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Equality Bill

My Lords, may I begin by declaring a professional interest and dealing with one or two other matters? I was counsel for the Equality and Human Rights Commission, intervening on its behalf in the case in which Age UK sought to challenge the default retirement age of 65. I need to declare that interest since I will refer to this judgment very briefly. Secondly, I do not think I have to declare an interest about my age because my amendments would benefit only those below the age of 65 and, since the average age of this House is probably a bit above that, I doubt whether I need to declare any collective interest. Thirdly, in order to curry favour with the Committee, I should say that I had one success that will appeal to every man here with a Freedom Pass. I did a case in Strasbourg where I established that it was discrimination against men to require them to wait till the age of 65 before they could get a Freedom Pass whereas women could get it at 60.