The UK has a “pervasively ageist culture” and new anti-discrimination laws are needed to protect older people, MPs have said.
Existing laws are “failing” older people. Ageist stereotypes including accusations they are “wealth-hoarders” are widespread and breed “unnecessary division”, according to Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee report.
Increasingly critical references to a growing elderly population, dismissed as the “grey tsunami” and “demographic timebomb” strongly suggested older people had become a burden on resources.
While protected from workplace discrimination in theory, in practice, ageism was seen as “less serious and more socially acceptable than other forms of discrimination such as sexism, racism and homophobia”.
Despite age being one of the nine “protected characteristics” in the 2010 Equality Act there were loopholes that made it easier for employers to engage in age discrimination.
John Kirkpatrick, chief executive of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, told MPs it was “certainly our experience” that the lawon age discrimination was not working.
The MPs warned of the high risk of digital exclusion for many older people as many services from healthcare to banking move online and branded it a “considerable failure of Government that the UK’s digital inclusion strategy has not been updated in over a decade”.
Some groups of older people are at “high risk of digital exclusion” from a widerange of essential services and activities, including healthcare, local authority services and benefits, and banking, the report warns.
A range of witnesses told MPs that the response to Covid-19 had precipitated a move to “digital by default” services across society. Heléna Herklots, former Older People’s Commissioner for Wales, said that digital exclusion was anincreasingly prevalent problem.
“As more and more aspects of everyday life move online or incorporateelements of digitalisation, the issue of digital exclusion broadens intoone of social exclusion more broadly. Older people report being madedependent and forced to rely on others; being left behind; feeling“inadequate, unintelligent, not part of twenty-first century”; and “pastmy sell-by date”, she said.
While old age is not in itself a cause of digital exclusion, it strongly correlates with some of the key measures the report notes.
A 2023 Ofcom study on access to the internet at home show that 6 per cent ofall adults lacked access, whereas the proportion lacking access among people aged 75-plus was 29 per cent. Uswitch figures on smartphone ownership in 2024,show that 80 per cent of over-65s owned a smartphone; compared to 98 per cent of 16 to 24-year-olds; and 86 per cent of people aged 55 to 64 years.
Many witnesses told the committee they were concerned about the growth of online and mobile banking, especially against a background of increasing bank branch closures and poor internet connectivity in some areas.
Some emphasised that older people’s reliance on others to help them with digital banking tasks left them at risk of financial abuse and scams. Participants welcomed the rollout of consolidated “banking hubs” in some areas where branches had closed but one witness argued that the banks ought to be required to establish banking hubs before closing more branches.
The Government must prioritise the development of a new strategy that includes a locally delivered digital skills provision and ensures there are offline alternatives for people “for as long as needs remain”, it said.
The report calls on ministers to commission and fund the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to “review the effectiveness of protections against age discrimination”, suggesting a strengthened “reasonable steps” duty on employers to prevent age discrimination.
It warned that ministers should strengthen regulatory regimes to ensure that adequate social mobile and broadband tariff options are available and promoted for older people on lower incomes “enforced via financial penalties… if necessary”.
Broadband and mobile providers offered cheaper social tariffs for people on some benefits, including pension credit. Social tariffs typically offer broadband speeds sufficient to stream films, video call or shop online and cost around £12 to £20 per month. Average mainstream tariffs are around £30 per month.
One study found that on average broadband social tariffs could save older people around £17 per month – about £200 per year.
Awareness of and take up of social tariffs is very low. A House of Lords report in in January 2022, found only 1.2 per cent of eligible households (across all age profiles) had taken up social tariffs. This rose to 5.1 per cent by April 2023, representing 220,000 of around 4.3 million eligible households.
The MPs said: “Ageism is widespread and culturally embedded in the UK. This is in part driven by age discriminatory language and imagery in the media and advertising.”
Sarah Owen, committee chair, said: “The report shows clearly that age discrimination is widespread in the UK and often minimised compared to other forms of discrimination. A comprehensive review of age discrimination law is a necessary step in tackling the UK’s pervasively ageist culture.
“The UK’s growing and increasingly diverse ageing population presents significant cross-departmental challenges and opportunities, so the lack of a government strategy on how to respond to these issues is concerning.”
Despite the continuing rise in older age groups across the UK – with 11 million people in England and Wales aged 65 or older – the equalities framework omits a focus on demographic change and ageing, MPs said.
Comparing the situation with Wales, which has an Older People’s Commissioner, the MPs said older people in England “lack both a minister with responsibility for the range of challenges they face and a strong independent voice to advocate for them in policy-making and help protect and enforce their rights”.
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