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Mr. David Taylor: I thank my hon. Friend for giving way so generously again. Is not one way of tackling some of those difficulties, as suggested by a former deputy leader of this party, to remove some of the huge tax concessions given to private schools which make their performance so attractive to the better-off section of society.
Mr. Bercow: The old left returns.
Mr. Rammell: Whether it is old left or new left, that issue needs consideration. We want to ensure that there is fairness and equality in the system.
There are further concerns regarding higher and further education, and a lot of it comes down to funding. I welcome the fact that we are introducing educational maintenance allowances at the age of 16. All my discussions with young people from poorer backgrounds indicate that the real determinant of whether someone goes on to further and higher education comes at 16. That is the point at which the young person has to be supported, out of work, through the family. It is absolutely right to bring in those allowances and I want to see them expanded as quickly as possible.
We must also face up to the threat of top-up fees that is being pressed rigorously by the Russell group of top universities. If they had their way, we would have the prospect of fees of £7,000 or £8,000 a year. This has already been tried out in Australia, where it has had a catastrophic effect on access.
It is particularly instructive to see the Conservative amendment criticising tuition fees. The Conservatives supported the Dearing inquiry, which imposed tuition fees. In addition, those of us who served in Committee on the Teaching and Higher Education Act 1998 remember the right hon. Member for Charnwood (Mr. Dorrell)
explicitly arguing for the opportunity for top-up fees to be available to institutions. Given that, the Conservative amendment is duplicitous in the extreme.
Mr. Bercow: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Rammell: No, I need to make some progress.
The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough did not allow me to intervene on him earlier, so I must make this point now. I listened carefully to his impassioned attack on tuition fees, not only top-up fees, introduced by the Government. Logically, that would mean that the Liberal Democrats were in favour of abolishing tuition fees. However, we should not judge people only by what they say but by their alternative Budget statements. The Liberal Democrats' alternative Budget statement contains no reference to doing away with tuition fees.
It is just like the restoration of the link between pensions and earnings. Liberal Democrats go round the country making claims and statements, yet when they have the opportunity, in their detailed alternative Budget, to say where the money would come from and how it would be raised, they are completely silent. Not only is that a problem for the Liberal Democrats as a political party: it does a disservice to those of us who believe in progressive taxation and believe that we have to be honest with people about how we intend to raise the money.
The Chancellor's comments rightly highlighted a real concern in Britain. There are still significant parts of British society that are not accessible to children and young people who come from ordinary backgrounds in state schools. Look at the judiciary, the BBC, our best universities, the civil service, and then look at the number of people working in those institutions who have gone to public school. We have a real problem: the Chancellor was right to highlight it, and we ignore that problem for our young people and our community at our peril.
6.19 pm
Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam): I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Northavon (Mr. Webb) for giving up his opportunity to speak so that I might do so. I realise that several Members wanted to speak in the debate, but were somewhat squeezed out by earlier contributions.
I shall focus on a slightly different aspect of the debate: equal opportunities for older people--or rather, issues of age discrimination and the lack of opportunity for those people. Those issues are undoubtedly real and significant--whether a manager is denied promotion because she is labelled too old; or carers are denied about £14 extra a week merely because they are over 65; or a frail elderly patient is starved to death for want of proper care and attention in a hospital.
When it comes to age discrimination--the denial of opportunity to older people--the Government are still clinging, wrongly, to the idea that a voluntary approach is the way to fix it. I shall explore why that approach has not worked and why we need serious legislation on the matter.
In the past, the House has taken steps to outlaw discrimination on grounds of gender, race or disability. Those laws played a crucial role in changing attitudes in
our society. They drew a line and set a benchmark against which behaviour could be judged. As a result, they changed our society. Age discrimination clearly exists in almost all aspects of our life. I shall dwell on two: the workplace and health care.On the first, a survey of secretaries, published earlier this year by the Employers Forum on Age, found that nine in 10 secretaries believed that ageism exists in the workplace. One in three felt that they had been rejected for a job because of age. Nine in 10 believed that they stood little chance of finding a new job when they reached the age of 45.
When the Institute of Management surveyed its members, it found that half of those surveyed used age as a criteria for making employment decisions. Those businesses are operating foolish and short-sighted policies. They are throwing people on to the scrap heap; they are throwing away human capital and the corporate memory of their organisation.
During the first half of this Parliament, the Government set their face against legislation to combat age discrimination. They preferred to tread the path of a voluntary code, but that code is not working. Is it delivering change? Even the Government's own research, conducted by NOW for the Department for Education and Employment, cast doubt on whether the voluntary approach was working. The survey found that there had been no change whatever in the employment policies of the employers surveyed. Nine in 10 employers were not even aware of the existence of the code of practice that the Government had introduced to encourage age diversity in employment practice.
The Government often say that they do not want to introduce legislation on this matter because they do not want to impose extra burdens on employers. There is concern that employers do not want legislation. However, research shows conclusively that employers believe that there is a case for legislation. Last year, a survey of members of the Institute of Directors found that six in 10 were in favour of legislation on age discrimination. Earlier research by the Institute of Management found that eight in 10 of their members favoured legislation. Even the Federation of Small Businesses would support legislation as long as it was clear and simple.
The voluntary approach is not enough in the workplace. It is certainly not enough in health care. An overwhelming body of evidence shows that there is ageism in the national health service. A Gallup poll, commissioned by Age Concern and published last March, found that one in 20 of over-65s had been refused treatment. Two in 20 felt that their NHS treatment was different after they turned 50. Even the Department of Health found evidence of age discrimination and ageist assumptions in the provision of health care. A review of renal services found that two thirds of kidney patients aged over 70 were refused dialysis or transplants. An audit of cardiac services found that four in 10 post-heart attack rehab programmes imposed arbitrary age limits.
A survey of general practitioners conducted by Age Concern found that one in three GPs believed that age-based rationing occurred in our health service. One GP said:
- In hospital, you have to be able to feed yourself as the nurses don't do it. If you are frail, you've had it.
Recently, my attention, and that of many people--Members and those outside this place--has been drawn to the inappropriate use of not-for-resuscitation orders. There is a massive gap between the guidelines for the use of such orders and actual practice. The case of Jill Barker, a 67-year-old cancer patient, drew that to our notice. It highlighted the fact that her medical records had been marked with an NFR order--those initials are used. That was in breach of the guidelines produced by the British Medical Association and reconfirmed by the Department of Health. There had been a serious breach of faith--one that many people feel needs to be tackled. Indeed, that case produced many more examples of the inappropriate use of NFR orders on people's medical records.
Research reported in the British Medical Journal found that two in three patients are not even consulted when NFR orders are placed on their medical records. An even more alarming statistic is that patients who have NFR on their records are 30 times more likely to die than those who do not. When they are not even consulted about that decision, it begs questions about the way in which our health service is working.
I have raised NFR orders in the House on several occasions--through debates, questions and early-day motions. I have been appalled by the complacency of the Government's response. They rely on guidance that was issued more than a year ago and are not prepared to address the problems being raised by Age Concern and others.
Because of ageist assumptions in employment practices, in our health service and in many other aspects of life, it is time that comprehensive legislation to tackle age discrimination was on our statute book. Such measures would have a positive impact. They would address the growing concern about the way that we treat our elderly people. The absence of such legislation--when it exists on gender, race and disability--downgrades for many people the importance we should be attaching to dealing with age discrimination. It sends the wrong signals.
For that reason, I hope that the Government will give up the voluntary approach and seriously address the need to establish a proper legislative framework that will confirm that we recognise that there is no place whatever for ageism in this country.
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