§ Mr. R. A. McCrindle (Brentwood and Ongar)I beg to move Amendment No. 2, in page 2, line 36, leave out
'when subsection (1) above comes into force'.I cannot promise to be articulate, but I hope to be substantially briefer than some of the earlier contributors to the debate. I suspect that after all the discussion during the earlier part of this evening about negative yields, guaranteed minimum pensions, pre-award dynamism and buy-back premiums, the House will welcome the fact that we now turn to a situation which concerns people in their everyday lives.The amendment concerns the Government's plans to phase out the married women's option, as a result of which we contend that many working married women will suffer.
The House has been over this ground before, not once but many times. Therefore, I do not propose to weary the House overlong. However, the Opposition hold this matter to be sufficiently important to return to it again before coming to the last stages of the Bill.
We want the working widow or married women to go on having the option to pay reduced contributions for reduced benefits. We believe that the 3 million out of the 4 million working women who exercise this option at the moment want it to continue, too. They will not understand the Government's determination to end their freedom to keep this option when the full implications become clearer.
The Bill is supposed to be a charter for women. In many ways it is. In Committee I paid tribute to the Secretary of State for making it so. Why then, in the interests of what I can only call a specious and largely unwanted equality, is it proposed to take away from women something which, by all the evidence, they very much wish to retain?
The Government will no doubt again tell us that, among other things, it is to end the dependant status of women. But the women in question are not complaining. The Government will say that it is 554 to improve the benefits that a woman can enjoy in her own right. In that case, I suggest that the woman in question is getting a very poor bargain.
I will quote one set of statistics. Of the married couple pension of £18.50, £11.60 applies to the husband, and £6.90 is the so-called dependant allowance for the wife. If the option is taken away, she will lose the £6.90 and gain £11.60—in other words, a net improvement of £4.70. But she will then be paying the same as the single woman, who gets £11.60 in her own right. So far from giving the married woman a better bargain, it is a very poor return on the additional money that she is expected to invest.
I cannot see this as a measure to liberate or to bring equality to the married woman. In fact, a respectable case could be made out that it is quite the reverse. Therefore, this proposal is against the wishes of the majority of women and is a bad bargain as well.
With 3 million women involved—therefore, 3 million votes at stake—why should the Government be so obstinate? I believe that it is because they have no alternative if they are to raise the considerable revenue that their scheme requires. So it has little to do with the abhorrent principle of dependency: it is really all about hard cash. We think that the woman on £20 a week—hardly a princely income in 1975—who finds that the Government have reduced her take-home pay by £1 a week will discover that she needs the cash more than the Government.
10.30 p.m.
I expect I shall be told again that I do not understand the mentality of the women concerned and that I am doing them a disservice in pressing for the retention of the option. But I am not recommending that married women exercise the option. I can understand that in many ways, because they cannot see sufficiently far ahead, women would be well advised not to exercise it. But so many women have become used to exercising it that the Government are wrong to take it away.
The women of whom I speak are often mothers, their children are at their most 555 expensive age, mortgage payments perhaps are biting their hardest, and for them going out to work even for a short period makes a good deal of sense. To reduce their take-home pay by a sizeable proportion will be a disincentive at a time when male unemployment might be making the woman, for no matter how short a time, the principal breadwinner. I do not think that the Government understand the women we are talking about, defenders of the working classes though they would have us believe they are.
So the amendment was tabled for three reasons. First, 3 million women who take advantage of the option at the moment demand its retention. Second, the Government are offering a poor deal in return for its withdrawal. Third, their reasons have nothing to do with release from dependency and everything to do with raising extra revenue.
The last time that they took action against a minority of the people—the self-employed—the Government reaped the whirlwind when that minority, suddenly and perhaps for the first time, became a highly articulate body. When married women find that this option is being withdrawn, the reaction against the Government who introduced such a measure will be considerable. I ask the Government, even at this late stage, seriously to consider withdrawing this proposal if we are to avoid dividing the House.
