Discrimination (Hansard, 24 July 1985)

§ Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to ban discrimination against people because they are single or elderly, or in other specified categories, and for connected purposes. The purpose of the Bill is to fill some enormous and surprising gaps in our law which permit discrimination against vast categories and huge numbers of people, discrimination which is intolerable in any decent society. There is discrimination against single people, including single-parent families and the single homeless. There is discrimination against older people, which forces women to retire at 60, whether or not they wish to do so and whether or not the result will be that they are forced into poverty or loneliness, while men are required to soldier on until they are 65, if they wish to receive a pension, irrespective of whether they are fit and without regard to of the number of unemployed people who are desperate for their jobs. There is discrimination particularly in the home and in employment. Finally, there is discrimination that does not permit men to have paternity leave when their wives are having children. This discriminates against the wives just as much as it discriminates against the husbands.

It is a massive array of unacceptable discrimination that is completely unaffected by the law. Although I accept that the law cannot change the ways that people think, it can and must provide a decent and proper framework for any society, including especially our own, which in so many ways is discriminatory and in which people are suffering so greatly.

I have the support of a massive series of organisations, to each of which I pay tribute. They include the Campaign for the Homeless and Rootless. CHAR, of which I am proud to be a founder and trustee, Gingerbread, which cares for single-parent families, the National Council for One-Parent Families, the Single Homeless Project, the National Council for Carers, CRUSE which looks after the bereaved, Help the Aged, the National Council for the Divorced and Separated. the National Council for the Single Women and Her Dependants, and Shelter. The community should be grateful to all of these organisations which look after people who, in the main, are discriminated against because of the nature of our society.

Curiously enough, the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 bans discrimination against people because they are male or female or because they are married but it contains no similar provision to outlaw discrimination against those who are single: whether or not they have ever been married, or whether or not they are widows or widowers. They may be discriminated against while those who are married may not. It is a distinction with neither sense nor compassion.

According to figures that have been supplied to me in written answers, there are today over 11 million single people in this country who are over the age of 16. There are 6,170,000 men and 5,090,000 women. This huge number of people is completely unprotected against discrimination.

There is an immense number of one-parent families. In 1982, there were 930,000 single-parent families who were unprotected by the law. In many cases they were suffering very considerable hardship because of discrimination 1082 against them in housing and in work. If one speaks to their organisations, as I do, and Listens to them, one finds that the difficulties that single parents face in finding private sector housing are often equalled by those which they suffer in the public sector, whose ability to provide accommodation for anybody is shrinking and within which it is always harder for single people to obtain accommodation than it is for those who are married.

An official of CHAR told me this morning that it has no way of knowing how many people are both single and without homes, or how many are living rough or in hostels, or both, but it says that several hundred thousand people are in this position. The provision of housing is bad for all but it is worse for the single. In Leicester, the provision of public sector housing is worsening almost daily. Housing starts have withered away because housing provision has been hacked back by the Government There is less housing for those who need it, although that need is growing among many sections of the population, particularly among those who are on their own and lonely and who tend to be not merely in need of care but of shelter. I pay tribute to Shelter for the work that it does.

Even where there is housing, the rights of single people are not protected by our law. This is weird. When a man and a woman who are not married share accommodation, the law is ludicrous. In the House of Lords decision of Burns v. Burns in 1984, their Lordships considered a man and a woman who had lived together unmarried for 19 years. When their relationship broke up the woman got nothing. The court told her that if she had wanted anything she should have got married. The court did not say that to the man, to the common law husband. It was said to the woman, the so-called common law wife. That area of discrimination was mentioned this week at an American Bar Association meeting, where Dame Margaret Booth made it clear that people who live together could ensure that their property, financial and social security rights were protected only by getting married.

For those who reach the ages of 60 or 65, the differences are even more acute. Men aged 60 are required to continue working, whereas women aged 60 are generally forced into retirement. Such discrimination should be banned. In this area, the United States provision is an excellent guide. In 1967, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act was introduced as a federal statute to promote the employment of older persons based on their ability rather than age, and to prohibit arbitrary age discrimination in employment. The Act prohibited employment discrimination against people aged between 40 and 65. Since 1967, the Act has been amended twice. In 1974 its provisions were extended to include federal, state and local government employment, and in 1978 it was amended to extend protection beyond the age of 65, without an age limit for employees of the federal Government, and until the age of 70 for most other workers.

Hon. Members are privileged to serve in the House until any age, depending upon whether they are selected, re-selected or elected. In another place, service can continue into the second century of life. May I pay an affectionate tribute to my father, who served in this House until he was 79 and then for a further 10 years in the other place. Had he been forced into retirement, there is no doubt that he would not have survived. His work would have ceased when he was 65, yet he gave much of his most valuable service after reaching that age.

1083 There is no justification, in a society such as ours, which has vast unemployment, for forcing men who wish to retire to stay at work until they are 65. Nor is it fair to require women who are anxious to stay at work to retire when they are 60. We should reach the position in our society where people are treated equally and, as the American statute says, according to their ability rather than according to their age or sex. People should be encouraged to serve society irrespective of anything but their ability.