Commenting on the completion of the Parliamentary stages of the Equality Bill, Chris Ball, Chief Executive of TAEN – The Age and Employment Network, says:  “The measures laid out in the Equality Bill will go a long way to transforming UK workplaces. TAEN, and its members, are looking forward to the consolidated equality regulations improving the age diversity of public sector workplaces and those doing business with them from the private and third sectors.

“The Bill will provide a new framework for equality rights and practice in the UK. Once age discrimination in retirement has been outlawed by the elimination of the default retirement age, we will have a new and more positive context in which older people will be able to work with far less fear of arbitrary or unfair treatment.

 “Of course, none of this is to imply that age discrimination will simply go away - any more than discrimination will in other spheres - but it will provide a more equal basis for older workers to progress and achieve their full potential.”