in a small town, is not in the mother's interest.

Mr. Braine

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, but for the sake of clarity could he pursue the matter a little further? He is aware, of course, that these restrictions have obtained in regard to factory employment for a very long time, that is to say, in respect of married and unmarried women. Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that the protection given to all women under factory legislation should be repealed?

Mr. Marsh

There is a difference, I should have thought, between the employment of women in manual occupations and their employment in completely non-manual occupations.

Mr. Braine

If there is no evidence that women who have had illegitimate babies have been placed under any undue pressure as a result of the factory legislation, what is the argument for saying that this will happen in other forms of employment, especially when the Bill provides additional safeguards in respect of the doctor's certificate?

Mr. Marsh

If the hon. Gentleman really believes that it is no embarrassment and no inconvenience for an unmarried mother, for example, in a small town, to be forced by law to declare to her employer that she had a baby within the last six weeks—

Lord Balniel

That is not the case.

Mr. Braine

I must apologise for interrupting the hon. Gentleman once again, but there is no evidence that such a woman is so forced under present circumstances, and my point is that if this does not happen in factories, why should it happen, and how will it happen, in respect of other forms of employment?

Mr. Marsh

Because it is impossible for an employer to operate an Act which says that a woman should not be employed for a period of six weeks unless he knows that she is pregnant or has had a baby.

3.0 p.m.

Mrs. Hart

May I intervene in my hon. Friend's argument to put this point to him? The Bill insists that prosecutions will be made against an employer who knowingly permits a woman to be employed? In a letter the Joint Parliamentary Secretary wrote to a member of a woman's organisation, he insisted that the onus of proof will be on the prosecution, which is clearly unrealistic, unless one is to accept the idea that the employer will conscientiously have sought to observe the law by not knowingly having employed the woman. There is the additional point, which the noble Lord and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary seem determined to ignore, that since it is a reasonable assumption that married mothers and unmarried mothers should be treated differently, because they have different problems, the onus of proof is on the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to show that in this instance they should be treated in the same way.

Mr. Marsh

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The difference between those who are in favour of the Amendment and those who are not is, as I understand it, that hon. Ladies and hon. Gentlemen who are against the Amendment do not draw a distinction between the unmarried mother and the married mother.

Mr. H. Lever

In terms of the protection they get.

Mr. Marsh

The protection which they get and the effect of the Bill upon them is in many cases conditional upon their different status. There is a difference here. There is an economic difference and there is a social difference. I very much wish that there were not. There is no point in us continuing to argue this point, because we clearly disagree on this. I feel strongly that the unmarried mother cannot be treated in the same way in relation to the Bill as the married mother can be treated, because the unmarried mother in the society in which we live is treated very differently from the married mother.

Mr. A. P. Costain (Folkestone and Hythe)

What is the hon. Gentleman's attitude to a divorced woman and a widow?

Mr. Marsh

It is clear that there is no point of contact between us. I am not criticising. The married woman has in almost every case her husband's income. An unmarried mother has no other source of income. She is suddenly faced with considerable economic pressure which frequently leaves her with only one method of meeting her commitments—by doing the very thing which the hon. Lady the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) would not want her to do, passing the baby over to someone else. She has not the wherewithal to keep the baby. There are plenty of married women with babies who have perfectly happy family lives and perfectly happy children who go out to work. The economic pressures on the unmarried mother to go out to work are very real. Anything which alleviated those pressures, if she wishes and if she is able, is in her interests and is very much in the baby's interests.

Mrs. McLaughlin

The point I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman to reiterate is this. Is he satisfied that the present legislation, which restricts the employment of women—it does not state whether married or unmarried—in factories has worked against the unmarried woman? Would he not agree with me that in fact this has built up in factories a climate of opinion and a climate of practice whereby it is automatic that one expects a woman to be away for the period permitted under the Regulations and that in fact that happens? This is what will happen with this Bill. In a very short time, if the Bill becomes law, it will be accepted that six weeks is the time. There will not be any argument. Those who wish to do so and who are fit to do so will go back earlier. At the moment there is no means of forcing a woman to return earlier to a factory than the permitted time.

