Print this pagePosted week starting 3rd March
Private Member's Equality Bill Gains Second Reading
Lord Lester's single Equality Bill received its second reading in the House of Lords last Friday. The Bill draws together existing and proposed anti-discrimination legislation - including that on age - and would set up a Single Equality Commission to promote, regulate and enforce the legislation. It would widen the scope of the European Directive to cover the provision of goods and services across all anti-discrimination strands.
The proposed Single Equality Commission would take over from the three existing Commissions (Commission for Racial Equality, The Equal Opportunities Commission and the disability Rights Commission) and would also deal with the newer strands of sexual orientation, religion or belief and age.
Having passed its second reading, Lord Lester had hoped the Bill would be referred to a Select Committee but it will be dealt with by a Committee of the Whole House instead.
During the debate the Bill was warmly welcomed by most of those who spoke. However, the Government has already indicated it will not support the Bill - so it stands very little chance of becoming law.
Lord Lester and other supporters appear quite sanguine about its fate. He says it represents an attempt 'to raise the Government's game' and show what could be done if only they had the will.
The Government's
own separate consultation on a Single Equality Body (SEB) closed
two weeks ago. TAEN was actively involved in the formation and
work of the Equality & Diversity Forum - this brought together
representatives from organisations concerned with the new discrimination
strands as well as the existing Commissions. The Forum submitted
a joint response which broadly welcomed the concept of an SEB
and made recommendations to address the issues and concerns it
had identified.
A Slip Of The Tongue Or The Timetable ?
Barbara Roache MP, Minister for Social Exclusion & Equality, was the keynote speaker at Help the Aged's annual lecture this week. She is also the minister responsible for overseeing the introduction of the various anti-discrimination strands of the EU Directive into UK law. Setting out her timetable the minister said the second consultation on the age strand will now take place at the end of this year. TAEN members will recall that the timing of the second consultation has already moved back twice and is now supposed to happen during the summer.
When questioned by a TAEN representative the minister told the audience she had meant to say "later this year". A slip of the tongue, or (another) slip of the timetable? Watch this space….
Inland Revenue Gathers Praise From All Sections of The Pensions Industry
Its not every day, or usually any day, you see people lining up to heap praise on the Inland Revenue. But that's precisely what happened at a 'Pensions Tax Simplification' seminar last week.
The seminar was one of a series at which Inland Revenue has been seeking feedback on its consultation document - 'Simplifying the taxation of pensions: increasing choice and flexibility for all'. This document details how IR intends to change and simplify the tax regime in order to deliver the proposals outlined in the Work & Pensions Green Paper. Both documents were published in December last year.
Speakers representing all sides of the pension's industry - including Fund managers, the FSA, Independent Financial advisers, NAPF, employers and the Occupational Pensions Advisory Service - warmly welcomed the IR's proposals to strip away the existing regulations and complexity and to introduce a single tax regime to cover all occupational and private pensions. Currently there are 8 different taxation regimes which apply to occupational and private pensions.
Their proposals were described as 'radical' and a 'remarkable simplification', they were told they had done a 'bloody brilliant job' and that 'for all but the highest paid the proposals look like a winner'.
There were criticisms of course. The proposals will do little to positively encourage people to save for a pension but by stripping out the complexity will remove its disincentive effect. There were concerns that the new pension credit scheme for state pensions might discourage lower earners from attempting to save for retirement.
The proposals will do little to halt employers shifting away from Defined Benefit (final salary) to Defined Contribution occupational pension schemes and they won't breathe life into stakeholder pensions either. The pension professionals thought that employers need to be given greater incentives to establish or maintain their schemes.
The lifetime tax free pension pot maximum limit of £1.4 million came in for a lot of criticism. "Too low" the professionals said - however raising it higher, the Revenue assured the audience, would only effect the top 1% of earners. "Index it to the rise in earnings, not the rise in prices" the Revenue were urged.
Only passing reference was made to the state pension and PPI's recent paper "The Pensions Landscape".
The pensions industry broadly seemed to support the Government's view that the new pensions tax regime should come into effect in April 2004.
Whilst the consultation on the Work & Pensions Green Paper ends on the 28th March, the consultation on the Revenues tax simplification proposals ends on the 11th April.
Week starting 24th February 2003
Employment Credit over 50
At present people going into work or self employment with the help of New Deal 50 plus can get £60 a week top-up if their income is below £15,000 a year. 80,000 people have used this scheme since it started, of which about 8,000 have set up their own small business. In April this will disappear. It will become a tax credit which means that you may get the same money later on in the form of an adjustment to your tax and pay slip.
We think this is a thoroughly bad idea. It is much harder to understand. There are more complicated rules about who may qualify. It will be a disaster for the cash flow of new businesses. We expect the change to knock a hole in New Deal 50 plus after April 1st.
If you have experience, good or bad, of getting the Employment Credit or trying to get it, or views on this change we would like to hear from you. It will help us make the case for something better to put in its place.
Proportion of Over 50s Being Made Redundant Rising
Hopes that employers may have been adopting a more enlightened and 'age positive' approach to their restructuring / redundancy programmes in the last few years are dispelled by figures gleaned from Labour Force Survey statistics. In the twelve months to August 1997 some 680,000 people were made redundant in the UK, 21.2% of whom were men and women aged between 50 and 65. For the twelve months to August 2002 the total number of redundancies rose to 787,000 - of whom 22.4% were men and women aged between 50 and 65.
The split between older men and women has been changing. In 1997 70% of those over 50 being made redundant were men, by 2002 this figure had fallen slightly to 67.6%.