UK’s workplaces is ‘unacceptable’

adequate challenge to discriminatory practices or attitudes”.

The committee said it wanted to see recruitment agencies “accept greater responsibility, collecting data on where older workers are being excluded and developing a plan of action to remove discrimination from the recruitment process”.

It recommended the reporting of the age profile of workforces following the introduction of gender pay gap reporting to challenge discrimination. The report said: “It is unacceptable that the nation is wasting the talents of more than one million people aged over 50 who are out of work but would be willing to work if the right opportunity arose.

“People in later life are often playing many different roles in society, but those who wish to work should not face the current barriers of discrimination, bias and outdated employment practices.

“Too little is being done to enforce the law.” Mrs Miller added: “Age discrimination in the workplace is a serious problem, as many older people have discovered.

“Yet despite it being unlawful for more than a decade, the scale and lack of enforcement uncovered by our inquiry is both alarming and totally unacceptable.

“The Government and the Equality and Human Rights Commission have failed to get to grips with this. They must be more robust.”