Centre for Ageing Better Chief Executive, Dr Carole Easton OBE, used the latest Women and Equalities Committee to reiterate her call for an independent Commissioner for Older People and Ageing.
She emphasised that it must be a commissioner with sufficient power if it is to be a successful champion for older people and ensure policymaking considers the needs of England's ageing population.
In the committee, Dr Easton said:
“We need a commissioner with the ability to investigate and to require people to respond and to provide data. This is absolutely crucial, there is little point in having a commissioner without the power to require people to respond.
“We would want a commissioner to have the power to do class investigations into any particular abuses that came to light and for a commissioner to have the powers to investigate and to then have their recommendations taken up.”
It is the second time this year that Dr Easton has given evidence to the Women and Equalities Committee.
The evidence Dr Easton gave to the previous evidence session in January fed into the committee’s report in May which endorsed the creation of a Commissioner for Older People and Ageing in England saying the case for the creation of such a role is "overwhelming".
A similar commissioner role already exists in Wales and Northern Ireland.
Speaking after the committee, Dr Easton said:
“I am delighted that myself and other advocates for the rights of older people, were given the opportunity today to talk about some many important issues.
“In some ways, it was sad to think about all the issues facing our growing ageing population that came up in the session including the huge wealth and health inequalities, age discrimination in the workplace, pensioner poverty, ageism in the media and advertising, the lack of public transport in some parts of the country.
“But it also gave me hope that the solutions and the opportunities are there if we just grasp them. We know we can make this country a much better place to grow older in. Establishing a Commissioner for Older People and Ageing would be a great first step towards achieving that.”
In the committee session, Dr Easton said that the industrial tribunal system was broken and not fit for purpose in terms of tackling age discrimination in the workplace.
She said:
“In the workplace, we know there is research that shows between one in three and one in two people experience age discrimination in the workplace but this is not reflected in the figures for industrial tribunals.
“The tribunal system is virtually impossible. It can take two years and it is expensive. Lawyers I have spoken with say it is not the right way to tackle age discrimination, relying on small number of cases that may fail or not come into public domain.
“We need public bodies to play a greater role, to ensure groups cases are taken up, and see institutional ageism challenged. You have the Information Commissioner who can hand out significant fines for breaches of data protection and companies take that seriously. But we don’t have that equivalent for age discrimination to be taken seriously, having the power to intervene and ensure guidance is followed.”
Dr Easton outlined the work the Centre for Ageing Better had been doing with the Advertising Standards Authority and she expressed her hope that it could eventually lead to the banning of ageist adverts in the same way that the authority was now restricting sexist adverts.
“We are talking with the Advertising Standards Authority and I am pleased that they have decided to do research looking at older people in media in the same way that they did research into women and sexism. This has now led the ASA to start banning adverts that contravene the rules that came out of that area of research. So there is hope that there is some positive movement in terms of advertising.”
Dr Easton OBE also called for a pause into the raising of the State Pension Age until there is a clear plan in place to ensure that any changes do not push significant numbers of people into poverty.
“My recommendation would be to stop and look before acting. If the state pension age continues to go up all of these issues around inequality and pensioner poverty are going to get worse. We have to be careful that these changes don’t push even more people into poverty and requiring to claim benefits. It is important not to steam roller ahead but to stop and look at what is needed and how feasible it is for people to claim benefits.”
