The Claimant is a member of the Respondent and was nominated for election to its National Executive Committee for a three-year term to the end of 2020. However, according to the Respondent's Rules, the Claimant was ineligible to stand for election because he would reach the normal retirement age of 65 before the end of the three-year term (even though the Claimant would not be entitled to draw his state pension until he was 66). The Claimant brought proceedings in the ET alleging direct age discrimination. The ET considered whether the Respondent's aims were legitimate and whether the Respondent's treatment was a proportionate means of achieving those aims; and it concluded that the Rule was not justified by legitimate aims and, even if it was, the imposition of the discriminatory Rule was not a proportionate means of achieving any of its legitimate aims. The Respondent appealed, in relation to legitimate aims, under the headings of intergenerational fairness, efficient planning, and consistency with its policy on reducing the retirement age; and, on proportionality, it argued that the ET had confused this with the issue of legitimate aims and had only dealt with it briefly in a single paragraph.

The EAT held that there was no error of law in the ET's conclusion that none of the three identified aims were legitimate, but the ET's reasoning in relation to proportionality was insufficient. Nevertheless, in the light of the EAT's conclusion on legitimate aim, the appeal would be dismissed.