RIGHTS OF WOMEN BILL (Hansard, 11 December 1973)

§ Mr. Robert C. Brown (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, West)
I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to make it unlawful to deny facilities of insurance, loan, mortgage, finance, hire purchase or other forms of credit to any person solely on grounds of sex; to provide for continuity of employment of women with rights of reinstatement after confinement; and for purposes connected therewith. The first part of the Bill deals with a much-neglected area of our employment laws. The rights to re-employment of a woman worker who leaves her job to have a baby are not covered by legislation. Although some agreements have been made in both the public and private sectors, progress towards the achievement of a floor of rights to all women has been lamentably slow. It is for that reason that I seek to introduce legislation to cover the problem.
Women workers are not returning to their jobs after childbirth. Until it is made more attractive for them to do so, the country will continue to lose large numbers of productive workers.
207 In the typical case, a woman who stops work for several months to have a baby is subject to disadvantages in the following terms. First she has to re-apply to her former employer as though she were starting from scratch. Secondly, if her former employer decides to take her on again, which is problematical, it could be in a different department, on different hours and at different pay. Thirdly, since she is applying afresh she will have lost accrued seniority benefits of pay levels, sick and holiday pay, holiday entitlement and eligibility for a pension scheme. Fourthly, she will also have lost the continuity of employment which is essential before claims can be made under the Redundancy Payments Act and for unfair dismisal under the Industrial Relations Act.
It is therefore made very unattractive for women to seek re-employment after childbirth. It is not only grossly unfair for skilled and experienced women to have their training amount to nothing, but it is also an utter waste of expertise and productivity, and a serious loss to the economy as a whole.
The Bill is designed to correct these glaring injustices. It is proposed that working women should be given the statutory right to reinstatement after absence due to pregnancy. This right could be exercised at any time during a period of 12 months from the date on which the woman left her job.
The employer would be under a duty to reinstate the woman on the same pay, in the same grade and on terms no less favourable than she enjoyed prior to her absence. This would mean that she did not lose seniority for the purposes of sick and holiday pay, pensions and other benefits related to length of service. The time spent on leave would be added to the period already worked in computing the woman's eligibility for these benefits.
The Industrial Relations (Continuity of Employment) Regulations 1972 (1972 SI No. 55) provide that continuity of employment will not be broken if an employee is re-engaged after a complaint of unfair dismissal has been made to an industrial tribunal. By analogy to these existing provisions, this Bill will stipulate that continuity of employment will not be broken 208 by reason only of an absence attributable to pregnancy for a period not exceeding 12 months.
It is proposed that the right to reinstatement will rest on the completion of six months' continuous employment with the same employer.
The second part of the Bill deals with discrimination against women in matters of personal finance. Nowhere are women more personally discriminated against than in the matter of personal finance. It is widespread practice among agencies that offer credit facilities to provide terms for women which are considerably less favourable than those available to men. It is therefore the purpose of the Bill to give men and women the right to equal treatment by persons and organisations engaged in the grant of credit and other financial facilities.
It will be an offence for any such person to discriminate between men and women in the granting of credit.
The need for legislation in this area is made more and more apparent every day. It is, for example, a practice of many finance houses operating hire-purchase schemes to require, in the case of women purchasers, the counter-signature of a husband, or father, or male landlord. What could be more degrading than to have to ask the landlord for his counter-signature? No such guarantee is required for male purchasers. I ask the House again, what could be more degrading?
The same prejudice is seen in the use of credit cards. At least one of the major credit card organisations in this country requires married women to obtain the signature of their husbands on their application forms. A woman who is a card holder in her own right is subject to even greater humiliation if she marries or re-marries. When she notifies her credit-card company of her change of name, she is automatically sent a new application form, which must state her husband's employment and income and, furthermore, be signed by him.
Women applying for mortgages are extremely unlikely, even when building society funds are not restricted—and it is some time since we knew that situation—to obtain one without a considerable 209 search. Many building societies do not consider women applicants as a rule. And few of them will aggregate a married woman's income with her husband's. Even if this does occur it invariably counts for less than its face value when the building society uses the multiplier to determine the maximum accordable mortgage.
This Bill cuts out these highly discriminatory practices and will remove women from the odious position of second-class citizens which they currently occupy in employment and in personal finance. Nothing the Government have said in their Green Paper on women's rights covers the provisions offered in my Bill.
The first part of the Bill will give recognition to the special needs of women who want to continue working after childbirth. This Bill can and will reach the statute book in this Session. Only one thing can prevent it and that is the deliberate interference of the Government, directly by using the Whip, or indirectly by encouraging one of their back-bench Members below the Gangway. I am thinking particularly of an area in the region of Buckinghamshire. I say without fear of contradiction that this Bill can and will become law—with the provisos I have made. If the Government interfere directly or encourage one 210 of their back-bench backwoodsmen to do so, then they do so at their peril because the women of this country are sick and tired of being discriminated against.

§ Mr. Speaker
Who will prepare and bring in the Bill?

§ Mr. Brown
Mr. Frank Tomney, Mr. Ernest G. Perry, Mr. Neil Carmichael, Mr. Giles Radice, Dr. John A. Cunningham—whose wife was delivered of a son and heir during yesterday's sitting—Mr. Thomas Torney, Mr. William Hamilton, Mrs. Doris Fisher, Mrs. Barbara Castle, Miss Betty Boothroyd and myself.

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. That was a very irregular delivery of the names.