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Age discrimination laws
There have been several rather alarmist stories in the press recently that have suggested that the broadening of legislation concerning age discrimination would prevent companies like Saga from offering services specifically to people over 50, writes Saga Chief Executive Andrew Goodsell
However, Equalities Minister Meg Munn has spoken out to reassure voters that this is not what the Government is planning.
"We don't want to make life worse for people," she claimed in a letter to The Times. "The idea that lots of young people will start booking holidays designed for the over-50s is nonsense."
This issue arose because the Government has been running a review for the past year, considering whether to extend the new laws banning age discrimination in the workplace to the provision of goods and services. Saga is all in favour of the review, as there can be no excuse for people to be excluded or disadvantaged purely because of age. However we are concerned that law-makers recognise the possible consequences of a blanket ban that could make it illegal to specialise in serving a particular age group, or in providing age-defined benefits, discounts or offers.
Saga has been consulting with the Government on this issue, sharing research and information to help them avoid a situation where well-meaning laws take away more benefits than they deliver. We were, therefore, pleased to see Meg Munn advocating our recommended approach in her letter to The Times (May 11: "Age thresholds are common sense in areas such as voting and the age of consent, and there is no intention to outlaw beneficial age-based concessions." she wrote. "…but we need to act where there is evidence of unjustified and harmful age discrimination taking place."
The Government's next step will be to publish a Green Paper to initiate a large-scale consultation process. We will study this with interest, and will publish our conclusions. We also hope that you may want to get involved in the consultation process via the Saga website.
Arbitrary rules that make it impossible to recognise groups with different interests, that reduce choice, and that outlaw giving special services or benefits to older people, will harm far more than they help. With your help we can make sure that age discrimination rules are a benefit to older people, not a burden.
This article was created: 14 May 2007.
This article was last edited: 25 May 2007.
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