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Mr. Ian McCartney: It is a filibuster.
Mrs. Gillan: I have been accused, from a sedentary position, of filibustering.
Mr. McCartney: It is a filibuster.
Mrs. Gillan: I have moved swiftly; I have kept the debate going, and I have not repeated myself. If the hon. Gentleman wants to trivialise the debate, he can do so outside. I take the matter very seriously.
Mr. Dalyell: The Minister said that she would return to the question of costs. The fault may be mine, but I have heard no reference to the Bill's cost to public funds.
Mrs. Gillan: I am sorry if the hon. Gentleman has not followed my argument. I referred to the potential costs.If an applicant who felt that he had been discriminated against required legal aid, that would fall on the public purse.
Mrs. Gillan: I hope that the hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not give way again, because I want to talk about my research. I will write to him giving a compliance cost assessment if that would be helpful.
Last October, I commissioned a comprehensive national survey to be carried out by an independent organisation to find out what action employers were taking to overcome age discrimination in the workplace. It will involve the contacting of all employers who have been employed in the regional presentations, together with a random sample of other employers. The research should help us to learn more about what needs to be done to continue to combat age discrimination.
Research also provides an instructive perspective onthe Bill. My Department commissioned research on20 countries; there was no evidence that anti-agism legislation had any effect on employers' attitudes or practices. Elsewhere, as we have heard, discriminatory practices take place despite legislation.
For example, in France--which has had legislation since 1986 under article 1311-4 of the Code du Travail--the law is not only not enforced, but largely ignored.In 1994, the European industrial relations review found that 30 per cent. of job advertisements in Le Monde specified maximum ages or age limits. That is useless and that is not the point of gratuitous legislation.
I hope that the hon. Member for Walsall, North will also note my remarks on the European Commission.The European Commission purports to have the interests of older workers at heart, but the European Parliament, which is dominated by members of the hon. Member's political persuasion, still advertises jobs with age limits. Physician, heal thyself. The Commonwealth Parliamentary Association took the age limits out of its job advertisement almost immediately after I wrote to it. The hon. Member for Walsall, North should take his argument to Brussels.
The hon. Member for Walsall, North and I both agree that age discrimination is wrong, but we do not agree about the way in which we should stop it. He says legislate, I say educate. What is important is that people outside the Chamber hear the message. The hon. Member has given me great heart by using his valuable slot in the private Member's Bill ballot, at position No. 4, to highlight the problem. I hope that all the newspapers write about our debate and I hope that employers continue to take the lead that is being given by me, the Department for Education and Employment and the Government to outlaw age discrimination in recruitment.
At a time when our economic policies are delivering sustainable growth, low inflation and rising prosperity,not a single business would thank me for introducing an additional burden--
Mr. Dalyell:
Will the Minister give way?
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. The Minister is clearly not giving way.
Mrs. Gillan:
I have been more than generous in the amount of times that I have given way during my speech. I have been accused of filibustering and I am just about to say my final sentence. I repeat, my aim is the same.The hon. Member for Walsall, North will continue to press for legislation, but I will continue to carry out my programme of education.
Mr. Ian McCartney (Makerfield):
On behalf of the Opposition, I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) and colleagues on both sides of the House on bringing the Bill before the House. It is interesting to note that this private Member's Bill has all-party support from right hon. and hon. Members.It has support outside the House, from a range of organisations that have been committed for many years to eradicating agism in the labour market. More tellingly, many employers in key sectors of the economy support
If the private Member's Bill procedure is to mean anything for the rights of Back Benchers, the Bill should be entitled, as a matter of course, to proceed to Committee, so that the Committee could consider amendments and suggestions for change appropriately. The Minister, in her long peroration, at no time made any rebuttal of the Bill of any intellectual quality. She did not back up her allegation about resource implications. When she was pressed on resource implications, she said that she could not calculate them. When she was pressed to give detailed information about previous legislation not working, she gave us no historical analysis.
Mrs. Gillan:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. McCartney:
I shall give way in a second.
Today and over the past week there has been a whispering campaign by Conservative Whips about denying hon. Members the opportunity to discuss the Bill in Committee. That is a serious miscalculation by the Government, because a generation of people are suffering job insecurity. People who are fearful of losing their jobs and those who have lost them expect the House properly to consider, at least in the first instance, the removal of blatant discrimination.
Secondly, those people expect economic policies that will present job opportunities for a growing number of people who, at the age of 40 to 45, are being asked to face the prospect of uneconomic activity between that age and the age of official retirement. The House will not do that significant group of citizens any credit by killing the Bill. What does the Minister have to fear from the Bill?
Mrs. Gillan:
The hon. Gentleman accuses me of not including all sorts of matters in my speech. I assure him that if I had spoken for longer, I could have included those matters. I point him to an article in The Independent, which states:
David Mackintosh of Mackintosh Enterprises said:
P. Andrews, director of Work Mates, the building trade appointment and recruitment agency, said:
People support my line and I have delivered a thoughtful argument on the subject.
Mr. McCartney:
The hon. Lady used the most inappropriate word, "lunatic". Apparently it is a lunatic proposal, but she has also said that the proposal is of no consequence. Where is the consistency in that? The proposal is no more than an attempt to gain minimum equitable consideration for interview for a job. It is an economic issue and not just a matter of the right not to be discriminated against in the labour market. It is a business and a social and economic imperative to challenge the twin evils of structural long-term unemployment among
I shall try to show the breadth of the problems that face us. The Minister said that unemployment among the age groups that we are discussing is receding. But in the period 1990-95, unemployment has increased by 63 per cent. among those over the age of 50, and 50 per cent.of unemployed people aged 50 and over are unemployed for a year or more. A quarter of that age group is unemployed for four years or more. Communities in which people have a minimum living are already devastated and economic activity continues to drag. As it drags, those communities are at the edge of the nation's activities.
1.46 pm
"The Institute of Directors warned that the measure would have little impact and urged MPs to vote against it."
"Please do not be led down this lunatic path of legislation".
"We would not recommend legislation that outlawed the keeping out of candidate age records."
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