Recommendation 8

We recommend the Government commission and fund the Equality and Human Rights Commission to review the effectiveness of protections against age discrimination provided by the Equality Act and Public Sector Equality Duty in England, including but not limited to consideration of: • the implications for older people’s rights, and the enforceability of those rights, of allowing objective justification of direct discrimination based on age, and the likely impacts of replacing objective justification with specific exceptions, if required; • the extent to which the Public Sector Equality Duty in England effectively promotes progress on older people rights in areas including access to healthcare, housing, transport, and digital inclusion, and the case for more specific positive duties to drive progress; • the case for amending the Equality Act in relation to employment discrimination based on age, to bring in a stronger “reasonable steps” duty on employers; and 49 • options to amend the Equality Act to reflect the intersectional nature of age discrimination more effectively, including but not limited to commencement of section 14 on dual characteristics. (Recommendation, Paragraph 95) Government focus and wider governance framework