§ Mr. FOOTasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury what is the total number of women in the Civil Service who are engaged in the same grades and upon the same work as men, and who would, therefore, be effected by the introduction of the principle of equal pay; what is the actual cost as estimated by the Treasury and on what basis the cost has been calculated; and whether the cost as calculated is the cost of placing women on the same point in the salary scale that they would have reached had they always been paid on the men's scale or the cost of putting the women affected on to the men's higher increments until they reached the men's maximum?
Mr. GRAHAMThe number of women in the Civil Service now employed in the same grades as men is estimated at about 40,000, but it is obvious that the effect of introducing the principle of equal pay could not be confined to these grades and that consequent adjustments would be inevitable in the pay of women employed in separate grades of the Civil Service, the number of whom is not far short of 40,000. It would also be necessary to allow for the extension of the principle to women teachers, and on this basis the cost would be at least £10,000,000 a year. If, however, the estimate is confined to the Civil Service, the cost, based upon a comparison of the means of the scales in grades in which both men and women are employed, with a moderate allowance for adjusting the pay of other women civil servants, may be put at £3,000,000 a year in round figures for the existing numbers employed, without any allowance for increase in the proportion of women employed in the Civil Service. It is not considered that the method of calculation mentioned in the concluding words of the question would give any adequate measure of the effect of the application of the far-reaching principle in question.