Retirement decision gives employers breathing space

Compulsory retirement at the age of 65 will continue to be legal in the UK, the High Court has ruled.
Mr Justice Blake found that reg 30 of the Employment Equality Age Regulations 2006, which allows employers to compulsorily retire staff at 65, did not contravene the anti-age discrimination provisions in the Equal Treatment Framework Directive. However, he said he would have ruled differently had the government not said it would review the retirement age next year.
The case, R (on the application of Age UK) v Secretary of State for BIS [2009] EWHC 2336 (Admin), generally referred to as the “Heyday” case, was referred to the European Court of Justice, which found in March that a compulsory retirement age can be justified as long as it is a proportionate response to a legitimate employment policy aim. It then returned to the High Court, where Blake J accepted reg 30 was justified because of the need for workforce planning by employers, and the fact that the government intends to review the retirement age in 2010.

In his judgment, Blake J said: “I cannot presently see how 65 could remain as a DRA [default retirement age] after the review.”

More than 260 age discrimination cases pending in tribunals, where workers have been dismissed at 65, will now be dismissed.

Daniel Barnett, employment barrister at 1 Temple Gardens, says: “The retirement age has remained legal—but only just. Hundreds of compensation cases by people forced to retire at 65, which were awaiting the result of this decision, will now be dismissed.

This puts huge pressure on the government to change or scrap the mandatory retirement age. If the government abolishes the national retirement age, it means that employers may end up humiliating older workers by forcing them out using performance management, or by inventing excuses to avoid stagnation of an ageing workforce.”

Paul Epstein QC, of Cloisters, said: “For employers, this decision gives some welcome clarification although only in the short term.”

Junior counsel for Age UK, the claimant, Declan O’Dempsey, has confirmed that there will be no appeal.