House of Commons
Friday 9 February 1996
The House met at half-past Nine o'clock
PRAYERS
[Madam Speaker in the Chair]
Rail Privatisation
9.34 am
Mr. Dennis Skinner (Bolsover): On a point of order, Madam Speaker.
Madam Speaker: Let me open the sitting first.
Mr. Skinner: My Dad used to say, "You're on the plate before the meat."
Madam Speaker, I wonder whether the Government have made any request of you to indicate that at11 o'clock--the usual time that statements are made--they will make a statement on the humiliation of the rail position this morning, now that the London-Tilbury-Southend line appears to be at the centre of a massive scandal due to the privatisation of British Rail. Surely the humiliation should stop. Can we demand that the Minister will be here to account for himself, and abandon that daft process of privatisation? I have just been informed that my hon. Friends on the Front Bench are making a similar request.
Madam Speaker:
I have not heard thatthe Government are seeking to make a statement at11 o'clock, but of course there is still time for a submission to be made to me.
Orders of the Day
Employment (Upper Age Limits in Advertisements) Bill
Order for Second Reading read.
9.35 am
Mr. David Winnick (Walsall, North): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second Time.
It gives me great pleasure to move the Second Reading of the Bill. First, I thank Age Concern--particularly its parliamentary officer--which was extremely helpful when I was preparing the measure.
I want to make age discrimination as unacceptable in jobs as race, gender and disability discrimination. My Bill deals with only one aspect of age discrimination--upper age limits in job advertisements.
I entirely accept that age discrimination would not disappear simply as a result of this measure. Employers who are determined to discriminate over age will continue to be able to do so. Nevertheless, although the Bill is limited and modest, I believe that it will undermine the type of blatant discrimination that continues to exist.It will follow developments that have taken place in some other countries, and will, moreover, show legislative disapproval for the first time ever of age discrimination, as previous Acts of Parliament have done with race, gender and, since 1995, disability.
Everyone, including everyone present in the Chamber, knows of the acute difficulties that confront many people in middle age who, having been made redundant, find that, time and again, however well qualified they are,the door is firmly closed because they have reached their mid-40s, let alone committed the crime of being over 50. It is almost unbelievable, but true, that, in some cases, discrimination begins even in the late 30s.
The Select Committee on Employment, in a report published a little while ago, was left in no doubt of the difficulties that confront middle-aged people. The Select Committee found that such discrimination over age was widely practised by people who are themselves in that age group. That is not true, I suppose, in the main, about the other types of discrimination that I mentioned. To that extent, it is interesting to note that people who say,in effect, that, if one reaches one's 40s, let alone one's 50s, one is not really able to do the job are often themselves in that age group and would not dream of saying that they are unable to undertake their senior responsibilities because of their age.
Indeed, as we know, and as the Select Committee mentioned, Cabinet Ministers and permanent secretaries in the Civil Service rarely reach those positions before their late 40s.
That is certainly true in general of the business and commercial sectors. When I returned to the House after some years absence, I was approaching 46. Whatever Conservative opponents may have said about my politics--they may have expressed displeasure at my return--one thing was certain: no one suggested that I was too old for the job. That is not done in politics, any more than it is done in relation to senior positions in the commercial and business sectors.
The references to age in job advertisements vary.The favourite age range when an upper limit is mentioned tends to be between 27 and 38. Advertisements, certainly those in serious newspapers and job supplements that regularly appear, often state that the ideal candidate should have various qualifications and fall within the age range that I mentioned. I find that unacceptable.
Let us suppose that, instead of mentioning an age range, an advertisement stated--if the law permitted it--that the ideal candidate should be white or should be non-Jewish or should be a man, when there was clearly no reason why a woman should not do the job. An outcry would rightly occur, and I would be among those protesting.
We know that discrimination on the grounds of race and gender has become unacceptable as well as unlawful, but at present it seems perfectly in order to state an age range and consider it acceptable that anyone over that age will not be considered, even where there is not the slightest reason to believe that someone over the age of 40 could not do the job. The time has come for us, as a House, to give protection to our fellow citizens who consider themselves qualified to do a job and do not believe that age should be a barrier.
Everyone should be considered on their merits. It is surely wrong to say that people cannot even be considered and their curriculum vitae will not even be looked at because they are over a certain age. Surely we should not continue into the next century with an increasing number of people in their 40s and 50s being discriminated against in that way.
