Madam Speaker, the older workers' situation is often a dramatic one.
When people have a decent pension, they may still have problems, but what happens when the pension is a pittance, or nothing at all, when a person has not reached retirement age, and can no longer work? This is what happens to women over the age of 50.
We have all gone door to door campaigning. How many times were we told “At my age, I can no longer find work”? There is also the plight of older workers who have been laid off.
Increasingly, people will no longer have had job permanency. They will have had short term work, little McJobs. The problem of older workers will be raised more and more, and will become acute.
At some point there will certainly be a wide gap between those who can draw fairly decent pensions and those who will find themselves in dramatically reduced circumstances.
I could end by referring to all those whose health has been affected by their work. From my work in occupational health and safety, I know that there is no compensation for having been worn down by work.