§ Mr. Laurence RobertsonTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (1) what assessment he has made of the incidence of ageism in the workplace; and if he will make a statement; [76961]
(2) what steps he is taking to discourage ageism in the workplace; and if he will make a statement. [76962]
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§ Mr. Nicholas BrownWe have made a pledge to tackle age discrimination and we are committed to introducing age legislation covering employment, vocational training and guidance by 2006.
We have been vigorously promoting the benefits of age diversity and recruitment, training and retaining of older workers to employers through our Age Positive campaign. The campaign focuses on raising employers' awareness of the business case for an age diverse work force and encouraging them to use the Code of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment to inform their employment policies. The campaign features a range of initiatives to promote age diversity, which are shown on our website www.agepositive.gov.uk.
The Code of Practice, published in June 1999, sets out the standards for non-ageist approaches to recruitment, training, promotion, redundancy and retirement, and was developed with leading organisations including the CBI, TUC, the Employers Forum on Age and Age Concern. Evaluation of the Code of Practice, published last year, found that the number of companies using age in recruitment had fallen from 27 per cent. to 13 per cent. and those companies with a policy against employing older people has halved from 14 per cent. to 7 per cent. However it also indicated that 90 per cent. of people believe that employers do discriminate against older workers and although age awareness had increased considerably over the evaluation period, smaller employers were least likely to have realised the implications of ageism.
§ Mr. DrewTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what his Department's policy is towards ageism in the workplace. [77855]
§ Mr. Nicholas Brown[holding answer 29 October 2002]: We have made a pledge to tackle age discrimination and we are committed to introducing age legislation covering employment, vocational training and guidance by 2006.
We are already encouraging employers to adopt non-ageist employment practices through our Age Positive Campaign. The campaign raises employers' awareness of the business benefits of an age diverse work force and encourages a flexible approach to retirement to open up choice and opportunity for individuals to stay in work longer.
In 1999 we published the Code of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment which sets out the standards for non-ageist approaches to recruitment, training, promotion, redundancy and retirement. The code was developed with leading organisations including the CBI, TUC, the Employers Forum on Age and Age Concern. Evaluation shows that from 1999 to 2001 the number of companies using age in recruitment had already fallen from 27 per cent. to 13 per cent. and the number of companies having a policy against employing older workers had dropped from 14 per cent. to 7 per cent.
Older workers have a wealth of skills and experience that can benefit individual businesses and the economy as a whole. Our policies will help to improve further the employment rate of people over 50, which has risen considerably since 1997.