The actor Sir Michael Palin and the peer and former ageism tsar Ros Altmann have joined calls for the government not to exclude healthy pensioners if lockdown restrictions are relaxed. Leading medical professionals have said that excluding any section of the population from lockdown easing based solely on age would be discriminatory. On Friday, NHS England’s national medical director, Prof Stephen Powis, said officials would be studying whether stricter measures will continue to apply to elderly people when restrictions are relaxed. But Altmann, a former pensions minister, said using age-based criteria to lift restrictions would send a message that older people’s lives “don’t count in the same way as others”. Palin agreed that age restrictions would be “very difficult and very wrong and very unfair”. Speaking to Sky’s Sophy Ridge On Sunday, Altmann said: “I think using an age-based criteria is fundamentally wrong and would potentially cost the lives of many people, and risk social unrest.” The baroness said many elderly people have only accepted lockdown conditions “because everyone else has got to do it”, and many have said they would “risk going to prison” rather than continue isolating. She added “nobody would dream” of applying restrictions on the basis of skin colour, despite a higher death rate among black, Asian and minority ethnic people. Altmann’s concerns were shared by Palin, who told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show that it would be “very wrong” to exclude over-70s from lockdown easing. “I think it’s a difficult call every time, but you’ve got to be more selective here, because there are a great deal, a great number, of people in their 70s who are very active, very thoughtful, who’ve got lots of ideas, can contribute to our recovery. “And I think that to treat them all as people who have to be sort of kept out of sight is going to be very difficult and very wrong, and very unfair on a lot of people who want to help,” he said. The British Medical Association’s chair, Dr Chaand Nagpaul, said any proposal to impose stricter social distancing for those at higher risk – essentially quarantining – based solely on age would be “both unethical and illegal”. He added: “While any strategy to ease the lockdown must ensure the UK does not see a second wave of Covid-19 infection, it must also balance this with the rights and needs of individuals across the UK.” Age UK’s charity director, Caroline Abrahams, also spoke out against “blanket policies based on age”. Meanwhile, the health secretary, Matt Hancock, tweeted: “We have strongly advised all over 70s to follow social distancing measures. However, there is no ‘blanket ban’, and the suggestion that the clinically vulnerable “include ‘people aged 70 or older regardless of medical conditions’” is wrong and deeply misleading.” That prompted some on social media to point to advice published on the government website on Friday, which includes the words: “Clinically vulnerable people are those who are: aged 70 or older (regardless of medical conditions) ...” When contacted, the Department of Health and Social Care said the over-70s “are not included in the most at-risk group (extremely clinically vulnerable), who have been told to isolate for 12 weeks”.