§ Mrs. CastleThis seems likely, mercifully, to be a brief debate. As the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar (Mr. McCrindle) said, we have gone over these matters extensively in Committee. I am interested to see that the Opposition persist in their rôle as latterday Bourbons, who have forgotten nothing and learned nothing—
§ Mrs. Kellett-BowmanThe Secretary of State cannot take any notice of the Lancashire papers.
§ Mrs. CastleI am sorry that the hon. Lady did not put her views into words before I rose to reply—
§ Mrs. Kellett-BowmanI have raised this point with the right hon. Lady so 556 often that I have the speech coming out of my ears. I am sparing the House yet another repetition, but she knows my views. They have been expressed in all the Lancashire papers that she reads too.
§ Mrs. CastleI have never had the pleasure of reading the hon. Lady's views in the Lancashire papers. But this is a late hour and to avoid duplicating my speech I wanted to give everyone the opportunity to express his views.
A simple principle is at stake here. What kind of benefits and security do we think are needed by women who work? Under the present insurance schemes, embodying the principle to which the hon. Member referred—that of opting out of equal responsibilities—they are the greatest sufferers. They are the ones who end up on supplementary benefit after years of inadequate wages and very often practically non-existent coverage in their own right.
We have one simple principle. We believe that women, more than almost any other section of society, need security, because they have been on low wages, because they have never been given equal pay and have never, therefore, been given equal responsibilities. Do we want women's benefits improved? Do we want the expensive new charter for women contained in the Bill to which the hon. Member for Brentwood and Ongar has frankly and honourably paid tribute? Or is the hon. Member arguing that women should have equal benefits for unequal contributions? That has never happened in human history, and it has not happened to women up to now.
The freedom of the married woman or widow when she is at work to opt out of paying the full national insurance contribution has meant that she has had second-class benefits even when she has made a full contribution. The hon. Member knows that she has had inferior unemployment and sickness benefit even if she paid the full contribution. That situation was perpetuated under his Government's legislation. He knows that she has suffered from the half test. He and his hon. Friends know that under their conditions which continued the married woman's option she had a poorer accrual rate than the man. They want to perpetuate the unequal treatment, but I and my Government do not.
557 The hon. Member claims that I am proposing a specious and what he called largely unwanted equality. He tried to say that 3 million women would be outraged. How does he know? I do not know whether he had a private poll during the referendum, whether he slipped one in on the side about the married woman's option. I do not know where he gets his scientific certitude from—or should I say his pseudo-scientific certitude? There is a lot of confused thinking among women.
I am not proposing this scheme because I believe it will necessarily be particularly easy to get across. There was a revealing Freudian lapse in the hon. Member's remarks when he talked about "3 million votes". Oh, yes, how the Conservative Party loves to capitalise on the more obscurantist elements in our national thinking! That is their one hope of survival. Here they are again appealing to the least far-sighted and forward-looking attitudes. On that basis one never progresses in society.
The Conservatives may pick up the odd vote or two. That, however, is not the most important criterion when considering a pensions reform that we have all agreed on both sides should last us for a considerable number of years. We cannot build into a pensions scheme designed to carry us through a decade or two the principle of continuing inequality of treatment of women. I am surprised that the Conservatives still cling to the past in this way.
Perhaps I may, therefore, answer some of the hon. Gentleman's more major inaccuracies. He said that the married woman who no longer has the right to opt out, who will get a pension and a right to her husband's insurance, is getting a poor bargain. The truth suffers some strange distortions in this House. What the woman will get in return for this obligation to pay the same as a man on the same earnings when she is at work is the same accrual right. We ignore this irrelevant factor of longevity to which the Opposition always attached such importance. We will not punish women for living longer, as the Opposition did when in government. The woman who contributes in full will get her pension at 60.
