HC Deb 16 October 1975 vol 897 cc1612-8

Lords amendment: No. 7, in page 5, line 6, leave out from "for" to "different" in line 7 and insert: a man for reasons of physiology (excluding physical strength or stamina) or, in dramatic performances or other entertainment, for reasons of authenticity, so that the essential nature of the job would be materially".

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Fraser)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

This amendment is a rewording of the first genuine occupational qualification criterion, and is an attempt to meet some of the criticisms made at an earlier stage. Some people thought that preconceptions about a woman's rôle would cloud the interpretation of our intentions. We do not think the amended wording differs significantly in effect from the wording as it left this House, but it has the additional merit that it makes the intention rather clearer.

Mr. Ronald Bell

Once again I feel it necessary to say some words of dissent on this proposal. The wording that is being replaced was inevitably and naturally the subject of some fairly astringent comment in the earlier stages of the Bill and I do not consider that any improvement has been made. On the contrary, the faults of the Bill are brought into focus rather more sharply by the proposed change.

The extraordinary words "excluding physical strength or stamina" in the amendment underline the absurdity of this Bill. I heard the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) mention physiognomy at one point. As I understand it, physiognomy might get past as a necessary characteristic, particularly if one wanted a character with a beard. At least we have got away from the attitude of a former Home Secretary who said that, if necessary, a woman could have a beard stuck on in order to avoid discrimination. If there is one thing which validly differentiates men and women it is physical strength and stamina, yet they are expressly excluded.

I choose this amendment for an intervention at this late stage because in it is distilled, in the purest form, the phrenetic absurdity which underlies the whole Bill. To me it is sad to see the House of Commons lending its grave attention to proposals which spring from nothing better than a shrill and peevish militancy of a sectional lobby. The Bill, of course, will not work. No one thinks that it will. It is offensive and objectionable in principle.

4.30 p.m.

I can give two illustrations on the question whether it will work. One of them I raised on Report, and it concerns the police. I asked how, if physical strength and stamina were excluded, it would be possible to ensure a police force which could deal with disorder in the streets, with holding back crowds and with all those occasions where physical strength of relatively young men is regularly engaged. I raised this point in the hope of getting an answer, and in the end I was told that somehow or other the police would make sure that they got an adequate number of men, as distinct from women. That can mean only that this kind of thing is to be a broad principle in the Bill but that in practice it will be winked at where convenient. The Forces are excluded, and they have to be. The police should be excluded, but they are not, and so these things will be done in a covert way.

I saw in the daily Press that the fire service is worried over securing the proper recruitment of men. The Chief Fire Officer of East Sussex has said that the fire service should be excluded from the Bill. I wonder, if physical strength and stamina are not to be matters of differentiation, how it is proposed to get an adequate number of male firemen without discriminating on the ground of sex.

Mr. Michael Alison (Barkston Ash)

My hon. and learned Friend is raising an important point, and I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us about it. I hope that my hon. and learned Friend is not right in saying that physical strength and stamina may no longer be grounds for discrimination. It may be that one would want to choose a woman precisely because she was strong and had more stamina, but it is important that we should be reassured that my hon. and learned Friend is not right and that we are not disallowing the factor of physical strength and stamina as a basis for discrimination.

Mr. Bell

The Lords amendment in the new phrasing of the exemption, which before referred to authentic male characteristics, now uses a form of words which speaks of physiology (excluding physical strength or stamina"). That explicit and express exception must mean something, and I should be very glad to know what it means. When I raised this question on Report in relation to the police I was told that somehow the police would manage to get the number of men, as distinct from women, that they wanted. I suppose that the fire service will also—by breaking the law—recruit the number of men it wants.

I can imagine that the Minister will give us a wildly impractical answer. He will probably say that it is necessary to have a mainly male police force and fire service. The police will have to hold back crowds, deal with fighting and arrest people, and therefore, they will say that they need 90 per cent. of strong, large constables. Those are the sort of constables they will interview. Of course, the only strong and large ones will be men, and that is how the objective will be achieved. That is the nonsense that we shall have arrived at. The Minister must give an answer, and there is no other which can be thought of.

I do not intend to go through the Lords amendments restating the different facets of my opposition to these proposals because basically I am opposed to the principle of this kind of legislation at all. If one gets involved in the details of a Committee or Report stage or in consideration of Lords amendments one is, before one knows it, embroiled in the whole issue and is subject to inferences of partial acceptance, which would not be correct in my case. I therefore propose to intervene on these two groups of amendments and then to leave the matter to the inevitable course of nature, if I may so describe it.