Mr. Marsh

It is very difficult to force a person back to work in these circumstances. This Section of the Factories Act is completely dead. I know of no evidence that this Section of the Factories Act is at any time operative.

Mr. H. Lever

All the time.

Mr. Marsh

I would be interested to know how many prosecutions have been brought under this Section of the Act in the last ten years. I should be surprised to find that there were any. The point is clear. There is a difference between us on this Amendment. It is a fundamental difference. Both sides feel strongly about it. It is a view which can easily be resolved. If we try to persuade ourselves that the unmarried mother and the married mother are equal and do not have different problems, we are living in a world which bears little relation to reality.

Lord Balniel

With this Amendment we come to the first of about forty Amendments which have been tabled, as even a child could see, with the sole purpose of talking the Bill out. It is not unreasonable—

Mrs. Hart

On a point of order. Is it in order for an hon. Member to assert that another hon. Member is attempting to talk out the Bill when a number of Amendments have been put down which could be regarded as being desparately needed to be made to the Bill?

Mr. Speaker

Although there is disagreement between the hon. Lady and the noble Lord as to the purpose of the Amendment, the noble Lord is entitled to say what he thinks about it.

Lord Balniel

I make no protest about this, but I think it reasonable to comment that this Bill had an unopposed Second Reading, has the categorical support of the Opposition as well as the support of Her Majesty's Government and emerged unamended from Committee. The hon. Lady who has now put down a considerable number of Amendments did not put down a single one to be considered in Committee. She herself supported Clause 1 and did not vote against it. That Clause is the heart and soul of the Bill but now, when we have less than half a day for the Bill on the Floor of the House, I find a very considerable number of Amendments on the Notice Paper. I am in the difficulty that we have to discuss on one single Amendment—

Miss Vickers

I should remind my noble Friend that there were several Amendments put down in my name and supported by the hon. Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) in Committee. It is not really fair only to say that the Bill went through Committee unamended. We took a vote and we would have voted on other Clauses but for a misunderstanding.

Lord Balniel

I think it perfectly fair to say that Clause 1, which is the heart and soul of the Bill, went through without any Division. I realise that the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) has taken a deep interest in the Bill, but she will have noted that in subsequent Amendments in my name on the Notice Paper I have tried to meet some of the points she made. I am rather tempted to agree with a former Prime Minister who once declared: Never do good; it always causes trouble. There is a certain temptation to a Member of Parliament to remain a kind of vegetable and to allow the law which he sees to be in need of improvement to disintegrate and collapse.

Mr. Speaker

I think that at this point we had better get back to the Amendment, after "of" insert "married".

Lord Balniel

This Amendment touches profoundly on two basic principles which lie behind the Bill. It infringes both those principles which are foundations of the Bill. The first of those principles is that the decision when a mother, be she married or unmarried, should return to work after childbirth is a decision she and her doctor should take. It probably comes as quite a surprise to hon. Members who have not themselves been involved in the details of this Bill to know that under the existing law it is in fact illegal for a mother working in a factory, even on her doctor's recommendation, to return to work within the period of prohibition which has been laid down in the old Factories Acts.

This infringement on the individual liberty of the mother, in consultation with her doctor, is something which is wrong in principle. It is also to my mind certainly wrong from the medical point of view because in modern medical practice there would certainly be cases when, for instance, after a mother has had a stillbirth the doctor would actually recommend the mother to return to work within the specified period of prohibition. It seems right from the medical point of view and from the point of view of principle that the mother, whether she is married or unmarried, should have the discretion placed in her own hands.

I cannot help feeling that half the welter of misunderstanding which has arisen around the Bill has been as a result of misunderstanding that this is one of the basic purposes of the Bill. Perhaps, as it is directly relevant to the Amendment, I may quote from a letter circulated to all hon. Members. It is from the National Council of Women of Great Britain, a body for whom I have the very highest respect. This letter says: It would give the Minister of Health unlimited power to make regulations …". This point we can deal with in later Amendments— restricting any woman's return to paid employment after childbirth without having any regard to her circumstances or the opinion of her medical adviser. As I said, one of the main purposes of the Bill is to enable a woman, on the advice of her medical adviser, to return to work if that is considered advisable. It seems to me that the hon. Lady bases her Amendment on the assumption that this Bill imposes a restriction or disadvantage on the unmarried mother. In fact, the Bill imposes no restriction whatever on the mother herself. There are restrictions imposed on the employer, but thos restrictions immediately fall to the ground when the mother, in consultation with her doctor, is considered fit to return to work.