As I said in Committee, the Conservatives overlook the 1 million women, often 558 working-class women—the waiting wives—who reach retirement before their husbands, often five years before. There is sometimes a great drop in family income as a result.
Older widows will receive 100 per cent. of their husbands' retirement pensions plus their own additional component instead of the 50 per cent. entitlement in the Conservative's Act. They will receive equal short-term benefits for unemployment and sickness, and the half test will be abolished. In addition, the woman at work will have the fall-back safeguard of the dependency pension if that should prove to be more advantageous. The Opposition call that a bad bargain. It is an odd use of words.
§ Sir George Young (Ealing, Acton)Does the right hon. Lady recall that her Department sent out a letter to Members of the Standing Committee on 14th April which showed the extra benefits and costs related to the phasing-out of the married woman's option? Does she further recall that there was only one year between now and 2009 when the extra benefits for the married woman exceeded the extra costs?
§ Mrs. CastleI was coming to that point and the accusation that this was a swindle designed to raise revenue at the expense of these people. That letter was sent out to guide the Committee in deciding whether we were robbing the married woman in some way. The hon. Gentleman has totally misunderstood the figures. In Committee he added them up and quoted a figure of additions. These are not consecutive years but sample years of a broad kind.
What matters from the point of view of our argument is the conclusion which the actuaries who gave these figures drew from them. I quote from the letter:
The general picture is that during the first 30 years of the scheme the additional contribution income including Treasury supplement broadly matches the additional benefit cost. Thereafter the benefit cost gradually exceeds the contribution income.There is no basis there for saying that the abolition of the option is a way of compelling women to subsidise everyone else. I am sure the House will accept that with my record of involvement with equal pay legislation that would be the 559 last thing that I would be prepared to authorise in my ministerial capacity.10.45 p.m.
I know that ending the option, far from being a swindle for women, is their gateway to greater financial security as well as to the dignity of being able to stand on their own feet.
I will give the House one example. On the basis used in the Government Actuary's report on the Bill, we estimate that a woman who marries after the start of the new scheme, who would not qualify for the option, would on average pay about £50 extra in contributions but would on average qualify for about £70 a year in short-term benefits, including sickness benefit and unemployment benefit, and invalidity pension, in addition to building up entitlement to extra pension in the longer term. To allow women to continue to opt out would be cheaper because they would forfeit so many benefits by doing so. This is extra expenditure which we believe we owe to my sex.
We are not proposing to introduce this change brutally. All the widely representative women's organisations we consulted said that if women are ever to have a square deal the option for people who marry after the scheme comes into operation must be abolished. But we are all agreed that for the woman who is at the moment opted out we must temper the wind of change to her shorn income. We are, therefore, putting forward detailed alternatives for the phasing out of the option and for dealing with people who at present are entitled to exercise the option. All the details have been circulated to hon. Members, and we are urgently getting back the final response
| Division No. 229.] | AYES | [10.54 p.m. |
| Atkins, Rt Hon H. (Spelthorne) | Dodsworth, Geoffrey | Hurd, Douglas |
| Berry, Hon Anthony | Drayson, Burnaby | Jones, Arthur (Daventry) |
| Biffen, John | Dykes, Hugh | Kellett-Bowman, Mrs Elaine |
| Boscawen, Hon Robert | Eden, Rt Hon Sir John | King, Evelyn (South Dorset) |
| Brittan, Leon | Fairgrieve, Russell | Knight, Mrs Jill |
| Brotherton, Michael | Fowler, Norman (Sutton C'f'd) | Knox, David |
| Brown, Sir Edward (Bath) | Gow, Ian (Eastbourne) | Lane, David |
| Buchanan-Smith, Alick | Gower, Sir Raymond (Barry) | Lawrence, Ivan |
| Carr, Rt Hon Robert | Gray, Hamish | Luce, Richard |
| Chalker, Mrs Lynda | Griffiths, Eldon | McCrindle, Robert |
| Clarke, Kenneth (Rushcliffe) | Grylls, Michael | Marshall, Michael (Arundel) |
| Cockcroft, John | Hall-Davis, A. G. F. | Marten, Neil |
| Cooke, Robert (Bristol W) | Hamilton, Michael (Salisbury) | Mather, Carol |
| Cope, John | Hannam, John | Maude, Angus |
| Corrie, John | Harvie Anderson, Rt Hon Miss | Maxwell-Hyslop, Robin |
| Crouch, David | Hayhoe, Barney | Miscampbell, Norman |
| Dean, Paul (N Somerset) | Holland, Philip | Montgomery, Fergus |
§ from the organisations concerned. We shall be guided by what those representative organisations want. We are not here to impose change on women that they do not overwhelmingly want.
