Equality Bill
11:31 am
Sarah Veale: There are measures you can take about that. If someone is genuinely not capable of doing a job any more, a good manager will know how to deal with that and, sadly, that person will have to go. That is not beyond any good manager’s capability. If there is a compulsory age, however, they do not have to think about it and can say, “Right, you have got to 65, off you go.” In fact, they should be having a conversation with that person, and if it turns out they are no longer capable, for all the acceptable, fair in law reasons, an employer can take the appropriate legal measures to deal with that. Employers should not be allowed to skip all those considerations, arbitrarily take a decision that someone has reached a magic age—as Dianah said, that does not really indicate anyone’s fitness or otherwise these days—and get rid of them willy-nilly.