BRITAIN'S 19 million over 50s had their hopes for anti-age discrimination legislation dashed when Lawrie Quinn's Ten Minute Rule Bill for an Age Equality Commission (Friday, July 21) failed to make its second reading.

This was despite the fact that it had received all-party support and gained 190 votes in the first reading two weeks previously when only seven MPs opposed it.

As a welcome and necessary step that could help change attitudes to age, the Bill had the support of the Association of Retired and Persons Over Fifty, with its 108,000 members, and would have gone some way to helping government regain credibility in the age arena, at a time when it was under fierce criticism over its pension and long-term care reforms.

In June of this year a cabinet office report was published -- drawn up after two years of research -- concluding that legislation was needed to "prevent old people receiving unfair treatment," but, so far, the Government has failed to live up to promises it made in 1995 to introduce anti-age discrimination legislation that would ensure that people of every age could fully share the growing prosperity of the nation on equal terms.

W TAYLOR, Secretary, Blackburn and East Lancashire Association of Retired and Persons Over 50, Peregrine Drive, Darwen.