Life in the UK Test

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bakewell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to review the contents of the Life in the UK Test.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

My Lords, the Life in the UK test, which is taken for settlement and citizenship purposes, is based on the content of the new handbook, Life in the United Kingdom: A Guide for New Residents. The Home Office reviews the handbook annually and makes corrections and amendments to ensure that the content remains factually accurate and up to date.

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab) [V]]

I thank the Minister for that Answer. She perhaps knows that, in July this year, some 600 of the country’s historians, including 13 fellows of the British Academy, wrote a letter to the Home Office asking for an immediate review of the existing edition of Life in the United Kingdom, which, as the Minister said, is the set text for applying for British citizenship. They cited historical errors and misrepresentations. Given that the Home Office’s latest plan in response to the Windrush scandal is to develop UK history training for its staff, can the text of this book now be up for urgent and expert revision?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford (Con)]

My Lords, I read the exchange between my noble friend Lord Parkinson and Professor Trentmann with high interest. Our history is both broad and deep. We cannot possibly cover every element of it. The test is there to cover society, culture and history as accurately as we can. I understand that it is factually correct, but I recognise the differences of opinion between Professor Trentmann and my noble friend.

Immigration: Students

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Thursday 25th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, on once again championing the interests of higher education in this country. Universities and academic bodies appreciate her dedication and expertise; I speak as the president of Birkbeck in saying as much. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, on such an important topic.

This subject of international students being moved from immigration figures keeps on coming up. We have had debates, Written Questions and Oral Questions. Why has there been so little movement from the Government on this? There seems to be something of a tabloid-driven policy here. Statistics from the International Passenger Survey show a gap between the numbers of immigrants arriving and emigrants returning. The number hovers around 93,000 a year. What a fine UK headline that would make: bogus student immigrants come to stay. We do not want that—do we?

But such fears need to be faced. We need further data and an examination of who these overstayers are. Will the Government consider a post-study work visa? Statistics in this area are limited and the methodology crude. George Osborne told the Treasury Select Committee as much. There seems to be a tension, in that the Home Office planned to increase the amount of cash in the bank that foreign postgraduates must have before they are allowed into this country and insist that they must past tougher language tests, but reports tell me that George Osborne shot down those suggestions. He clearly has a more welcoming agenda.

Will the Government now please give some nuanced thinking as to how to turn what is a ham-fisted ruling into a success story in its own right? At this very moment, the country could use an upbeat immigration story and this could be it. Students come here bringing their wealth and skills, our universities offer them levels of study that they cannot find anywhere else and some of them, just some of them, overstay. For the most part, the vast majority of those returning home have a good story to tell of our academic standards, our outstanding university life and the nature of life in this country in general. That is a huge plus in the soft power that we exercise around the world. That success story needs to be celebrated. Can we have some plausible lateral thinking from this Government to make it so?

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mackay of Clashfern]

The impact assessment to some extent deals with that. It is plain that the difficulty has arisen in relation to the emergence of new substances whenever a particular prohibition is enacted. I hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, says about this. The problem is that by the time the enactment takes place, considerable harm may be occurring. The idea of this Bill is to prevent the production of these dangerous substances as a general matter of course.

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

Perhaps I might add to this conversation about the need for evidence. At Second Reading, on the matter of addressing the damage being done to these young people, Ireland was cited as evidence of the effectiveness of legislation.

I refer my colleagues in the House to a report made by a fellow journalist at the BBC. Following Second Reading he went to Ireland to examine what is happening with the Bill. Young people there are taking a great many of these legal highs. He found that one young man had hanged himself from a tree in the middle of the estate where he lived. The parents were frantic. In County Monaghan and in a number of towns my BBC colleague found that there was an abundance of these drugs, and that young people were turning to them.

