Equality Bill

My Lords, I think there is agreement in this debate on one broad point: the world is changing fast. I quote one paragraph from a very good report, Working Better: The Over 50s, the New Work Generation, published on Tuesday by the Equality and Human Rights Commission: ""A large number of older people would like to carry on working; this requires more supportive policies and practices from employers. Employers with experience of employing mature workers say they offer knowledge and experience as well as loyalty, maturity, productivity, reliability and empathy with the growing population of mature customers. Yet approaches to retaining older employees, where they exist at all, often tend to be piecemeal rather than comprehensive"." That has been coupled with another point that goes in a slightly different direction: comprehensive can mean "one size fits all". Several speakers—notably my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, but many others—have given some of the industrial reasons for saying that, but there is still a huge dilemma. As a former employee of the TUC, I find it interesting that the TUC has two trains of thought at present. On balance, I think it is saying that it supports the approach of the amendment. I am sitting on the fence, which is a comfortable place to sit for a short time, but I strongly support the review. I do not think I am being chicken, but it is a question that we cannot decide finally today. Perhaps my noble friend the Leader of the House will be able to say that today’s debate will be reflected and taken into account in the review. It is last knockings, but there has always been something of a difficulty in meshing together Parliament and reviews. However, this is a golden opportunity. The noble Lord, Lord Lester, made it sound as though there was not much of a problem in deleting from the top of page 167 of the Bill the point about unfair dismissal. However, his problem is different from mine in that I do not think there is a magic solution in his approach or in the words of paragraph 8(1), as it stands. Does it mean that a default retirement age applies to everyone in a company; or is an individual able to say that he or she personally would do something different from the company arrangements? Is that what is being said? In the present construction, the new concept of a tailor-made retirement age—the age after which you cannot go to a tribunal—takes us back to square one. It leaves us in a position where the employer can dismiss you without any reason other than that you have suddenly reached retirement age. I presume that the employer says, "Good afternoon, sit down; you are dismissed because you are now retired". The person might say, "You what?"—in the vernacular—but they are dismissed in line with the Bill. It defies the common-sense use of English to say, "You are dismissed because you are retired". What happens if I do not want to retire? I am dismissed, full stop. That will not go away and it is difficult to solve. Perhaps the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of York would ask the Archangel Gabriel to have a go at this but I doubt whether he would succeed. We are all still left in a difficulty. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has a couple of paragraphs on this point but it does not solve the problem any more easily. It supports the amendment but states: ""It should be noted that these amendments would not prevent forced retirement altogether. In exceptional cases, particular employers might continue operating mandatory retirement ages for certain jobs, provided their practice could be objectively justified. However, individual employees facing dismissal would be able to bring an Employment Tribunal claim arguing that the mandatory retirement age was an unjustifiable exception to the general rule against age discrimination"." That does not totally solve the problem but it is an interesting line of thought. I must not go on any further; it has been a long debate. To end, I add a totally different point about what is stated on line 24, page 167 of the Bill. I have met this before on other Bills. Halfway down the page, it says that the, ""reference to the normal retirement age is to be construed in accordance with section 98ZH of the Employment Rights Act 1996"." I thought I ought to read that, so I went to the Printed Paper Office to get hold of the Employment Rights Act 1996 but could not find it. I went to the Public Bill Office but the staff there could not find it immediately. After about 20 minutes, they realised that something like Butterworths online tells you that it was in a statutory instrument, passed by both Houses in 2006. I will not read that out but have a suggestion for my noble friend to consider with colleagues. Perhaps she could write to me about it and put a copy in the Library. When Acts such as this have statutory instruments attached one after the other, the Printed Paper Office ought to staple into the front cover a list of things which are now changing. Otherwise, we sometimes have no reason to know that there is something additional being added.