The Equality, within limits, Bill

The Equality Bill is currently being debated by Parliament, and will continue to be scrutinised once MPs return in October from their summer break.

However, like many other parts of the Bill, most aspects of the Bill relating to age discrimination will come in much later through secondary legislation and therefore the Government is consulting on proposals: 'Making it work: Ending age discrimination in services and public functions'.

If you read the consultation paper you would be forgiven for believing that age discrimination does not affect young people, only older people. There is barely a reference to any of the discrimination faced by young people.

During the passage of the Employment Bill last year, John McDonnell MP tabled amendments to outlaw the lower pay rates in the National Minimum Wage legislation, and earlier this year Lynne Jones MP forced a vote to the Welfare Reform Bill on the lower benefit rates on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA). It has never been satisfactorily explained why a 20 year old worker should receive less pay for the same work or why a 24 year old JSA claimant should survive on £14 less per week than an unemployed 25 year old.

The Government states it will “allow different treatment based on age only where it can be objectively justified”.

Older citizens have organised themselves into effective lobbies through various local pensioner action groups and the National Pensioners' Convention. They also live for longer in old age than young people do as young people.

Perhaps this explains the main form of youth discrimination identified in this consultation is that "many providers of holiday accommodation impose age limits such as "no unders 21s"". Readers may wish to pause to digest the full implications of this devastating impact on the formative years of young people.

Currently less than one in ten young workers are unionised and youth unemployment is at its highest in more than 15 years.

If trade unions are to recruit young people they need to be fighting on their behalf and fighting for their equal treatment. This means challenging the blatant ageism which means a 20 year old worker will be paid £2000 less per year for the same work as a 22 year old on the minimum wage, and an unemployed 24 year old is expected to live on £700 less than a 25 year old.

To take a quote from the consultation out of context: "there is clear evidence that age discrimination harms people's quality of life and life chances". However since this Government is also keen to "ensure burdens arising from changes are minimised" such discrimination will only be brought within the scope of the Bill if significant pressure can be brought to bear. Young people need trade unions to fight with them, and as the demographics of trade union membership increasingly shows, trade unions also need young people to fight with them.

The consultation document can be downloaded from the Government Equalities Office website and the deadline for responses is 30th September 2009.