Speeches by Ali.

“Agreed. The other role that the intelligence unit is due to play is designing incentives for employers. You have touched on that. What incentives are you looking at first?”

“You don’t want scope creep.”

“Could we make it more quickfire? Chris and others, do you all agree that we should have an older worker strategy?”

“Turning to older people, do you think we need a dedicated piece of work to develop an older worker strategy, not least given that disability is a big issue but also, post-pandemic, there are issues around not enough over-50s returning to the labour market and, of course, age discrimination.”

“Does it undermine what you and the Government are trying to do?”

“On the intelligence unit, you mentioned a number of things that you want to measure, which is really helpful. Do you see it also measuring savings to employers in the public and private sectors, if the data is used to look at how employers are using that data to get better outcomes?”

“It needs to be fixed.”

“My final question is about enforcement. Obviously, you are focusing on the positive engagement with employers, but there will be areas where there needs to be enforcement of equalities legislation, for instance. What are your thoughts on that?”

“As we have discussed, the Mayfield review is a seven-year programme, yet the state pension age starts to rise to 67 in April. We have had evidence from those who are in that period of transition, as well as those who were either made redundant or, for different reasons, have left employment earlier, and so on. Building…”

“It is about enabling good practice.”

“Going back to the gender pensions gap report, you mentioned the comparison with OECD countries. What are other countries doing, that could be applicable or adaptable to a UK context, that we are not doing but could do?”

“Yes. So you have geographical inequality, you have disability-related inequality, and then presumably there are specific other groups that are going to be worse off. The system has built-in disadvantages that feed through into the future. What specific recommendations would you make in terms of building that dynamic sy…”

“What should be done about that? It is clearly a problem that cannot be solved by just changing the contribution amount.”

“Thank you. Daniella, do you have anything to add on this? I also wanted to ask you about the gender pensions gap report.”

“Chris Curry said to this Committee said that the Pensions Commission would need to look at how different parts of the pensions system interact and vary across different parts of the population. You have already touched on some of this. Can you say more about how the commission could go about doing that? Also, Chair, be…”

“Good morning. We know that improvements in life expectancy have stalled and healthy life expectancy has reduced, and that trend is likely to continue. What should this mean for the state pension age?”

“But in terms of the drivers and the reasons behind why they are doing it.”

“Are any of you aware of anything the Government are doing on this issue to understand it better or of awareness among policymakers in the Department?”

“Yes, please send them in. Thank you.”

“Is what is available appropriate, or does there need to be more, better guidance?”