§ Mr. Geoffrey Lloydasked the Secretary of State for Employment and Productivity what studies she is making of improved means for securing full- or part-time employment for persons between 65 and 69 years of age, in view of the declining proportion of persons of this age now in regular work, and the trend towards more rigid insistence on retirement at 65 years of age as a substitute for redundancy.
§ Mr. FernyhoughIt is the Government's policy, which is endorsed by the National Joint Advisory Council, to encourage employers to employ workers for as long as they are fit and willing to work. Employers are urged by the Department's Local Offices, where appropriate, to remove unnecessary restrictions on the engagement of older workpeople and to make the test of suitability for employment capacity not age. Current arrangements provide for frequent review of older workers' problems. The number of men aged 65 and over registered as unemployed at 8th July, 1968, the latest date for which figures are available, was 1,914, compared with 2,100 twelve months earlier. The corresponding figures for women aged 60 and over were 648 and 802.