Stakeholder Position: Help the Aged
Help the Aged warmly welcomes the publication of the Equality Bill. The Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR) is extremely important as a first step on the road to equality for older people.
Discrimination and prejudice are the major barriers to full participation in society by older people, both as workers and learners, and as citizens and members of their communities.
Older people experience discrimination in all walks of life, as the recently published national strategy on ageing, Opportunity Age, acknowledges. It says:
Older people, like everyone else, have the right not to be discriminated against. We will take steps to ensure that older people are able to maximise their potential, unhindered by prejudice
p xvii Opportunity Age, DWP 2005
There are four key areas on which we want to see progress during the passage of the Equality Bill. These are:
- Adequate resources and expertise for the CEHR to enable it to tackle age discrimination
- A ban on age discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services
- A positive duty on public bodies to promote age equality
- Closing the loophole which means that older people receiving care from private or voluntary sector organisations are not protected by the human rights act
Part One – The Commission
Resources to tackle age discrimination
Help the Aged strongly supports the establishment of a unified Commission for Equality and Human Rights (CEHR). The CEHR will, for the first time, give older people the support and protection they need in order to work towards age equality.
Age discrimination is rife in our society and older people face discrimination in every aspect of their lives. Younger people also face significant issues. The CEHR will therefore need considerable resources and expertise dedicated to the issue of age discrimination if we are to make progress.
The Commission’s human rights duties, which are equally crucial to older people, will also incur new costs. At the same time, the existing strands have their existing programmes and commitments.
It does not therefore seem reasonable to single out Scotland, Wales and the proposed Disability Committee as needing a ‘sufficient share’ of the available resources. All strands and human rights will need a ‘sufficient share’ to exercise their function, or the Commission will be failing in its duties.
We would welcome the Government’s assurances that it understands the scope and scale of the problem of age discrimination, and the risks to human rights and will provide the CEHR with the resources to tackle them.
Transitional arrangements
The bill provides for a transitional period between the establishment of the new body and the dissolution of the three existing commissions.
Help the Aged is concerned that between 2006 and the launch of the full Commission in 2007, there will be no statutory body charged with promoting equality or preventing discrimination on the grounds of age.
The voluntary organisations currently trying to fill this gap (including Help the Aged) are already stretched by the preparations for the new Commission, while at the same time providing information and advice to their users; when the new legislation on Age Discrimination in employment and training comes into force in 2006 the demands on our time will increase.
But action needs to be taken now to start tackling the age discriminatory attitudes and practices which pervade our society.
We would welcome the Government’s assurances that arrangements will be put in place to support older people in the interim period between the ban on age discrimination in employment and training, and the establishment of the CEHR.
We believe it is vital that the CEHR is able to operate independently of Government.
Unfortunately Government policies themselves are not immune to age discrimination – for example the gross difference in access to disability benefits between those who become disabled under the age of 65 (who are eligible for Disability Living Allowance, including a sum of up to £41 a week for mobility) and those who become disabled after that age (who are eligible for Attendance Allowance, which is less generous, takes longer to qualify for and does not include mobility costs).
The CEHR will need to tackle inequality and discrimination wherever it is found.
We are therefore concerned by the extent of the powers accorded by the Bill to the Secretary of State to require the CEHR to undertake certain actions.
We would therefore welcome the Government’s assurances that the CEHR will be free to act independently.
Part Two – Legislation on Goods, Facilities and Services
Help the Aged welcomes the extension of legislation to protect against discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services, to the grounds of religion or belief.
However we are disappointed that the Government has not taken the opportunity to use this Bill to harmonise discrimination legislation across all strands – offering individuals the same protection in law, whatever their characteristics and whatever form of discrimination they face.
Whilst Help the Aged welcomes the plans to outlaw age discrimination in the workplace, in line with the European Directive on Equal Treatment, we know that older people face discrimination in many other aspects of life too.
Older people face discrimination in the provision of services from insurance to social care, and from housing to hospital treatment.
We want to see a ban on age discrimination in goods, facilities and services, and in all aspects of public services, as part of a broader effort to “level up” the protection offered to all groups. This is in line with the Commission’s overall aim of tackling equality and diversity per se.
We have welcomed the Labour Manifesto commitment to a Single Equality Act, and the establishment of the Discrimination Law Review, to examine the current legislative framework.
We would urge the Government to take action to deliver age equality by harmonising equality law so that it offers all individuals protection from discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services, whatever their characteristics, and whatever the form of discrimination they face.
Part Three – Positive Duties
As currently drafted, the Bill makes provision for a positive duty on public bodies to promote gender equality.
We warmly welcome this, but are disappointed that the Government has not taken the opportunity of this Bill to harmonise existing legislation by creating a general duty to promote equality across all strands and for all individuals.
General equality duties, which include age, already exist in relation to the devolved administrations; but older people in
Where devolved administrations already have broad positive duties, it is very noticeable that older people are more likely to be involved in dialogue and are already reaping benefits from the efforts made by public bodies to promote age equality.
We urge the Government to amend the Bill to create a general duty on public bodies to promote equality across all strands, including age. We believe that it will be simpler in the end, and more consistent with the objectives of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights, for public bodies to promote equality on all grounds.
Closing the loophole on Human Rights
Help the Aged has warmly welcomed the fact that the new Commission will be responsible for the promotion of Human Rights. The Human Rights of older people are often compromised by their treatment particularly, but not exclusively, in health and care settings.
It is disappointing that the Commission will not have full enforcement powers in respect of human rights, and that it will not be able to support individual human rights cases. Many older people whose human rights are at risk are not in a position to act, or act alone, in support of their rights. We hope, however, that the new Commission will use its investigation and inquiry powers to make the Human Rights Act work much more effectively for the most vulnerable older people.
We also hope that the Government will take the opportunity of this Bill to address a clear and well rehearsed problem with regard to the protection of the human rights of older and disabled people receiving services from private and voluntary sector health and care providers.
As a result of the Leonard Cheshire case (2002), and contrary to the intentions of Parliament when the Human Rights Act was passed, the courts have decided that the duty on public bodies to secure the protection of the human rights of vulnerable people does not extend to private providers carrying out public functions. This leaves many of those who are in greatest need of such protection out in the cold, since the great majority of such services for older people – over 90% of care homes and over 60% of domiciliary services in people’s own homes – are now provided by private suppliers.
We believe older and disabled people are entitled to the same level of protection of their human rights as everybody else (as indeed Article 14 of the HRA specifically makes clear), irrespective of who provides the service.
We hope that the Government will act to close this loophole, so that all those in receipt of health and care services are entitled to protection of their human rights.
Final Comments
Help the Aged strongly supports the introduction of the Commission for Equality and Human Rights.
We have worked closely with colleagues across the age sector, those representing the various “strands” of equality and with the Government through the various stages of consultation in development of this Bill.
We believe there is widespread support for the vision set out for the new commission and great potential to improve the lives of the diversity of older people through its work.
We hope that there will be a firm cross-party consensus in support of the Bill and in support of progressing the age equality issues raised in this paper.
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