After this young man’s suicide the police seized 34 grams. They offered it to the scientists, who analysed its contents. They said that they were not able to prove that it was a psychoactive drug. At that point the police were stymied procedurally, because the scientist to whom they turned could not verify the evidence they needed. My colleague speculated in a conversation with me that the police were turning back to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, because they did not know how to handle this matter.

What ties this issue, Ireland and legal highs to the amendment is that young people are turning to legal highs because they cannot get natural cannabis. That is the crucial link. If we are to stop these young people doing such terrible damage to themselves, we must consider the broader spectrum of motive that turns them towards these legal highs. Young people do not grow up knowing about them. They grow up in a community that perhaps 20 years ago was using cannabis plant. Now, the whole drugs business has accelerated to such an extent that millions of pounds can be made through criminal behaviour, and that has driven the legal drugs industry to invent more substances to market to young people. It is a desperate situation, but we need to examine and unpick the motives that drive young people into this market. That is at the heart of this amendment and the conversation about the Bill.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I welcome the amendment and the way in which it was proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, because it has sparked a genuine debate, one of real high quality and passion on all sides of the argument. I thought that the arguments in the contributions we heard were pretty finely balanced for and against. I want to try to respond to some of those points. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell, relating to Ireland is an example worth looking at. That issue comes up in a later group of amendments and I will be happy to respond in more detail at that point, if I can.

I want to pick up on the comments made by my noble and learned friend Lord Mackay of Clashfern. He talked about the difficulties that the Government are facing and about these new versions of psychoactive substances that are coming on to the market. In fact, the European centre that monitors these things is identifying two new versions per week. More than 500 have been identified and banned since 2010. That is the difficulty that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, touched upon when she referred to temporary banning orders. We have tried those so we have some evidence that they do not work, because the minute we clamp down on one substance, up pop another one or two—or three or 10—somewhere else. The challenges that we face are clear.

Another point in the evidence—evidence that people have cited in all their contributions from their different perspectives on this—for the Government to take action on this is that we are seeing a general fall-off in the use of drugs, as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, mentioned. The positive signs are there about the current approach to drugs. I will come back to this at some point but there has been an overemphasis on the Misuse of Drugs Act, which was a response to a series of international conventions, such as the UN convention. It recognised that the fight against narcotics and drugs was a global fight. We therefore introduced legislation but if there was just the Misuse of Drugs Act, as it was configured in 1971, there would of course be little support from any part of the House. The fact of the matter is that that is only one part of the legislation.

The noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, talked about the excellent work being done in treatment and rehabilitation. There is work going on in education and very sophisticated work going on in policing, a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Condon. In fact, having been a commander, the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, was at the centre of the challenge of finding new ways to tackle those issues through law enforcement. There is a whole suite of different ways in which we are tackling this but across the majority of drugs and age groups, there has been a long-term downward trend in drug use over the past decade, a point made by my noble friend Lord Blencathra. Among 11 to 15 year-olds, drug use has been falling since its peak in 2003. More people are recovering from their dependency now than in 2009-10, and the average waiting time to access treatment is now down to three days. As a result of such innovation, the work that has been done in that area is providing alternatives and treatment. However, enforcement is part of that.

I come to the point that against the downward trend that we are seeing, in one area we see that the opposite is actually the case: usage is increasing and the number of deaths has almost doubled. There were 120 deaths of young people in 2013, and all the evidence is that that trend is on the rise.

Psychoactive Substances Bill [HL]

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 9th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to join in this debate about the Government’s Psychoactive Substances Bill because the issue is one about which we should all be concerned. There is evidence from across Europe that there is a steady increase in such newly created drugs, with some 450 currently being monitored there. Statistics from the UK detect a slow rise, from 41 such substances in 2010 to 49 in 2011, 74 in 2012 and 81 in 2013. However, the very Home Office review setting out those statistics also said that substances so identified were not in widespread or even limited use.