§ In a few years' time historians looking back will be astonished that hon. Members should have pressed in 1975 the Victorian ideas which have today been put forward by Opposition Members.
§ Mr. McCrindleHistorians may be surprised at some of the things that we do in 1975, but I suspect that in the immediate future, when it is appreciated what the right hon. Lady's action means, the 3 million working married women will express surprise and probably an emotion which will have a more direct effect on the right hon. Lady's political future.
In view of the late hour I do not wish to take up all the points that the right hon. Lady has made in replying to this short debate. It is obvious that nothing has changed in her mind and that the division that separates both sides of the House on this important matter is as deep as ever. I am bound to say that the right hon. Lady gave me no satisfaction on some of the points that I particularly wanted to stress, not least that effectively what she is doing is pulling 3 million women, who do not seek the equality which she wishes to impose, kicking and screaming into a situation that she would like to have them occupy. I believe there is no alternative but to recommend to my hon. Friends that we show our disapproval of the Government's policy by dividing the House.
§ Question put, That the amendment be made:—
§ The House divided: Ayes 89, Noes 136.
| Morgan, Geraint | Scott, Nicholas | Taylor, Teddy (Cathcart) |
| Morrison, Charles (Devizes) | Scott-Hopkins, James | Tabbit, Norman |
| Morrison, Hon Pater (Chatter) | Shaw, Giles (Pudsey) | Temple-Morris, Peter |
| Neave, Airey | Shaw, Michael (Scarborough) | Townsend, Cyril D. |
| Neubert, Michael | Shersby, Michael | Trotter, Neville |
| Normanton, Tom | Silvester, Fred | Viggers, Peter |
| Osborn, John | Sims, Roger | Weatherill, Bernard |
| Page, Rt Hon R. Graham (Crosby) | Sinclair, Sir George | Winterton, Nicholas |
| Rathbone, Tim | Skeet, T. H. H. | Wood, Rt Hon Richard |
| Rawlinson, Rt Hon Sir Peter | Speed, Keith | Young, Sir G. (Ealing, Acton) |
| Renton, Tim (Mid-Susaax) | Spicer, Jim (W Dorset) | |
| Rhys Williams, Sir Brandon | Stenley, John | TELLERS FOR THE AYES: |
| Ridsdale, Julian | Steen, Anthony (Wavertree) | Mr. Adam Butler and |
| Roberts, Michael (Cardiff NW) | Stradling Thomas, J. | Mr. Spencer Le Merchant. |
| NOES | ||
| Allaun, Frank | Henderson, Douglas | Rodgers, George (Chorley) |
| Anderson, Donald | Hooson, Emlyn | Rooker, J. W. |
| Armstrong, Ernest | Howells, Geraint (Cardigan) | Roper, John |
| Atkinson, Norman | Hughes, Robert (Aberdeen N) | Ross, Rt Hon W. (Kilmarnock) |
| Bagier, Gordon A. T. | Hunter, Adam | Ryman, John |
| Bain, Mrs Margaret | Jackson, Miss Margaret (Lincoln) | Sandelson, Neville |