Mrs. Hart

May I ask the noble Lord two questions? First, is he surprised if there is a misunderstanding about the Bill and there is a lack of Amendments in Committee when there is an attempt to get legislation through on the nod without a Second Reading debate? Secondly, would he not agree, on the basis of his own argument, that it would be reasonable to assume that a woman's right to return to work is a matter between herself and her doctor, and that the reasonable and sensible thing to have done would have been to repeal the previous legislation, which would have left the situation open, instead of producing this further restrictive Bill?

Lord Balniel

To answer the second point first, this Bill repeals all the legislation of the subject and provides a structure on which a modern form of legislation, flexible and designed to accord with medical opinion, could be built for the second half of the twentieth century.

As to the hon. Lady's first question, I have no intention of getting the Bill through on the nod. I was present for the Second Reading of the Bill and I was perfectly willing to debate the subject. Neither the hon. Lady nor anybody else was prepared to raise a point of opposition to the Bill.

Perhaps I could now return to the second principle which this Amendment infringes. This Amendment departs fundamentally from all modern law on this subject, and it does so in this respect. The Offices Act, 1960, which was introduced by the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh), and which enables the making of regulations which can take account of the opinion of the mother, whether she be married or unmarried, and of her doctor's opinion, is automatically, for purely technical reasons, being repealed by the Offices, Shops and Railway Premises Bill. So all modern legislation on this subject is being repealed. But the old legislation, dating back in essence to 1891, in which no account can be taken of the views of the mother, whether she be married or unmarried, nor of the views of the doctor, will continue in existence.

Indeed, although the hon. Lady says that this is legislation dating back to the nineteenth century—in fact, by opposing this Bill and by doing so by means of such Amendments as these—the hon. Lady is not only figuratively speaking but literally continuing in existence legislation dating back to 1891 and wiping out all modern legislation on the subject.

I must confess that when I heard the hon. Lady speak on this subject on a number of occasions she reminded me of the Royal duke back in the nineteenth century, who once declared that "any change at any time for any purpose is highly to be deprecated". This is not a view that I take. I think the law is in need of reform, and this is an attempt to reform the law.

Mrs. Hart

I do not know how the noble Lord can accuse me of resisting change when he reads the Amendments on the Notice Paper.

Lord Balniel

I realise that the hon. Lady is trying to improve the Bill. To some extent, she feels that I am putting the cart before the horse. I feel that she is allowing the horse to die on its feet. I entirely agree with the general purport of what the hon. Lady is trying to achieve. But I think that this Amendment is mistaken.

3.15 p.m.

It introduces into legislation, for the first time to my knowledge, discrimination between the married and the unmarried mother. What is more, it proposes to retain for the married mother the protection which a mother has at law, but to remove that protection from an unmarried mother. It seems to me that this procedure would turn the Bill on its head. It is probably the unmarried mothers who are most more in need of help.

The hon. Lady is trying—and here I agree with her—to solve a problem which surely arises not in relation to a married or an unmarried mother, but in relation to the mother without financial support. There must be unmarried mothers who are extremely wealthy. Many married mothers because they may have been abandoned by their husbands, or divorced, or for some other reason, are extremely short of finance. The hon. Lady criticises the Bill, through this Amendment by arguing that it does not provide for the financial need of a mother. She would like there to be seven weeks' paid leave, or an improvement in the maternity allowances. I also would like to see these things. But this Bill is solely concerned with health legislation. It takes this subject out of the sphere of factory legislation, which deals with machines, and out of office legislation, which deals with such things as fire escapes and sanitary accommodation, and makes it a public health matter.

My hon. Friend asked whether we should not remove the law protecting the mother. That really is old-fashioned, laissez faire liberalism of the nineteenth century. It is quite true that the situation is better than it used to be. But there are still unscrupulous employers. Certainly they still exist. I think it would be wrong to give them a completely free hand.

