§ Linda PerhamTo ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions what progress he has made in supporting work opportunities for older women. [83642]
§ Mr. Nicholas Brown[holding answer 5 December 2002]: New Deal 50 plus offers personal advice, jobsearch help, and back to work financial support through an Employment Credit for clients on taking up either full-time or part- time work. We are ensuring that New Deal 50 plus offers effective back to work help for women over 50 by making partners, as well as the main benefit recipient, eligible for help through the programme. By October 2002, New Deal 50 plus had helped 26,780 women back into work—a third of all clients moving into work through the programme.
We are encouraging employers to realise the benefits of employing older workers through our Age Positive campaign. The campaign raises employer awareness through events, awards, initiatives, guidance and publications such as 'Good Practice in Recruiting and Retaining Older Workers' (DWP December 2001). We are also encouraging employers to adopt more flexible approaches to retirement to give individuals more choice and opportunity to stay in work longer. This can be important for those women who want to stay in work longer and also move from full-time to part-time work. The Green Paper on pensions, which we published on 17 December, includes proposals to support the development of flexible retirement. We will also reinforce our commitment to tackle age discrimination in employment by implementing age legislation covering employment and vocational training by 2006.
Earlier this month we had Age Positive Week which included a range of events to further raise awareness of the benefits of employing older men and women as part of an age diverse workforce. On 3 December we also launched an updated Code of Practice on Age Diversity in Employment, which includes a range of new good practice case studies for employers.
Our policies have contributed to a rise of 4.6 percentage points in the employment rate of women aged 50 to state pension age since 1997, to 65.6 per cent. This increase is greater than the increase in the overall employment rate of women, which stood at 69.7 per cent in spring 2002.