Equality Bill

My Lords, I am extremely grateful to everyone who has taken part in the debate, although I am not going to reply to all the points. We on these Benches have been pressing for many years for the abolition of the default retirement age of 65, and it is core policy for us. However, we also have another overriding requirement, which is to get this Bill through, so we are trying—I may fail—to exercise great self-discipline in not speaking for longer than is absolutely necessary. I will reply extremely briefly, which will not do justice to all the points that have been raised. First, I would like to say that the High Court which heard the case had the benefit of a vast amount of evidence. It was, of course, heard by an independent and impartial judge on the basis of the European directive and English law. What he said, in paragraph 130, was: ""I cannot presently see how 65 could remain as a default retirement age after the review"." That statement by the judge, which was not appealed against, is of great force. Secondly, there was another body that was independent and impartial; the committee of the noble Lord, Lord Burns. I commend to the House, and to those who have been asking interesting questions, the report of that committee in HL Paper 179. Noble Lords should read that report and the evidence that was given, all of which was read by the judge. The fact that that committee, presided over by no less than the noble Lord, Lord Burns, should unanimously have come to the conclusion all those years ago, that one could replace a rigid retirement age by flexibility and choice, partly for the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, must surely carry some force. All the practical issues that are being raised were considered then. If, before Report, noble Lords decide to look at that paper, I also commend the memorandum put in by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and its oral evidence, which distinguished between what it called command-type organisations, of which I respectfully regard the church as one and the judiciary as another, and different kinds of managerial style. The way in which it goes into it in paragraphs 258 to 260 and paragraphs 269 to 270 I suspect ought to give people further pause for thought. On the issue of old versus young, of course, one does not want old, arthritic, hardening of the arteries at the expense of young blood. The European Court of Justice decided, only on 19 January, in a case with the unpronounceable name of Kücükdeveci v. Swedex GmbH & Co, that German law, which provided that employment before the age of 25 is to be disregarded when calculating service-related notice periods, breached the directive which governs us as well. That was an example of discrimination against the young which did not pass muster. The only reason why the UK succeeded in this issue in Luxembourg is because the Court decided that there was a wide margin of discretion open to the legislature to give effect to it. I suspect the fundamental problem is that we do not take age discrimination as seriously as race discrimination or sex discrimination. Suppose the law said that a black person on reaching the age of 65 is automatically dismissed, no one in the House would say that that could conceivably be justifiable. The reason would be not only that colour and race are irrelevant but also that it violates the principle about which the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, spoke of individual merit on the basis of individual capacity. These days the same applies to gender. Few people would say that a retirement age of 65 for women but not for men could no longer pass muster because it was rigid and disproportionate and gender was not an automatic disqualification from employment. When one comes to age, unconsciously many people think that it is somehow more permissible because of the conflict between the old and the young. The Luxembourg court has made it quite clear that age discrimination is to be taken as seriously as the other forms of discrimination. I have heard all the arguments and I am very impressed by the fact that in 2003 the Department for Work and Pensions and its Cabinet Minister thought that there was no problem at all in getting rid of the default retirement age of 65. That was six years ago and I am very heartened by what the Minister has said today; that the Government intend to get rid of it after further consultation, and no doubt other matters, by some time in 2011. That is a very important concession. I fully appreciate the need for a breathing space while that happens. All that divides me from the Government now are the words of Archbishop William Temple: "Whenever I travel on the Underground, I always intend to buy a ticket, but the fact there is a ticket collector at the other end just clinches it". Although today I shall withdraw my amendment, on Report I shall return and, having listened to the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I shall seek to amend Clause 208, the commencement clause, to ensure that the Government’s intentions will be carried out by the end of 2011. I thank the Government and the Minister—