It is only a matter of regret to me that when important issues like this reach the House, almost invariably on a Friday but at other times, too, they are greeted by empty benches. I say that regardless of which side of the argument I am on. I have seen it through the years. On Fridays we have gone through proposals about divorce and abortion, and quite often I have been on the same side of the argument as some Labour hon. Members on these subjects, surprising though that may seem, but nearly always the House is empty. Our colleagues seem to be locked in their economic dogfights, almost to the exclusion of all other considerations. When these matters, which go far deeper and are far more pervasive and go much further in shaping the development of society, are discussed no one is present to listen to the arguments and perhaps be persuaded by them.

Mrs. Maureen Colquhoun (Northampton, North)

Is the hon. and learned Gentleman not aware that women always have had to take second place in this House? The situation arose in which a dogs Bill came before women, and the Lotteries Bill came before women, both of them before quite a full House. That is the situation today. Not even male members of the Committee can be bothered to turn up for the debate.

Mr. Bell

That is no doubt true but it does not have much to do with women taking second place, which is not the case in my experience during my time in the House. It would be ungracious to say that they have hogged the time—I must find a more elegant expression than that—but they have had their fair share of the time and there may be those who would say that matters relating to women are always something of a lottery anyway.

I feel that my duty in this matter is not in any way to hold up the procedural progress of the Bill. It is to make my own position on it perfectly clear over this extension of the use of legislation which I regard as wrong in principle and thoroughly dangerous. Having made that position clear, I must say that if people have to learn from painful experience rather than precept at least the responsibility is not mine.

Mr. John Fraser

I think I should start by paying a compliment to the hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Bell). Throughout the proceedings about equality for women, whenever he has made a contribution on the subject, he has strengthened the backbone of the lobby for women's equality, and to that extent he has pushed the legislation along.

I deal with his point by reference to an example concerning the fireman. If there is an advertisement for people to become firemen, both men and women can apply. It will be unlawful to discriminate against a woman making an application for that kind of job. However, of course, the fire authorities can impose a requirement about stamina or strength, because that is an essential condition for carrying out the job. Therefore, the amendment does not prevent recruitment, and recruitment conditions which include requirements about stamina or strength.

I turn to the second example which is the one that we intend to cover in the Bill. If one advertises for somebody to play the part of Juliet, in our view it makes sense that the person inserting the advertisement or contacting an agent can require that a woman performs that part. I should have thought that that was fairly obvious. That is the exception where one can specify that only a woman is wanted for the job. That is why we have introduced this particular qualification into Clause 7.

Mr. Bell

How will one assess the stamina? Will it be at the interview or by filling in questions on a form? This is not plausible. We all know that there are physical differences of strength as well as other differences between men and women. Surely, the only way is the practical way. As to the theoretical way, if it were applied one could advertise not for a woman to play the part of Juliet but for someone with female characteristics, and there are plenty of such people around. It is not altogether easy in these days to know at whom one is looking in the Underground. Some men could pass quite well for Juliet. Does not the Minister think that it is all a little fanciful?

Mr. Fraser

No, I do not think that it is fanciful. It would bring the legislation into disrepute if there were not some occasions on which one would specify that only a man or a woman was required for the position. Therefore, we thought it right to introduce this genuine occupational qualification for carrying out, for instance, a dramatic part. That is why we have the exception.

I shall now explain why we further amended the exception. There are certain jobs where there might be a different opinion whether one needed authentic male characteristics to carry out the job at all. Let us take as an example the job of a waiter. Some of my hon. Friends feared that a job such as that of a waiter might be considered by some people to be one which required authentic male characteristics of physique, appearance and so forth. We disagreed with that proposition and wanted to make it clear that the condition that had to be fulfilled in order to obtain the exception was that there was only to be a requirement as to physiology and gave the example of entertainment and dramatic performances. I hope that I have made the distinction clear.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: No. 8, in page 5, line 21, after "available" insert for persons holding that kind of job".

Mr. John Fraser

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

The need for the amendment arises in connection with communal accommodation available on ships. We have been advised that the words the only such premises which are available in Clause 7(2)(c)(i) must relate to the totality of the living accommodation on a ship and that, therefore, the requirements of subparagraph (i) cannot be met by any ship which has more than one unit or block of sleeping and sanitary accommodation for its crew.

By definition, such a ship is equipped with separate sleeping and sanitary accommodation which could be used by women in privacy from men, although, in fact, it may not be available for this purpose. Where, for example, a ship which was recruiting a crew for a voyage had three units of communal living accommodation, one for deck crew, one for engine room crew, and one for catering ratings, and a woman applied to join the ship, it would not be possible even to attempt to claim that Clause 7(2)(c) applied because the ship would fail to meet the requirements of subparagraph (i), as it would have separate sleeping and sanitary accommodation which could be used by women. This would be so whether the woman was the first applicant or the last.

The effect of the amendment is to restrict the reference to "premises" in Clause 7(2)(c)(i) to premises which are available for persons holding the job in question.

Question put and agreed to.

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