Steve Webb
Main Page: Steve Webb (Liberal Democrat - Thornbury and Yate)Department Debates - View all Steve Webb's debates with the Department for Transport
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
3. How many people have continued to work as a result of the abolition of the default retirement age.
The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Steve Webb)
The Government’s impact assessment estimates that after one year about 6,000 people will have continued in work as a result of removing the DRA—in other words, between 4% and 7% of employees aged 65 or over.
Andrew Selous
Does my hon. Friend agree that older workers enable knowledge and skills to be transferred from one generation to the next, and that putting a “best before” date on workers was unacceptable discrimination that this Government have justly got rid of?
Steve Webb
My hon. Friend is right. One of the lasting legacies of this coalition will be that, after years of its being talked about, we finally abolished age discrimination in the workplace. To give him an example, research has found that McDonald’s restaurants that employ people over 60 have, on average, far higher customer satisfaction than those that do not.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that the experiences of men and women who work beyond retirement age are very different? Nearly two thirds of those who work beyond retirement age are women, and of those most—nearly two thirds—work in lower-skilled jobs, whereas, in contrast, the smaller group of men are working in higher-skilled jobs. What is he going to do about dealing with the poverty of women in old age?
Steve Webb
The hon. Lady is right. Successive Governments have failed to deliver an adequate pension to women. That is why we are reforming the state pension, as the Prime Minister confirmed on Monday, to deliver a pension that is simple, decent and, in particular, treats women fairly for the first time.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
6. What steps she has taken to ensure that the criminalisation of forced marriage does not discourage victims from bringing complaints forward.