Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Steve Webb and Andrew Selous

Thursday 28th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[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.