There have been deaths associated with such substances. We have heard the statistics—one of the problems of speaking late in a debate is that your Lordships will already have heard them. However, the numbers are going up: from 29 in 2011 to 52 in 2012 and 60 in 2013. Every death is to be regretted but those figures are, as that same review commented, relatively low compared to overall deaths from drug misuse generally, which amount to nearly 2,000. Of course, the number of alcohol-related deaths is much higher—some 20,000 a year, which we regularly accept—but alcohol is the one psychoactive substance specifically excluded from the Bill.

I welcome the chance to debate the Bill because I believe that its proposed blanket ban, with special exceptions, is contrary to the way we do law in this country. British citizens expect to be free to behave and do as they wish and to consume what they choose unless those things are expressly forbidden one by one. Blanket bans are not the way we go about life in this society. I believe this blanket ban will have numerous unintended consequences that will not be to the benefit of those it seeks to protect.

There is no doubt that we face a growing increase in the number and use of drugs throughout national life. Many are beneficial: medical discoveries are hailed with delight as they promise treatments and even cures for ailments that have long devastated lives. The world of sport is dominated by the use of drugs to enhance performance. The issue for each sport is to determine which drugs, and in what combinations, are allowed and which are specifically banned. At every turn the chemists are rushing to be ahead of the ban, to avoid exclusion and to bring human sporting performance to ever higher peaks.

When it comes to leisure use, there is an evolving pattern of use that, in some cases, becomes acceptable. The baby boomers’ liking for cannabis has ceased to be the “shock, horror” habit it once was considered to be. Now, legal highs are the latest to pose problems for how we protect the vulnerable and limit harm. We have to face the fact that drugs in all forms will be an increasingly present element in contemporary society. That is why I believe we need a more nuanced and subtle approach to how we regulate them and how we advise and educate citizens to live with them.

I have been reporting on issues of drug use for BBC television since the 1990s. When I hear that the Local Government Association has called for an outright ban on legal highs, I recall how often I have heard drug specialists, academics, lawyers and police officers tell me that prohibition does not bring about the result society would like. Prohibition of alcohol in 1920s America spawned a vast network of speakeasies and Mafia criminals. Prohibition of drugs has not brought the drug trade to an end; it continues to be one of the world’s most established criminal enterprises.

I understand that local authorities are hoping that the Bill, once passed, will enable the closure of head shops, which, among their other goods, sell what are called legal highs—out in the open. This is exactly where they need to be: where they can be identified and monitored rather than being driven underground, where they will fuel another criminal network.

What resources in money and manpower will be made available to tackle the criminal activities that will result from a blanket ban? All psychoactive substances need regulation, which is why we have strict rules governing the distribution and availability of alcohol. In a recent BBC “Panorama” programme, I reported on the major crisis of alcohol-related illnesses among the old. When I subsequently asked, in this House, whether the Government would consider a minimum pricing policy in England to limit the damage that those who would so self-harm can do, the Government refused. Such a policy operates in Scotland, which has seen a fall in alcohol-related deaths. I would like the Government to explain the paradox of being so ready to ban substances sampled by so few, while refusing modest moves against other acknowledged dangerous drugs enjoyed by so many.

In seeking to regulate psychoactive substances, examples are often given—as we have heard several times—of what happened in Ireland and is happening in Poland. I have the same statistics and will not repeat them, but it would be worth the Minister examining in some detail exactly what is going on in Ireland and Poland, and then giving us the up-to-date information.

I look forward to Committee, where we can explore in more detail the ways to regulate NPS and inform and educate all our citizens about the risks that they might consider taking. We have a fine example of a drug control that we might follow. The campaign to reduce smoking is an ongoing success. Steadily and thoroughly, generations have now grown up knowing the risks that smoking brings and seeing on packages and in retail shop notices a constant reminder of the risks they must live with. I am eager for the Government to pursue a policy that brings forward such an informed awareness in the young about the continuing temptation of NPS.

Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness is right. Of course many people who have come here have entered this country clandestinely. We need to establish their identity, which sometimes takes some time to do. In the wider context of the security of the country, we need to make sure that if people come here clandestinely, we check out that they are who they say they are and their reasons for doing that before they are released into the community. I think people expect that. However, again, we need to look at this whole area. That is why we have asked Stephen Shaw to undertake his review. We will be studying the all-party report and, of course, the allegations that have been made against Serco very carefully and will come forward with responses to them.

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I raised the issue of Yarl’s Wood in this House three years ago and was assured at that time by the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that he would invite representatives of the Home Office to the House to discuss the issue, which he did. Officials came along here, and my noble friend Lady Kennedy and I discussed with them what changes were desired to make the lives of the women tolerable. That was three years ago. A report that came out earlier this year, which I and the Channel 4 programme drew on, was behind the Question I asked last week. In answering, the Minister said that there needed to be a higher quota of women working there. The Minister speaks of process and of more reassuring reports, but could he undertake to tell me how soon, and at what date, we will know that there are more women staff in Yarl’s Wood?

[Lord Bates]

There were to be 66%. Under its contract, Serco has to deliver that by 2015. We will make sure that it brings that forward. In addition, it has moved to ensure that there are body-worn cameras there, which can catch any incorrect activity and record it. That is a very good step. I will also take this opportunity to clarify something during that exchange on the Question the noble Baroness asked last week. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, asked about the number of suicides and self-harm, but I heard it to be a question about suicides and said that there were none. Sadly, there are of course instances of self-harm, which are deeply regrettable and need to be investigated. I apologise for getting that wrong.

Yarl’s Wood

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 24th February 2015 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bakewell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what requirements were set in the contract for Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre recently reawarded to Serco regarding the dignity and privacy of women detained there.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, contracts for the operation of immigration removal centres require service providers to comply with the Detention Centre Rules 2001. This is in addition to the contracts’ operational specifications, which contain measures to ensure the dignity and privacy of women.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. In June last year Yarl’s Wood was the subject of 31 allegations of sexual misconduct. Those were investigated and a number of staff were dismissed. None the less, in November the Serco contract for Yarl’s Wood was extended for eight years. However, the harassment goes on. The January report by Women for Refugee Women documented inappropriate behaviour by male staff towards female inmates—themselves already the victims of sexual abuse. Can the Minister tell us when innocent women who have committed no crimes can expect to be treated with respect?

[Lord Bates]

I think that the answer to the noble Baroness is: right now. I believe that the standards provided by Serco, the current operators of the scheme, are of a very high level. Yarl’s Wood was inspected by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons and he found it to be a safe and secure place. In addition, there is an independent monitoring board. Just two weeks ago, my right honourable friend the Home Secretary set up a special review of all immigration removal centres to ensure that they are of the highest standard. I read the report by Women for Refugee Women very carefully and the most critical point was that it was felt that women’s privacy was invaded and that there were insufficient female staff. One of the key elements in the contract offered was that the proportion of female staff should increase. The proportion is going up from 42% to 60%, and that is a step in the right direction.

Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Tuesday 15th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that I have spoken on this subject several times in the House and asked Questions on it.

Female genital mutilation is one of the most shocking things that is happening in our society. I would very much like to endorse the words of my noble friends and anything that brings home to the general public the seriousness of this offence. At this very moment, in our country young girls are having their genitals mutilated. It is the most appalling thought. Anything that can be done to strengthen the law; anything that can make people realise how very seriously the Government take this issue, which I know they do; anything that can be done should be done.

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I would like to add my support for this amendment and perhaps add a story of my own. This is not a new issue. As long ago as the 1990s, I made a television programme exposing the practice of female genital mutilation, which went out in prime time on BBC television’s first channel, BBC1. It was quite explicit and voiced the alarm of Somali women themselves, who explained to me that the perpetuation of this practice resided with the grandmothers in their community who felt that what was good enough for them should be imposed on their children. It was the mothers who remembered their own experience who were eager to have that change for their children. It has not yet happened. Getting this accepted is a disgraceful slow process.

