NO AGE LIMITS WHEN YOU B & Q IT (Eastleigh Liberal Democrats)

Eastleigh Liberal Democrats <enquiries@eastleighlibdems.org.uk>

NO AGE LIMITS WHEN YOU B & Q IT

October 20, 2008 12:10 PM

Leon Foster-Hill, Dot Wilson and Chris Huhne MP There is no age limit for B&Q employees as the Eastleigh-headquartered company prides itself on its growing grey workforce, Eastleigh MP Chris Huhne heard on a visit this week.

Mr Huhne visited the B&Q flagship store in Eastleigh to hear about the company's diversity plans, and was briefed by staff member Dot Wilson, aged 65, and Leon Foster-Hill, diversity adviser.

The three are pictured here at the Eastleigh store with some of B&Q's new top insulating material for lofts made out of recycled plastic bottles.

"It's crazy to make people retire if they do not want to do so and do not need to retire," said Mr Huhne. "Thanks to better health care and longer lives, many people in their sixties and seventies are now more fit than people fifty years ago in their fifties."

"This is a forward-looking policy now being adopted by our leading companies who do not want to waste the talent and expertise of staff members just because they reach an arbitrary retirement age," said Mr Huhne.

Dot Wilson, who lives in Chandler's Ford, has been working for B&Q for fourteen years and has no plans to retire any time soon. She is one of the 1,800 B&Q staff across the country who are over retirement age, or 5 per cent of the total. A quarter of B&Q staff are now more than 50 years old.

"We are very proud of our diversity policy as people over the retirement age have so much to offer in energy and experience," said Mr Foster-Hill. "It is undoubtedly a real plus for the company".

B&Q's oldest employee is Syd Prior, aged 93, who works at the Wimbledon branch in London.

"I was interested to hear how the movement to ban compulsory retirement ages is spreading with other leading companies like ASDA and the Cooperative now following suit," said Mr Huhne.

"People should be able to retire on a full pension any time after the formal retirement age with a bigger pension if they leave it longer. We need to have more flexibility so people can choose the arrangements that best suit them," said Mr Huhne.