Employment Equality (Age)Regulations 2006

My Lords, I too, from these Benches, thank the Minister for explaining the regulations to us and make it clear that we abhor age discrimination, whether against young or old. I also declare an interest as the chair of Age Concern Surrey. We on these Benches have long advocated what we call the flexible age of retirement, leaving it to the individual to decide whether he or she feels that it is appropriate to retire. We have also long recognised that, in so far as one puts forward such a proposal, it is necessary to balance the interests of employer and employee, and in drawing up these regulations it seems that this process of balancing has been done and, through a process of consultation, the interests of the two sides have been brought together in, in most cases, a reasonably amicable agreement on the way forward. In particular, we welcome the notion of the default age of retirement, although in some cases it has a bias a little bit in favour of the employer and against the employee. For example, people over 65 will no longer have any statutory right to remain in the job if the employer really wants them to go. We have two questions for the Minister. First, it was clear from the discussion in the other place—and the Minister repeated it—that universities cannot refuse an applicant who has the appropriate qualifications on the basis of age. At present, many government grants for such courses are not normally given over the age of 55. What is the proposition in relation to government grants? Do the Government seek to argue that that discrimination is objectively justified, or will all grants be available on a non-age-discrimination basis? My second question mirrors that put from the Opposition Benches, and relates to Regulation 32(7), which states that benefit does not include benefits awarded to a worker,"““by virtue of his ceasing to work for””," the employer or partnership. Thus, length-of-service benefits given on retirement are excluded from exemptions; they will need to be objectively justified. Why have the Government done this? My impression is that the latest draft contains an additional provision that was not consulted on, and it is not clear on what basis Regulation 32(7) was added. Was it in response to comments made during the consultation? If so, what were these comments? It is difficult to understand why the exemptions should not also apply to benefits accumulated through the length of service but awarded on retirement. If an employer wants to reward loyalty during employment, surely he might want to encourage employees to stay until retirement so that they might get, for example, post-retirement medical benefits or life assurance or, in the case of partnerships, post-retirement packages. I have three questions. Given that the Government accept that length-of-service benefits generally should be granted an exemption from the normally high test of objective justification, why have they decided in this latest draft to exclude all length-of-service benefits based on retirement other than enhanced redundancy payments and pensions? Was that in response to the consultation? Do the Government want employers to have the additional cost and red tape of proving objective justification in such circumstances? Do they recognise the likely consequences are to discourage employers and partnerships from continuing with these types of benefit to people after they retire? Is that really what they intend? Again, I thank the Minister for explaining the regulations. By and large, we on these Benches support them.