Mr. Marsh

The noble Lord argues that this is a Bill restricting the powers of employers, but that women employees will still be free to take a decision, Will he tell me—this is a serious question—where in the Bill the distinction is drawn which enables women to go back to work?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Sir William Anstruther-Gray)

Order. I hope that the noble Lord will remember that we are still discussing this one group of Amendments.

Mr. Marsh

Then may I, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, ask the noble Lord whether he will tell me where in the Bill is a provision that an unmarried mother may go back to work?

Lord Balniel

I am in difficulty. If the hon. Gentleman had read the Bill carefully he would have seen that in lines 8 and 9 there is the necessary power. This is no more than enabling legislation, and it was implicit throughout the Bill. But as misunderstanding was caused, I have made it absolutely explicit by way of an Amendment which we shall reach later.

The hon. Gentleman asked what evidence was there of the need for this kind of legislation and how many prosecutions had taken place under the existing law. The number of prosecutions is no criterion whatsoever of the worth of social legislation. If there are no prosecutions, it could mean that the law is working effectively. If there are many prosecutions, it might show that the law was working ineffectively. That is not a criterion on which to judge the law on this subject.

I hope that I have dealt with the point raised in this rather short and curtailed debate on a very limited Amendment. I hope that this discrimination which is being introduced in the Amendment against the unmarried mother is something which does not commend itself to the House as a whole.

Mr. R. T. Paget (Northampton)

I have found the arguments advanced in favour of the Amendment a little odd and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Cheetham (Mr. H. Lever) that they are a little reactionary. I remember a time a good many years ago when those who extolled the Russian system used to point to the equality exercised there as demonstrated by the fact that women heaved coal and cleaned the roads. I was not entirely certain that if I had been a woman this would have been the precise terms in which I should have found equality attractive.

Here the underlying argument seems to me to be that work is something which people do because they choose. I think that it was H. G. Wells who on one occasion observed that the difference between man and the ant, and man's superiority to the ant, lay in the fact that the ant liked work. We have, of course, peculiar people who are ants, but I rather doubt whether they would include a woman who has just had a baby. Working at that time is not a privilege, it is an economic necessity and a cruel one. That this particularly cruel economic necessity should be preserved for the unmarried mother does not seems to me to be of its essence progressive.

Mr. Marsh

I am following my hon. and Learned Friend's argument with interest. Does he suggest that the economic pressures on the unmarried mother are made easier by her not working after having a baby?

Mr. Paget

I was expressing more agreement with my hon. Friend's late Bill than with his present attitude. The answer is "Yes, I do." If the law does not allow her to go back to work the community recognises its necessity and has to support her. If, on the other hand, she is allowed to go back to work she does not get that support, or at least is not entitled to it. It seems to me that that is the essence of this matter, but since, for the maintenance of equality, my hon. Friend the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) and the hon. Lady the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Miss Vickers) wish to claim equality for their sex in such cruel terms and appear determined to talk the Bill out in order to impose this on their sisters, there does not seem to me very much point in going on, because they will certainly succeed.

Mrs. Hart

I do not know whether my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) was here to take note of the fact that I never mentioned equality in my speech. I was concerned with the difference that must be recognised in the social treatment of unmarried mothers, and the need to emphasise their special desire to start a new life unencumbered by demands from the employer under the provisions of the Bill.

I am most anxious to move on in the Bill to what I regard as an essential part of it. At this point, before knowing what action to take on the Amendment, I should like to ask the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) whether he will indicate his attitude towards my basic Amendment later to provide for the economic protection of women after they have had a baby. If the noble Lord is prepared to accept that Amendment—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Order. I am afraid that we are getting quite out of order. We must deal with the three Amendments which are before the House.

Mr. Braine

I rise to make only two points. The hon. Lady the Member for Lanark (Mrs. Hart) has chosen to make today the points which she could have made in Committee upstairs. I make no complaint about that. I find this proposal quite astonishing. It is, I understand, without precedent and I should regard it as a most retrograde step if the House were to accept the Amendment and make a distinction of this kind. I wonder whether the hon. Lady has been in touch with any of the women's organisations about this.

