Orders of the Day — Balance of Sexes Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 16 May 1975.

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Photo of Ms Maureen Colquhoun Ms Maureen Colquhoun , Northampton North 12:00, 16 May 1975

The idea behind my Bill is not original. It is one that I had no hesitation in borrowing from Bernard Shaw, who warned the suffragettes, after they got the vote, that unless a Bill was introduced to make it compulsory for men and women to be on public bodies and boards in equal numbers they would never get very far. He said also, at the time of the first General Election after women had the vote, when not one woman candidate was returned, that first-rate women candidates were defeated by mere male nobodies". That situation often persists even today, but it is a matter quite separate from the Balance of Sexes Bill, and it is up to the political parties represented in the House to deal with it.

My Bill is designed positively to discriminate for women, to Ensure that appointments to the boards of public bodies and corporations, to certain committees, panels and tribunals, and to juries and the House of Lords, shall consist of women and men in equal numbers. Writing to me in March about the Bill, my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary said: A requirement of equal numbers of men and women on public bodies would in effect define a person's sex as a relevant and justifiable basis for different treatment. The Home Secretary is a thoughtful and helpful man with a very friendly attitude towards women's aims, and I have not the slightest intention of trying to score political points off him, but his remarks took my breath away, because our present situation is one in which the constitution of public appointments is decided on a sex basis—the male sex. It may be wrong—I agree that it is wrong—but that is the reality of the situation. That is why I am here today, in this almost empty Chamber, seeking to remedy it.

We have been assured that the Sex Discrimination Bill is a great step forward for women, the great opportunity that women outside have been waiting for. Surely that Bill is not now to be used as a weapon against us when we try to promote our rights. The Sex Discrimination Bill will not correct past discrimination against women. Moreover, as a member of the Standing Committee on that Bill, I am not at all sure that it will correct future discrimination against women, certainly not unless it is radically amended to give it real meaning for working women. Indeed, we had a simple amendment the other day in Committee about the constitution of the Equal Opportunities Commission. That amendment, if it had been accepted by the Government, would have assured the aim of the Balance of Sexes Bill—that 50 per cent. of the membership of the EOC should be women.

In the Sex Discrimination Bill, above all other recent legislation for women, it was a vital amendment. What did the Government do? In effect, they said Trust us. We will not write anything into the Bill, but we are sympathetic". I am sure they are. I do not doubt that for one moment. Unfortunately, sympathy does not carry much weight on the statute book.

We in Parliament, who believe in making life better for women and that they should be the legislators as well as the makers of cups of tea, believe that our aims must be translated into laws which will be binding not merely on the present Government but on future Governments. That is what I consider I am here for.

It is significant that today there are more public jobs on boards, corporations, councils and commissions within the gift of Ministers than at any other time in Britain's history. It is also significant that nearly all the 4,500 jobs that I have discovered are jobs for the boys.

In the breakdown of those jobs one comes up against the statutory woman. But, of course, "statutory "is the wrong word. "Nominal "is a more accurate description of the women who serve on those committees. Women are not on those committees by statute they are on them by grace and favour. The Bill seeks to remedy that situation.

It is intolerable to women that in 1975 half of society is not properly represented on these committees. Women have simply been excluded. Are we to believe that that exclusion, to date, is because there are not enough women in a nation in which there are more women than men? Are we to believe the arguments of some of my hon. Friends who have spoken to me about the Bill—for example, "Your Bill is impossible. It is an impossible situation that you wish to create because there are not enough women"? Or is it, as is far more likely, that women have been deliberately excluded because the authorities which have made the appointments prefer men?

I should like to take some examples of the situation as it exists. I will spare the House the ordeal of listening to a breakdown of each of the public bodies affected by my proposed legislation. According to my count they total no fewer than 174, although there could be even more.

Only the other day I discovered that there was an advisory board on pop festivals. It seems grossly unfair that there is not also one on string quartets.

There is a Committee on Bird Sanctuaries in the Royal Parks. It has eight men but no women.

There is an Office of the Umpire, which has absolutely nothing to do with either cricket or tennis but concerns something much nearer to the heart of this House—the law. The umpire, is, of course, a man.

I shall not be drawn into dealing with the more recherché areas of ministerial patronage. I shall merely draw the attention of the House today to some of the everyday bread-and-butter bodies that affect everybody's lives. For example, the Sugar Board has five men and no women. The Agriculture Training Board has 27 men, no women. Is it to be said that the only rôle of the woman in agriculture is that of the farmer's wife?

The Committee of Investigation for Great Britain has seven men, no women. I cannot think how Great Britain can be investigated without the help of women.

The Covent Garden Market Authority has six men, no women. I do not know whether that authority was responsible for the environmental damage in Covent Garden. If so, it might well have been improved with some women on the board.

The National Bus Company has seven men, no women. Of course, women do not travel on buses. Neither, apparently, do they travel on trains, because the British Railways Board has 12 men, no women.

What about the 14 male members of the Building Research Establishment Advisory Committee? Surely they need a little help from their friends. I suspect that there is one thing we can say for them. They obviously do not believe that a woman's place is in the home.

Among the 24 members of the Advisory Panel on Arms Control and Disarmament there are no women appointed, yet surely disarmament and arms control is a subject very much of interest to women. They ought to be there and they ought to be having a say. Or does the world of men still believe that They also serve who only stand and wait"? I must confess that all is not entirely bleak. I was delighted with the appointments made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Prices and Consumer Protection, whose Department has just set up the National Consumer Council with 13 women and five men. That is something for the Guinness Book of Records. I suspect that it is the only Government-appointed body with a majority of women. My right hon. Friend has followed through in her Department her belief in women's ability. How I wish that other Secretaries of State—indeed, other women Secretaries of State—would use their powers to set up balanced committees, but they do not do so and they are not balanced.