To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what steps her Department is taking to address the issue of age discrimination. [109457]

My Department has been committed to eliminating, and has a published Equal Opportunities Policy forbidding, discrimination on grounds of age for many years. Negative assumptions about age are being tackled as part of the Department's Diversity Action Plan and age will be included as an area for study in our continuing equal pay audit work. The implications of the EU Framework Directive on Equal Treatment will be kept under active review. Those implications are likely to centre mainly on the question of mandatory retirement ages. Within the last year DFID has implemented the recommendations of "Winning the Generation Game" and now allows staff below the Senior Civil Service to serve on to age 65.