Clause 24
Commissioner for Older People (Wales) Bill [Lords]
5:00 pm
Adam Price (Spokesperson (Defence; Transport; Economy & Taxation; Miners Compensation; Regeneration; Trade & Industry); Carmarthen East and Dinefwr, Plaid Cymru)
I rise to speak to amendment No. 37, which proposes a degree of flexibility—one of the arguments that a number of consultees advanced in relation to the definition of an older person. It is a subjective thing, clearly. Victor Hugo said that 40 is the old age of youth and 50 is the youth of old age, but I am a little close to both. The serious point, as has been touched on by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham, is that we are in danger of creating a profusion of different definitions of “older person”, much as at the opposite end of the age scale, we have had an issue for several years about the different rights given to young people at 16, 17, 18, 21 and so on.
Certainly there would seem to be an advantage from a public policy perspective in having a degree of consistency when it comes to a definition of what constitutes an older person for these purposes. As has been said, we have in Wales the strategy for older people, and now we have in England the sister strategy of opportunity age, both of which take 50 as their starting point, because that, they believe, is the point at which people begin to experience age-related problems, in terms of the delivery of services and the context of their own lives. There is therefore a problem of mismatch, because we have a strategy that is seeking to enhance and improve the provision of services for older people in Wales, yet the Commissioner for Older People will be dealing only with people aged 60 and over. All that my amendment—I was tempted to say “our amendment”, but obviously you are in the Chair, Mr. Williams—seeks to do is to offer that flexibility.
The Government have argued that we have to draw a line somewhere and that there is no perfect answer. They argue that it would be better to veer towards 60 rather than 50. That is because at 50, we would be including one third of the population and growing, as the demographic bubble changes day by day. There is some strength to that argument. However, as many of the consultees suggested, why not give a general rule of 60 to the commissioner but offer him the flexibility to look at cases that involve people who are 50-plus and who have a problem that is clearly age-related, particularly in the employment sphere? It could be argued that the Commission for Equality and human rights will cover that. However, there is also the matter of Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related illnesses that begin to kick in, unfortunately, at 50-plus. There is a strong argument that the commissioner could perform an important function in looking at people between the ages of 50 and 60 who receive regulated services and suffer an age-related impairment. Yet in the current framework of provision, the commissioner would not be able to do that.
We touched earlier on the fact that the way that we ended up deciding on 60 was strange. In the other place, Lord Evans was quite courageously trying to justify it with reference to all manner of things. At age 60, winter fuel payment and pension credit benefits kick in, as well as the Assembly’s free swimming and bus pass schemes. One could almost justify the choice of any age; for example, there is probably a good argument for choosing 57 lurking somewhere.
One of the consultations by the Assembly advisory group offered three options: 65, 50-plus and 65 with flexibility. The age limit of 60 was never offered in the consultation but that is the one that we ended up with. The most popular option, with 139 respondents behind it, was 65, but with the flexibility that I referred to.
I know that the Government have addressed the matter in the other place, in Grand Committee, and on Second Reading. There is a strong argument for giving the commissioner the opportunity to look at age-related public policy matters and problems as people get closer to the Government’s chosen definition of 60.