I cannot think that the House could agree that a distinction of this kind should be written into a Statute. It ignores the fact, as has been the case with all its opponents, that the Bill is concerned not with the status of women as such—women as opposed to men, or married as opposed to unmarried women—but with safeguarding the health of the mother and her child.

My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Curran), for whom I have a deep affection, shocked me, as I think he shocked most hon. Members, by saying that he saw no distinction in this context between men and women. In connection with the Bill, I have had to see a great many people concerning the Government's attitude towards it. My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge advanced the same sort of argument as was put to me by a lady who said that she thought there should be no distinction between illness for a male worker, which necessitated his going off from work for a period, and childbirth. To use her actual words, she saw no distinction in this context between hernia and childbirth. It was most refreshing to hear my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) this afternoon sweep away that sort of nonsense.

Mr. Curran

I was not asserting that there was no difference between men and women. The point to which I should like my hon. Friend to address himself is this. Why should he make regulations which make decisions for women unless we are asserting that women are not capable of making these decisions for themselves? Why should not we allow women, as we allow men, to choose for themselves when they go back to work?

Mr. Braine

Under the Bill, which is sponsored by my noble Friend the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel), women will be permitted to go back to work as a result of a choice which they exercise in consultation with their medical adviser, for the very reason which I am advancing, that we are concerned here not merely with the woman, but with the child as well. The Bill relates—

Mr. Marsh

There is nothing in the Bill which states that a woman can go back to work after consultation with her doctor. If there were, it would change the Bill, but there is nothing in it to say this.

Mr. Braine

The hon. Member has not done his homework. So many Amendments have been put down that, perhaps, he may be excused for not doing it.

Mr. Curran

May I remind my hon. Friend of the opening words of the Clause: The Minister may by statutory instrument make regulations for restricting the employment of women for reward … The Minister is, therefore, being given by the Bill the power to make decisions on behalf of women. I urge him to read the Clause, which he is defending.

Mr. Marsh

Hear, hear.

Mr. Braine

My hon. Friend should have looked a little bit further. The sponsor of the Bill is sitting in front of him and may direct his attention to the detail, but I should be straying too far from the bounds of order if at this stage I tried to start educating hon. Members not only about what the Bill contains, but about the effect of Amendments which we have not yet discussed.

Mr. Marsh rose—

Mr. Braine

I cannot give way. I have a number of things to say.

Mr. Marsh

Gross misrepresentation.

Mr. Braine

The hon. Member can not only hand it out. He must take it.

Mr. Marsh rose—

Mrs. Hart

On a point of order. Is it in order, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, for the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to use in relation to the Amendment an argument which presupposes the consequences of a later Amendment?

3.30 p.m.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

What is in order is to discuss the three Amendments which are being taken together. Let me read them out to the House. The first Amendment immediately under discussion is in page 1, line 6, after "of" to insert "married". The two others being taken with it are, in page 2, line 5, after "State", insert "married"; and in page 2, line 5, after "includes", insert "married". All we are discussing is whether or not the word "married" should be inserted.

Mr. Braine

In subsection (1) of the Clause appear the words: subject to such exceptions if any as may be prescribed in the regulations". If this be read in conjunction with an Amendment which is down on the Notice Paper in the name—

Mrs. Hart

On a point of order. I was ruled out of order in making an argument on the assumption that later, basic Amendments which I have down would be accepted. Surely the Minister is not entitled to argue on Amendments to a later part of the Bill?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

Clearly it is not in order to discuss a later Amendment than that which we have already reached. I think the House must be fully seized of this.

Mr. Braine

That is, of course, the difficulty. A moment ago the hon. Gentleman challenged me to say where provision was in the Bill to ensure that a woman could go back quite soon after the birth of her child if this were hex wish and if this were in accord with her doctor's opinion. I was challenged to say where the provision is. I am now ruled out of order in seeking to show the hon. Gentleman what he would have seen for himself if he had read the Notice Paper and had studied the Bill.

