§ Lieut-Colonel HURSTasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the practice of assimilating first-class women clerks into the lower clerical class pending determination of the number of available posts in the executive class has operated almost wholly to exclude women from the executive class in consequence of the assimilation of all second division class men into that grade, no post thus remaining available for women; and whether, in these circumstances, he will safeguard women's interests by definitely reserving beforehand a proportion of executive posts for women in the impending regrading of the Post Office?
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Mr. YOUNGAs regards the first part of the question, I would refer my hon. and gallant Friend to my reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Sir R. Newman) on the 26th May, from which he will see that I do not accept the assumption made in his question. The grading of women clerks in the Post Office on reorganisation will be based on the character of the work which they are performing, and will not be affected by the assimilation of the second division to the executive class.