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Employment Equality (Repeal of Retirement Age Provisions) Regulations 2011

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Cotter for his words of support and his welcome to all parts of this piece of work. I was particularly pleased to see the satisfaction and pleasure that he is getting out of the period—it can be only one or two years—since he passed the age that we have been referring to. Now that we are working as a coalition, I hope that we will see many more years of work out of him. The noble Lord, Lord Young, said that his party had anticipated this progress. That is true and we expected him to say that. I am delighted that in broad terms he, too, is welcoming of these words today. In response to the question on exception for employer-provided insured benefits, we are introducing the insured-benefits exemption in recognition that the default retirement age of 65 is currently used by insurers as a trigger point at which they can legitimately cease to provide insured benefits. The exception will allow them to continue to operate in this way once the default retirement age has gone because otherwise there is a risk that premiums will become too high and employers will cease to provide those benefits. I am sure the noble Lord would agree that is in no one’s interest. The exception will apply initially to employees aged 65 and above and will rise in line with the state pension age. I hope the noble Lord finds that answer helpful. Monitoring the impact is good advice. We will monitor the impact through available resources such as the Labour Force Survey. We are committed to a review after five years. I enjoyed the noble Lord’s description of cliff-edge retirement. I had not thought of that phrase but it aptly describes what happens when we do not think through how things can work as people go forward in their working life. The Japanese or the Chinese have a system whereby they bring in a younger worker alongside an older worker and gradually the job changes in time and expression as between them they use a mentoring system. I am not sure we are that sophisticated yet. I am grateful to both noble Lords who participated in the debate. Your Lordships’ House has, as always, displayed a keen interest in the default retirement age since its inception under the previous Administration in 2006. The Government are moving swiftly and decisively to fulfil the commitment to abolish it while providing new guidance and transitional arrangements to help businesses adjust. We are giving greater freedom to older people who want to remain economically active to contribute to the UK’s future growth. I commend the regulations to the Committee. Motion agreed.