Now to obey your injunction, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, I return to the Amendment and to the Bill which relates to the employment of women not because they are women but because they bear children. Now this involves a risk to health and it means, as I understand it, some restriction of women's freedom of action. As the Report of the Maternity Services Committee, the Cranbrook Report, makes plain: The post-natal period may be one of strain to the mother due to extra work, breast feeding, residual anaemia, and the difficulties involved in the readjustment of family life. It is therefore important that the midwife, health visitor or doctor as may be appropriate should be available to help the mother with any problem which may arise. Thus, we are here concerned not merely with the woman's right to return to work, which has been the main burden of the argument of the hon. Lady, but with the child's rights, too. The mother's health is necessary to her child's well-being in the early weeks after the child's birth, and therefore not only the mother but the child has a need for protection against possible exploitation, and I think—I say this on medical advice—that both mother and child are often at risk in this period. This applies not merely to the married woman and her child: it applies with equal force to the unmarried woman and her child.

Mr. H. Lever

Why do the hon. Gentleman and the noble Lord the Member for Hertford (Lord Balniel) burke the argument that this Bill restricts the freedom of women? It does restrict the freedom of women, and quite rightly restricts the freedom of women, to go back to work too soon not only in the interests of the mother but also in the interests of the child.

Mr. Braine

I do not burke the issue at all. The hon. Gentleman at an earlier stage of the debate tore the Amendment to shreds, and the matter could have gone to a Division then and there. I do not burke the issue, but I would go rather further and say that if one takes the interests of the mother and child, far from the Bill restricting freedom, it widens freedom in the broader sense, and I see that I carry the hon. Gentleman with me.

I turn to the second point I wanted to make. It seems to me that the sole reason—I think that in this regard the hon. Lady is perfectly genuine and I listened with great care to what she said—for the Amendment is to protect the unmarried mother against the embarrassment of questioning. We can well imagine the additional difficulties which such a woman might encounter.

The Bill provides, like the present legislation for factories, that an offence is committed only where an employer, in full knowledge of the facts, employs a woman within the period of restriction specified in the regulations. This will have to be proved against him. It will not be for him to prove that he did not know, and could not have known, that the woman had a child a short time before—there will be no need for him to make inquiries of his employees.

Here I come to the point, which the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) so persistently ignored, that this is not a new provision. In respect of women employed in factories there has been a rigid prohibition for a four-week period after childbirth for more than half a century. If there had been evidence that women workers had been discriminated against unfairly and that undue pressure had been brought to bear upon them, this would have been made known, one would have thought, through the trade union movement which is better organised in factories than it is anywhere else.

On the contrary, we find that the Gowers Committee in 1949 recom- mended that the protection which women in factories have enjoyed for more than half a century should be extended to women in other forms of employment. Was that ever contested in the House? On the contrary, a provision to this effect was written into the Bill brought to the House by the hon. Member for Greenwich. He seems now to want to wash away all responsibility for the measure which he fathered.

Mr. Marsh

May I ask the hon. Gentleman two questions? Firstly, can he produce any evidence of any attempt to implement this Section of the Factories Act, or any evidence that it ever has been implemented during the last 20 years? Secondly, if the Government now feel so strongly about this, will he tell us why they made no attempt to incorporate this legislation, which they now say is so important in the Factories Act, into the Shops, Offices and Railway Premises Bill?

Mr. Braine

I should have thought that anybody would have read into the remarks that I have just addressed to the House the fact that this is primarily public health legislation. It is not industrial legislation. The purpose here is a health purpose, and it is on that ground alone that the provision was not written into the Shops, Offices and Railway Premises Bill now before the House.

As to the argument that unless I can produce a whole list of successful prosecutions—

Mr. Marsh

No.

Mr. Braine

—the existing law in regard to factories, which has operated now for more than half a century, must be a dead letter, I would suggest that that is ridiculous. How many prosecutions would I have to produce in order to show how efficacious the law has been? One, two, 20, 200?

Mrs. Hart

Just one.

