Terms and conditions

It is unlawful to discriminate over employment terms and conditions because of a protected characteristic, with the following exceptions:

National Minimum Wage: The EA 10 allows employers to pay young workers according to age-related pay bands in the National Minimum Wage Regulations 1999 without a claim for age discrimination. See Chapter 4 for information about the National Minimum Wage.

Service-related benefits: The EA 10 contains an exception for length of service-related benefits to prevent claims for age discrimination:

• where the length of service to trigger a benefit is five years or less the employer is exempt from a claim for age discrimination;

• where the length of service exceeds five years the employer can justify the benefit by showing a reasonable belief that the scheme fulfils a business need. This could include, for example, encouraging motivation or loyalty, or rewarding experience.

Enhanced redundancy payments: It is not age discrimination to provide an enhanced redundancy payment scheme as long as it mirrors the statutory scheme for redundancy pay. For more information, see Chapter 11: Redundancy, page 367.

Other exceptions: The EA 10 contains other exceptions relating to benefits based on marital status and civil partnership, non-contractual maternity benefits, personal pensions and childcare benefits.