| Bates, Alf | Jay, Rt Hon Douglas | Sedgemore, Brian |
| Belth, A. J. | Johnson, Walter (Derby S) | Selby, Harry |
| Booth, Albert | Jones, Alec (Rhondda) | Shaw, Arnold (Ilford South) |
| Boothroyd, Miss Betty | Jones, Barry (East Flint) | Skinner, Dennis |
| Boyden, James (Bish Auck) | Kerr, Russell | Small, William |
| Bray, Dr Jeremy | Kilroy-Silk, Robert | Smith, Cyril (Rochdale) |
| Callaghan, Jim (Middleton & P) | Lamond, James | Spearing, Nigel |
| Canavan, Dennis | Litterick, Tom | Sprigga, Leslie |
| Cant, R. B. | Loyden, Eddie | Stallard, A. W. |
| Carter-Jones, Lewis | Lyons, Edward (Bradford W) | Stewart, Donald (Western Isles) |
| Cartwright, John | McElhone, Frank | Stewart, Rt Hon M. (Fulham) |
| Castle, Rt Hon Barbara | Mackintosh, John P. | Strang, Gavin |
| Clemitson, Ivor | McMillan, Tom (Glasgow C) | Taylor, Mrs Ann (Bolton W) |
| Cocks, Michael (Bristol S) | Madden, Max | Thomas, Mike (Newcastle E) |
| Craigen, J. M. (Maryhill) | Marks, Kenneth | Thomas, Ron (Bristol NW) |
| Cryer, Bob | Marquand, David | Thompson, George |
| Cunningham, Dr J. (Whiteh) | Marshall, Dr Edmund (Goole) | Thorne, Stan (Preston South) |
| Dalyall, Tam | Mellish, Rt Hon Robert | Thorpe, Rt Hon Jeremy (N Devon) |
| Davies, Bryan (Enfield N) | Mikardo, Ian | Torney, Tom |
| Dolg, Peter | Millan, Bruce | Wainwrlght, Edwin (Dearne V) |
| Dormand, J. D. | Miller, Dr M. S. (E Kilbride) | Walker, Terry (Kingswood) |
| Douglas-Mann, Bruce | Mitchell, R. C. (Soton, Itchen) | Ward, Michael |
| Duffy, A. E. P. | Moiloy, William | Watkinson, John |
| Dunn, Jamas A. | Morris, Alfred (Wythenshawe) | Watt, Hamish |
| Dunnett, Jack | Newens, Stanley | Weetch, Ken |
| Ellis, John (Brigg & Scun) | Noble, Mike | Wellbeloved, James |
| Evans, Gwynfor (Carmarthen) | Oakes, Gordon | White, Frank R. (Bury) |
| Evans, John (Newton) | O'Halloran, Michael | Whitlock, William |
| Ewing, Mrs Winifred (Moray) | O'Malley, Rt Hon Brian | Wigley, Dafydd |
| Ford, Ben | Ovenden, John | Williams, Alan (Swansea W) |
| George, Bruce | Owen, Dr David | Williams, Alan Lee (Hornch'ch) |
| Gilbert, Dr John | Palmer, Arthur | Wilson, Alexander (Hamilton) |
| Ginsburg, David | Pendry, Tom | Wilson, Gordon (Dundee E) |
| Gourlay, Harry | Penhaligon, David | Wise, Mrs Audrey |
| Graham, Ted | Phipps, Dr Colin | Woodall, Alee |
| Grant, George (Morpeth) | Radice, Giles | Young, David (Bolton E) |
| Harper, Joseph | Rees, Rt Hon Merlyn (Leeds S) | |
| Harrison, Walter (Wakefield) | Raid, George | TELLERS FOR THE NOES: |
| Hatton, Frank | Richardson, Miss Jo | Mr. James Hamilton and |
| Hayman, Mrs Helene | Roberts, Albert (Normanton) | Mr. David Stoddart. |
| Heffer, Eric S. | Roderick, Caerwyn |
§ Question accordingly negatived.