Mrs Keeble and Mrs Watkinson were made redundant in 1989. At that time, British Coal's voluntary redundancy scheme was based on a retirement age of 60 for women and 65 for men. There was provision for abatement of the amount payable for women aged 55 and upwards, whereas the abatement only commenced at age 60 in the case of men. The result was that if the two women had been men, their payments under the voluntary scheme would not have been subject to abatement.