Mr. Braine

I find this argument coming from the hon. Members opposite quite extraordinary. Those who know anything about the history of the trade union movement ought to know of its proud claim that it has been responsible—a claim which my party on these benches can share with it—for successive measures to widen the real freedom of the worker by protecting him against bad conditions and bad employment. I find it quite extraordinary to ignore the fact that in 1891 legislation was introduced to protect women and that for 60 years it has effectively been protecting them and educating employers and creating the right conditions—

Mrs. Hart

The hon. Gentleman must recognise that what has created the different situation in 1963 is the work of trade unionists. They have created such better conditions for staff that there is no longer the need to provide for this sort of thing. He is talking about the need to prove that this legislation needs to be introduced. Is he not aware that the National Union of General and Municipal Workers, which covers more women workers than any other union in the country, has a resolution tabled for the Women's Trade Union Conference this month protesting against the implications of the Bill and saying that this should be purely a personal matter between a woman and her doctor and not legislation such as is proposed?

Mr. Braine

I am delighted that the hon. Lady has come completely clean and now admits that the system for factories has worked very happily and that there is no evidence of undue pressure having been brought to bear on unmarried mothers. Why she wishes to oppose the extension of the protection, though in much more flexible form, to other forms of employment defeats me when one bears in mind that over the last decade all parties have pressed for precisely the kind of provisions which my noble Friend's Bill contains.

The Bill provides, like the present legislation for factories that an offence is committed only when an employer who is in full knowledge of the facts employs a woman within the period of restriction specified in the regulations, and that must be proved against him. The hon. Lady has completely ignored the point that the protection, albeit much more inflexible, has long existed in regard to women employed in factories.

There is no magic in "knowingly". It is a term which has long been used in this and other legislation. The purpose of the word is to protect an employer who employs a woman innocently and in ignorance of the fact that she has had a recent child. There is no need for an employer to assume that the law is being contravened and to ask questions unless he has some good reason to suspect that she has had a child. In fact the position for an offence to be committed is that the employer must know that the woman has had a child. It is not, as the Irishman might say, that he must not know that she had not had a child.

It seems to me, therefore, that there is no ground whatsoever for writing into the law this entirely novel distinction between one woman and another, between the married woman and the unmarried. I repeat that the whole object of the Bill is to protect the mother and the child in what is probably the most important part of the child's life.

Question put, That "married" be there inserted in the Bill:—

The House divided: Ayes 7, Noes 28.

Division No. 92.]	AYES	[3.43 p.m.
Brockway, A. Fenner	Hart, Mrs. Judith
Carmichael, Neil	Milne, Edward	TELLERS FOR THE AYES:
Edwards, Robert (Bilston)	Stonehouse, John	Mr. Skeffington and Mr. Marsh.
Hate, Leslie (Oldham, W.)

NOES
Allason, James	Lewis, Kenneth (Rutland)	Rees-Davies, W. R.
Braine, Bernard	Lipton, Marcus	Reynolds, G. W.
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)	Lubbock, Eric	Russell, Ronald
Costain, A. P,	MacArthur, Ian	Speir, Rupert
Curran, Charles	McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia	Thorpe, Jeremy
Drayson, G. B.	Maddan, Martin	Vickers, Miss Joan
Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)	Moore, Sir Thomas (Ayr)
Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)	Paget, R. T,	TELLERS FOR THE NOES:
Holman, Percy	Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)	Lord Balniel and Mr. Channon.
Houghton, Douglas	Price, David (Eastleigh)
Lever, Harold (Cheetham)	Pym, Francis

Mrs. Hart

I beg to move, in page 1, line 7 after "childbirth", insert: in industries and occupations satisfying the conditions prescribed in subsection (2) of this section".

Mr. Deputy-Speaker

With this Amendment can be taken those in page 1, line 12, to leave out from "prescribed" to end of line 13. In line 13, at the end to insert: (2) The Minister may make regulations only in relation to those industries or occupations in which agreements have been negotiated, between employers and the trade unions or professional associations representing employees, providing for a period of at least seven weeks' paid leave, and an optional further period of unpaid leave, before or after childbirth, and prohibiting the employer from dismissing any woman expecting a child during the period with which the agreements are concerned. and in line 19, after "section" to insert: or who fails to fulfil obligations placed upon him by agreements of the kind specified in subsection (2) of this section.

