Orders of the Day — Sex Discrimination Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 26 March 1975.

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Photo of Ms Jo Richardson Ms Jo Richardson , Barking 12:00, 26 March 1975

The Sex Discrimination Bill is the most recent of a number of laws which have been designed over many years to improve the legal position of women, and like everybody else, welcome it very much indeed.

The first anti-discrimination law was passed in 1919. It was called the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act and it made it unlawful to bar women from public posts on grounds of sex. It fell to the ground simply because there was no method of enforcing it, so really it has been inoperative ever since. We have seen other Acts which have been of considerable assistance to women and which have made their lives much more bearable because of the ability to enforce the law. As we all very well know from the traumas over the past few weeks, we have, had since 1967 had an abortion law which has been of great help to very many women in this country and has strengthened their case.

We have had the Equal Pay Act, which was passed in 1970 but which will not become fully operative until 1975 and is already being evaded by a large number of employers. And we have seen a number of attempts in the past on the part of hon. Members—notably my hon. Friend the Member for Wood Green (Mrs. Butler) and my hon. Friend the Member for Fife, Central (Mr. Hamilton) —to produce Private Members' Bills, but, of course, as with most Private Members' Bills, they did not get very far.

For all these reasons, I and all my colleagues on this side of the House welcome very warmly indeed this particular Bill. It is the most comprehensive attempt ever to have been made to try to produce legislation which will get rid of the worst effects of the discrimination which we have had up to this point. It is a positive move.

The right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mr. Gilmour) talked glibly about a number of measures which his party had passed, but his party has never produced a Bill of this sort. His party produced a White Paper which was so loosely written that one could have driven a coach and horses right through it. Indeed, a number of my hon. Friends who were members at that time did just that. But our White Paper on this subject and our Bill are very much stronger.

I am particularly glad, as are other hon. Members, to see, for example, in Clauses 1(1)(b) and 4 the extension of the definition of discrimination to include victimisation of people bringing a complaint and also unjustifiable but unintentional discrimination. This is to be warmly welcomed.

As the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Mr. Freud) suggested a few moments ago, it is most welcome that the figure of 10 in the White Paper to indicate the size of the firms to which the law will apply has been reduced to five. Frankly, I cannot see what is so magic about five either, because there are a very large number of firms with fewer than five employees. Why should those people be left outside the law?

Clause 40 is also very helpful since it allows positive discrimination in training and recruitment where one sex has been excluded from any particular kind of work or responsibility.

These are positive attempts to combat the effects of past discrimination and they are essential if the new law is to have real effect in improving the position of women.

The Bill permits employers to organise special training courses to fit women for skilled manual work. I hope that the Equal Opportunities Commission will positively encourage them to do so, because it is no use simply putting it in a Bill, its becoming a piece of legislation and the employers ignoring it, as many of them will no doubt try to do.

The Bill also allows trade unions to run special schools to encourage women to become shop stewards. This is a particularly important point. Not only do we need more women shop stewards, but in connection with this particular piece of legislation it will be necessary for women to be represented at the tribunals and before the Equal Opportunities Commission and it will be helpful to them if they have women shop stewards to whom they can go and whom they can consult.