The explanation lies in the fact that, in the 1990s, we were very aware of multiculturalism and the need to respect other cultures. It beggars belief now, but at the time we felt that, if that was their culture and their tradition, then so be it; we felt that we were not in a position to feel superior. We have come a long way, but we have not come far enough. It is time to press forward with this and not to go on talking about it.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I briefly add my voice to this. Again, if I had not had quite such a troubled week, I might have added my name to this amendment.

A couple of years ago I went, on behalf of the Lord Speaker, to a conference about this. In my lifetime, I have seen a great deal in terms of abuse, but seeing a film of this actually happening shook me to my core. We did not just hear the screams, but we actually saw the action that was happening to this young woman. When we talk about female genital mutilation, it gets a little sanitised at times. It is utterly appalling pain. Some young women in foreign countries die because of the follow-up, and certainly we know young women in this country are traumatised. I, too, hope that the Government will take this away.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell (Lab)]

My Lords, I am pleased to join the debate on the gracious Speech by raising two issues that are closely involved with each other, though only one, immigration, comes within today’s agenda. The other, higher education, officially belongs within BIS and is to be debated tomorrow, but I think that few in this Chamber, certainly if the debate held here last month is anything to go by, will deny that further education is correctly a matter for education policy.

As president of Birkbeck, naturally I value first and foremost the intrinsic worth of academic achievement and scholarly distinction as at the highest level of public good. At the same time, it is gratifying, to say the least, to recognise just how powerful and global an undertaking higher education is in this country, how much it contributes to the economy and how that contribution has the potential to grow and flourish if it were released from the shackles of ever harsher controls. I will come to those controls in a moment.

First, here are some facts. Higher education is a major export industry of this country, with the potential to grow steadily and further. In 2011-12 it generated a contribution of £10.7 billion for the UK economy, which included £3.63 billion paid in tuition fees by international students. At the same time, the UK is a world leader in international research collaboration: 46% of UK-authored academic papers are co-authored with at least one non-UK researcher.

Why would we want to put shackles on such a benign success story? Yet that is what is happening. International student numbers in the UK are falling. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the total number of non-EU students enrolled on UK courses fell in 2012-13 for the first time since 1994-95. Of particular concern is the dramatic fall in student numbers from India, which fell by 49% between the academic years 2010-11 and 2012-13. The numbers of students from other countries have fallen too, though: the number from Pakistan is down 21%, from Canada by 3%, Nigeria by 4%, Saudi Arabia by 6% and Thailand by 3%. These are terrible numbers—an important crisis in higher education. Numbers from China continue to grow but there must be risks in the overreliance on one market and the dominance of one nationality in the community of students.

That is all happening in this country, while student numbers in other countries are roaring ahead: up 7% in America and 8.2% in Australia. With plans for massive expansion, Germany plans an increase of 25% in international student numbers by 2020. The UK is falling steadily and remorselessly behind in a field where once we were world-acknowledged leaders.

I therefore ask the Government to make an important and significant remedy to this situation. Will they remove international student numbers from the net migration targets? This would not only benefit the higher education sector but help along this Government’s immigration policy of reducing immigrant numbers. The long-term payoff can only be good. International student graduates will take away with them from this country not only good qualifications but a warm and generous impression of the way in which this country conducts its civil life.

Alcohol: Pricing

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Bakewell]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recent Panorama programme about the scale of alcohol-related illness among the over-65s, when they will make a decision regarding plans for a minimum price per unit of alcohol.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Home Office (Lord Taylor of Holbeach)]

My Lords, it is clear that harmful consumption of alcohol affects all age groups, not just the over-65s. The alcohol strategy published earlier this year sets out the Government’s commitment to introduce a minimum unit price for alcohol. The Government will consult on this and a number of other proposals in the strategy this autumn.