A survey carried out by Labour Research--I am sure that Conservative Members know that that organisation is not connected with the Labour party--found that more than 40 per cent. of job advertisements of all sorts in the national, regional and local press and other media outlets, excluded applicants in their 40s. A survey that has since been taken of national papers, including The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, found that the number of discriminatory advertisements of the sort mentioned in the Bill amounted to between 14 and 17 per cent.--a minority, but still far too many. As I have said, if the law permitted the advertisements to mention not age disqualification but other forms of discrimination, we know what the reaction would be.
Mr. Ian Bruce (South Dorset):
I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman has done any research. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman's decision to introduce the Bill has had a dramatic effect on the figures. Yesterday,I counted the number of advertisements in The Daily Telegraph, which is probably the most popular national newspaper in terms of job advertising, and found that18 out of 554--3.2 per cent.--mentioned an age. Half those advertisements stated that they preferred a certain age range rather than stipulating an upper age limit.
Mr. Winnick:
The hon. Gentleman has made his point, and the fact that The Daily Telegraph carries fewer such advertisements is welcome. I am bound to welcome that, as I am against such discrimination in the first place. But other recent surveys show that, if one considers the papers together, and does not single out just one, the figure is
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mrs. Cheryl Gillan):
The hon. Gentleman has just mentioned research carriedout by Labour Research. Will he acknowledge the research that was carried out in January 1995, to which I think the hon. Gentleman referred in his article inThe House Magazine, which showed that, of the 5,368 job advertisements, only 217--4 per cent.--specifically excluded the over-40s? Some 96 per cent. of those advertisements had no age limit.
Mr. Winnick:
I shall be interested to see how the Minister will respond to what I have to say. I doubt whether Conservative Members will deny the seriousness of the situation and the fact that age discrimination continues. I shall quote the hon. Lady's predecessor, and I think that the Minister is indicating that she recognises the seriousness of the situation--she is nodding in agreement. Consideration of the serious papers with job supplements shows that the percentage of discriminatory advertisements is along the lines that I have suggested.
The seriousness of the position was made clear by the then Minister when she replied to an Adjournment debate on 23 May last year. In that debate, the then Ministerof State, the hon. Member for Maidstone(Miss Widdecombe), who is now at the Home Office--I do not think that anyone would describe her as wet or liberal--said that about 40 per cent. of employers openly admitted to practising some form of age discrimination. She went on to say that that figure included only the employers who openly admitted to such discrimination.
I am sure that the present Minister will not disassociate herself from what her predecessor said only last year, on 23 May. That figure illustrates the degree of age discrimination that continues in this country. Nearly30 per cent. of those aged between 45 and 59 have been unemployed for more than one year. Some 18 per cent. of unemployed claimants in that age group have been out of work for more than four years. Those are high figures, and the position would have been different some years ago.
I wish to mention another factor. In doing so, I hope that I shall not antagonise the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes), who I think has come to support my measure--the last thing I want to do is antagonise Conservative Members who have come to offer their support.
It is disappointing that appointments within the European Union reveal acute age discrimination.The European Union has suggested that it opposes age discrimination and would like steps to be taken against it, if not legislative action. But age restrictions are regularly placed on vacancies in most grades in the European Union--35 is the age limit in the open competition for jobs. As I look around the Chamber, I see few people present who would be able to apply for such jobs.
In order to qualify for one job--an assistant administrator based in London--the applicant must have been born after 1 July 1963. The same is true of a number of jobs in the European Union, which brings me back to my earlier point: those who discriminate often fall within the age group being discriminated against. The present
President of the Commission was 57 when he took office in 1995, one of his predecessors was 52, and his immediate predecessor was 60 when he took office in 1985. The present Commissioners are aged 60, 60, 52,52 and 55. They do not seem to believe that, because they are above a certain age, they cannot hold the most senior and leading positions within the European Union.
It is an odd state of affairs when, on the one hand, someone who has turned 35 is considered to be over the hill and apparently unable to do the job mentally, physically or for some other reason, while, on the other hand, it is perfectly all right for the most senior positions to be held by those aged 60 or over. That is a contradiction and a form of hypocrisy--which, in fairness to the European Union, is not confined to that institution, as I have said.
I know--not because of any private conversations that we have had, but because of a parliamentary reply that I have received--that the Minister will argue against the measure today. Like her predecessor, she will say that the Government oppose age discrimination, and I do not question that fact. I question a great deal of what the Government say, but I do not dispute the fact that the Government oppose age discrimination.
The argument between the supporters of my measure and the Government is not based on the fact that one group supports age discrimination and the other does not: it is a question of how we will address that problem.I anticipate that the Minister will say that voluntary persuasion is required. She will say that we do not want more regulations and more legislation: the Government want to persuade employers that they are wrong to discriminate on the basis of age.
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