Mrs. Hart

I am most anxious in the very limited time available to emphasise that in moving these Amendments I have sought to create a real measure of protection for women who have had babies and who are in employment, that is to say, to ensure that the regulations should apply only to industries in which there are agreements providing for the kind of economic conditions which have been recommended time and again by international conferences on this kind of thing and recommended by the European Social Charter, and that industries and employers and trade unions should be encouraged to reach agreements of this kind within their own industries. There is the further possibility that the Minister of Health himself, in industries where agreements do not already exist and in which there are no signs of agreements being reached within the next year or so, will positively prescribe the right conditions, instead of being so anxious purely to prohibit, so as to encourage women to stay at home with their babies so long as possible.

I should like briefly to summarise the situation in many other parts of the world. It comes as rather a shock to discover how much Utopia other countries have achieved in this regard and how little our own employers have done for their employees so far. In Sweden there are agreements within industry between employers and trade unions, for example, in the Swedish metal trade, which give women approximately two-thirds of their regular wage or salary during the period up to six months which she may have off work when having a baby.

In the European Social Charter, the international agreement to which Britain was a contributing nation although she has not rectified this section of the Charter, it is provided that there shall be 12 weeks' paid leave before and after childbirth. In addition there shall be a guarantee against a woman being dismissed during that period. In other words, a woman knows that she may give up her job during her pregnancy when her health demands it. She may spend a considerable time at home with her child and enjoy complete economic security. There is no economic pressure on her to go back to work, and she has the guarantee of getting her job back when she decides to return.

After all, this happens in our Civil Service. The Government, in conjunction with the Staff Side, have created conditions providing for established women civil servants to have two months leave on full pay for a confinement and a further period of special leave without pay, and presumably, since she is an established civil servant, she has a guarantee against dismissal from her job. This is what I want to see, and if the noble Lord is concerned about providing women with the possibility of staying at home with their children for as long as possible after childbirth, he ought to agree to what I am suggesting. Prohibitions are of no value in the situation he is trying to meet, unless they are underwritten by economic security which is so desperately needed by so many women.

In the publication to which I referred earlier, one sees conclusively that only women with a pressing economic necessity ever want to return to work after having children. The normal pattern, which the noble Lord must appreciate since we are living in 1963—and the argument advanced by the hon. Member for Belfast, West (Mrs. McLaughlin) is utterly wrong—is that a woman will work after her marriage and during her pregnancy up to the point where it seems desirable to both her and her doctor that she should give up her job, but that after she has had her baby she does not want to return to work until that baby is at school, unless there are pressing economic factors which demand that she return to work earlier.

If the noble Lord is seeking to protect women who have babies, he ought not to look to the easy method of making an open-ended umbrella law giving unrestricted powers to restrict and prohibit the employment of women. He should instead consider the economic factors which are the reality of the situation in 1963 and seek to encourage in industry the creation of an agreement providing for paid leave and at the same time try to ensure that the Government bring in measures to increase the insurance benefits. Up to the point when agreements do not exist sickness benefit could also be considered. This is the Swedish position and ensures that the economic pressure on a woman who has had a baby is removed. In that situation there is real freedom for a woman, in conjunction with her doctor, to decide when she can go back to work, and I think that this is the realistic way in which to approach the subject.

Because this was a bad Bill needing a great many Amendments, it has been talked out this afternoon. Those who share my views think that we ought to seek the permission of the House to introduce the kind of legislation which we think ought to be brought in to deal with this subject, and I hope that the Government, who have accepted that economic factors are important in this situation, will give us facilities to bring in a Bill which we might produce, just as they have provided facilities for the noble Lord to bring in his Bill.

Mr. Braine

I am glad to have the hon. Lady's admission at last that she has sought to talk the Bill out. What she said is of considerable interest. There may be some merit in her ideas, but they are not appropriate for a Bill which is a health Bill.

The effect of the Amendment is to limit the Minister's power to make regulations to industries and occupations in which agreements have been negotiated between employers and representatives of employees to provide for at least seven weeks' paid leave. The hon. Lady knows that this would nullify the effect of the Bill for a long period of time and the Amendments therefore are unacceptable—

It being Four o'clock the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Friday, 26th April.