Jobs for the girls and why it’s men who’ll soon be suing for sex discrimination
David CAMERON has a new reason to be cross with Jean-Claude Juncker, the European Commission president whose appointment he so spectacularly failed to block. Last week, Juncker warned the Prime Minister that if he wanted a British nominee given charge of one of the big jobs at the Commission, he had better put forward a ‘female candidate’: unless Cameron’s nominee Lord Hill of Oareford undergoes an immediate sex-change operation, that won’t happen.
Yet if the Tory leader finds this unreasonable, he would rightly be accused of hypocrisy.
Yesterday, Rona Fairhead was named as the new head of the BBC Trust — an appointment which Cameron had let it be known he wanted to go to a female (as if that were somehow a special qualification for the role).
and, in fact, Juncker was doing at a European level what Cameron has been up to at Westminster.
The PM’s recent reshuffle was built around the perceived need to get more women around the Cabinet table. This took on a ludicrous aspect when Esther Mcvey was invited to attend Cabinet, while being kept in her old job as a mere Minister of State.
if the Merseyside MP was dismayed at being so obviously a mere token of her gender at Cabinet meetings, she disguised it well: but then she used to be a Tv presenter.
Unimpressive
in the past, Cameron intimated that he wanted to emulate Labour’s policy of imposing all-woman short-lists in many constituencies engaged in selecting a parliamentary candidate. Conservative associations tend to be more assertive of their independence than Labour ones, so this was not well received, to put it mildly.
That didn’t stop the former Culture Secretary Maria Miller a few weeks ago from reiterating the idea; but her own unimpressive tenure of a Cabinet post, ending with a dreadfully botched mishandling of Parliament in a row over her expenses, was hardly an advertisement for bending the rules in favour of women candidates for office.
Of course, there have been women-only short-lists producing excellent candidates — for example Gisela Stuart, the formidable Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston. But then Margaret Moran, whom the Crown Prosecution Service charged with 21 criminal offences over fraudulent parliamentary expenses, had also been selected (for Luton South) from an all-woman short-list: hardly the breath of fresh air this procedure was meant to bring to Westminster.
it is ostensibly with the same idea of blowing away the fusty cobwebs of the Palace of Westminster that the Commons Speaker John Bercow has put forward for Royal appointment one Carol Mills, to replace the retiring Sir Robert Rogers as Chief Clerk. This, the most senior quasi-judicial role at Westminster, comes with a salary of £200,000.
That seems a lot, but the job requires unparalleled understanding of all the arcana of Parliamentary procedure: one reason why in six-and-a-half centuries it has never been given to someone with no previous experience of Westminster — and it was assumed Sir Robert would be succeeded by his long-time deputy, david Natzler, a man immensely respected on all sides of the House.
Bercow had another idea in the form of Ms Mills. She had worked in the australian Senate’s department of Parliamentary Services, but her function was only overseeing the physical building, its catering and staff.
The clerk of the australian Senate was astounded to hear of Mills’ proposed new job at the constitutional apex of the mother of parliaments: ‘There is not a single individual who has mentioned this to me in the past few weeks, from my most junior procedural officers to senior staff here and senators to my state colleagues, who has not seen this candidacy as an affront to our profession.’
Bercow points out, accurately, that Mills was selected as Chief Clerk by a panel, which he chaired. But that panel was of his own making. He removed from it the deputy Speaker, doug Hoyle, whose job more than any other depends on a superb working relationship with the Chief Clerk — and replaced him with Margaret Hodge MP. Bercow also brought in as an ‘outside’ member of the panel dame Julie Mellor, the former chair of the Equal Opportunities Commission.
Perhaps the contrived make-up of Bercow’s panel did not predispose it to select the most plausible woman for the job, rather than the best candidate regardless of gender. But this does seem to have crossed the mind of the rejected internal candidate.
Mr Natzler has called for all the papers surrounding the selection of Ms Mills, with a view to mounting a complaint of sexual discrimination in the appointment process.
You see, although the Sex discrimination act was passed in 1975 to protect the employment rights and opportunities of women (who did and still do suffer prejudicial treatment within the workplace), section 82 states that its provisions ‘are to be read as applying equally to the treatment of men’.
So if a man has been passed over for a job even only in part because there was a desire on the part of the employer to appoint a woman, he has grounds to sue.
Embarrassing
as the leading employment lawyer Elaine aarons, of Withers, explained it to me: ‘Under the law, if the complainant can demonstrate a prima facie case that some sex discrimination might have been involved, then the onus is on the employer to prove this did not happen. and it can be very hard to prove a negative.’
in other words, things could get extremely embarrassing for Speaker Bercow — not an unpleasant thought for Commons employees.
The Sex discrimination act had to be amended by statute in 2002 to exempt parliamentary selection from its provisions, after two male would-be Labour candidates sued their own party: there is no such exemption for Palace of Westminster appointments.
i know a little about this, if only because nine years ago when i was replaced by a woman in my position as editor of a national newspaper, i casually remarked to my lawyer that perhaps the paper’s owners had wanted a woman to do the job.
She immediately brightened: ‘You do realise that if we can show that you were replaced in part on grounds of gender, you could claim unlimited damages, including for hurt to your injured feelings.’ i replied that i had no intention of being a legal test case for injured male pride.
if things carry on the way they are, however, it won’t be long before the men rise up against the new dispensation of jobs for the girls.