Equality Bill

My Lords, given the opening remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Lester, I feel that I must declare that I am under 65, so if this proposal came in it would apply to me. I listened with great interest to the noble Lord’s speech, which has raised the important issue of the default retirement age. We are all aware that the state retirement age is 65. However, an ever-ageing population is calling this into question for a number of reasons, which are partly concerned with money. It costs the state a large amount of money to fund pensions from the age of 65 when many people are still willing and capable of working, and are likely to live for another two or, hopefully, three decades. The reasons are also tied into the different wants and needs of an ageing population. The increase in life expectancy means that someone aged 65 can still be at the top of their game and be an effective, able, competent, experienced and valuable worker. They may not want to retire this early. Your Lordships’ House is a very good example. Therefore, we on these Benches feel that we could support the removal of the default retirement age in principle. We have long believed that retirement should be a process and not an event. However, we believe that there are a great many complications with removing the default retirement age, especially in this time of very bad recession. We are worried that moves to remove the default retirement age might have a further detrimental impact on the large numbers of young people who are out of work at present. Also, under current law, if the default retirement age is removed it could be difficult for employers to ask older employees, who may not be as proficient at their jobs as they used to be, to leave, as the noble Baroness said, for reasons of safety. Under the current rules it is realistic to suppose that if an employer were to ask an employee to leave, that could result in disciplinary action or claims of wrongful dismissal, and that concerns us. That would also not be good for the employer or the employee. Perhaps some kind of mutual discussion regarding retirement would need to be instigated. Many options need to be considered carefully and I know that the Government are reviewing this at the moment. In her winding—up speech at Second Reading, the Minister made it clear that the Government would not consider it, ""tenable to have a situation where the default retirement age was lower than the state pension age".—[Official Report, 15/12/09; col. 1510.]" Changes to the state pension age are not to be made by this Government until 2026. In contrast, we on these Benches have said that we will hold a review into bringing the increase in the state pension age forward but starting no earlier than 2016 for men and 2020 for women. I wonder whether the Government’s policy regarding the state pension age changes also reflects their intention that there should not be any changes to a default retirement age until 2026 at the earliest. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that, although I see her shaking her head vigorously. The point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, is valid. She has floated the possibility of raising the retirement age but, in so doing, it would also be worthwhile assessing what manner of work remained available for older people to do and what could be done to assist them. She has mentioned the possibilities of extra support directed towards the older worker or perhaps flexible working to allow them to remain comfortable in their jobs for a longer time. These are all interesting ideas and should be taken into consideration very seriously. The noble Baroness, Lady Turner, has further suggested, with her amendment, that perhaps instead of a general review, it would be better for the Secretary of State to pass regulations which would allow a general audit of all companies employing more than 250 employees. I agree that there is a need for some form of assessment to be made but is this the way best way to go about it? The Government are already proposing to pass regulations to burden companies with gender pay audits and to add age to that could serve to make that load even heavier. I imagine that audits would be far more complex than just writing down the ages of all those in the company. To do a proper audit, which would aid assessment of what support older workers need, what changes would be needed to address their concerns and perhaps how to attract more older and experienced people to stay, would involve complex metrics and different questions. That might risk overburdening companies at a time when they most need support. I look forward to hearing the opinion of the Minister on this issue.