Age Cymru General Election manifesto
Published on 11 February 2015 09:00 AM
Age Cymru is calling on the next Westminster Parliament and UK Government to take action to make Wales a better place for older people.
We are launching our ‘Creating an age-friendly Wales - the 2015 General Election' manifesto today which is aimed at candidates at the May 7 General Election.
It calls for the following action by the next Westminster Parliament and UK Government to make Wales ‘age-friendly':
• Tackling pensioner poverty by launching a programme to boost take-up of financial entitlements among older people;
• Protecting older people from scams by placing a duty on postal, telephone and internet providers to reduce the volume of scams in their networks;
• Supporting older people in jobs and employment by helping them to stay in work and to find jobs;
• Promoting equal rights for older people by abolishing the exemption in the Equality Act 2010 that allows finance companies to discriminate against older consumers by refusing them credit because of their age;
• Providing older people with access to essential services by requiring all essential service providers (including government and private sectors) to provide information in a non-digital format;
Age Cymru's Head of Policy and Public Affairs Graeme Francis says:
"Addressing the needs of our ageing population must be a national priority - we need to create an age-friendly Wales.
"To do this, we must tackle poverty, financial abuse, unemployment, inequality and a lack of information which can blight the lives of older people in Wales.
"An age-friendly Wales would be one in which older people have equal respect, rights, opportunities and the same access to services as the rest of the population.
"Whilst responsibility for key services such as health and social care are now devolved to Wales, the actions and policies of the UK Government still have a massive impact upon the lives of older people.
"This is why Age Cymru is urging all political parties and election candidates to embrace the concept of an age-friendly Wales and to pledge to be ‘age champions' before and after the election."