Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill [Lords]

My hon. Friend is right that there is a danger of that. There is a question about points of access to the system for individual citizens. It appears as though there may still be an opportunity for confusion and the role is not as cohesive as we envisaged when we first considered the matter. The devil is in the detail and the Government must have the opportunity to assure us that what we fear is not the case or show us that there will be a cohesive point of entry into the system for older people rather than the divided one that an initial reading of the Bill suggests. The Secretary of State mentioned that, under the Bill as drafted, an older person is defined as someone who is 60 or older. When reading the valuable contributions that such a wide variety of organisations made to the consultation process, it is clear that many people wanted the age limit to be reconsidered. I appreciate that there was not general agreement and that proposals ranged from 50 years of age to 55, 60 and 65. However, many problems that face older people, especially discrimination in employment, occur at a younger age than 60. The Government’s consultation document, ““Opportunity Age: Meeting the challenges of ageing in the 21st century””, referred to several problems that face people over 50. They have not changed since the time when I dealt with such issues. In Committee in the Lords, my noble Friend Lord Roberts called for the definition of an older person to be reduced to 50. The Government responded by saying that that would automatically extend the commissioner’s remit from approximately 600,000 people to more than 1 million. Ministers in the other place also argued that 60 is the age at which people become entitled to numerous benefits, such as winter fuel payments and, in the case of women—for now at least—the state pension. Again, I wonder whether there is not some case for flexibility by enabling the commissioner to take action to help those over 50 when he or she deems it appropriate. I hope that the Government will take a pragmatic approach so that we can explore whether the age limit in some instances could be loosened instead of sticking rigidly to an age limit of 60. The Bill is welcome but it is something of a vehicle for Ministers’ party political broadcasts so that, at the next Assembly elections, they can say, ““Look at what we've done for older people in Wales—we’ve given you a commissioner.””