Equality Bill

I was not going to intervene in this debate but I should just like to ask for a couple of points of clarification when the Minister replies and to add to the debate about the meaning of retirement and skills and ongoing appraisal. I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, that there is a real mismatch in this country between the skills required for jobs and the people available for jobs, so job-blocking is not about where people are sitting. Many of them are very young people who need to be in at the start and to have opportunities, which I believe that the Government are working hard to give. There are literally thousands of young people waiting for places on those programmes. I have been looking at that for an inquiry that I am undertaking for the EU Committee on the European Social Fund. There is an issue about job-blocking. On whether people are fit for work and the kind of work that they do, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, made it absolutely clear that if employers undertook proper, ongoing appraisals, which all good employers should do throughout their employees’ working career, at any stage they would discover whether they should move him to a different area of work, whether he was safe in what could become unsafe work, or whether he had the aptitude to undertake it. In another organisation for which I work, we have set up a new appraisal programme. We have some very good people working at age 70, but we find that some of the younger people are unable to carry out that task. We know that the Government are engaged in Europe in discussing the proposed Council directive on implementing the principle of equal treatment, including in the area of age as well as in the areas of religion, belief, disability and sexual orientation. It is clear in the directive that different treatment connected with age may be permitted under certain circumstances if it is objectively justified. Do the directive and objective justification meet the requirement that you can be removed from your job and retired simply because you have reached 65? On that issue, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lester. As the Government are negotiating on this directive and I understand that the Equality Bill will be commensurate with it, will the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Lester, meet the directive?