[Baroness Bakewell]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. I should declare an interest. I was the journalist who made the “Panorama” programme. Last week, there was an indication that the plans to announce the minimum pricing of alcohol were being delayed and considerable concern about that was expressed by, among others, the BMA. Will the Minister press the Government to move urgently on this matter to stop wholesalers who are flooding the market with cheap ciders and cheap vodkas, which do a great deal of damage?

[Lord Taylor of Holbeach]

Although I missed the programme the first time around, I have been able to view the noble Baroness’s programme on iPlayer, and I congratulate her on the way she drew graphic attention to the issue. She makes a very good point. We are not dragging our feet on the issue, but we want to go out for consultation with all the details of an impact assessment to go with it, which will help inform the debate about at what level the minimum unit price should be set.

International Women’s Day

Baroness Bakewell Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bakewell]

My Lords and sisters, I speak in praise of grandmothers. The contribution of grandmothers—grandparents in general, of course, but they are not the focus of this debate—to childcare is an estimated £3.9 billion in value to the economy of this country. My noble friend Lord Davies has already drawn attention to childcare needs. The valuable contribution of grandparents is immeasurable and this is how it works out. There are 14 million grandparents in the UK today, 50 per cent of whom are under 65 years of age and one in 10 is under 50. Therefore, 80 per cent of 20 year-olds have a least one living grandparent and the average 10 year-old has three. Grandparents are getting older but none the less 62 per cent of them are no longer the senior generation because they have parents for whom they are also caring. The economic value of this care has yet to be quantified. My noble friend Lady Pitkeathley has already spoken eloquently about carers in general.

Let me break down the grandmother contribution from the point of view of the working mother. One in three working mothers relies on grandparents for childcare; one in four families relies on grandparents for childcare; and one in two women returning from maternity leave depends on their mother. Now let us look at this from the point of view of the child. Some 43 per cent of children aged under five with a working mother are cared for by a grandparent, as are 42 per cent of five to 10 year-olds and 18 per cent of 11 to 16 year-olds. Four in 10 parents say that with increasing economic pressure they are likely to become more dependent.

Finally, let us look at this from the point of view of the grandparents, including grandmothers: 45 per cent of grandparents aged under 54 provide childcare often, as do 25 per cent of those aged between 65 and 74; and 16 per cent of grandparents in their 60s and 33 per cent of those in their 70s provide financial support. Some £4 billion is inherited annually by grandchildren. That is all statistically an impressive solution and it would seem to endorse the strength of family bonds and a welcome commitment to family life.

However, let me sound a warning from the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin, the Chaplain to the Speaker in the other place. She is also the vicar of two parishes in Hackney where she deals with other kinds of social problems. She agrees with the figures for childcare that I have already cited but from her perspective she sees cause for concern. She believes that too often grandparents are taken for granted and that ageing grandmothers, who might expect to enjoy some rest and freedom in their later years, are simply expected to turn out and help. The Reverend Hudson-Wilkin speaks of the sense of entitlement that young families seem to feel about providing for their own lives and careers, and the willingness of an older generation, who were brought up under a different culture, to regard it as their duty to help out. But will this pattern continue and will grandmothers continue to be willing to offer free and often arduous childcare, which in our society others are trained and paid to do? I mention this concern as a footnote to what I believe should be celebrated; namely, the willing and generous contribution made by grandmothers in this country to the welfare of its economy.

Across the world, grandmothers are doing important work for the welfare of their families. The noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has already mentioned this. In many African families ravaged by AIDS, grandmothers take over care when their own children are ill. Age UK estimates that up to half the world’s children orphaned by AIDS are cared for by a grandmother. As far as I know, there is no financial assessment of what such care means to the economies of Africa but it is acknowledged to be considerable. In South Africa, girls living in a household with a grandmother in receipt of a pension were on average 3 centimetres taller than those who did not. The family diet was simply better. People in developing countries seldom retire and only one in five older people worldwide has a pension.

We are blessed in this country to enjoy not only the company but the economic contribution that grandmothers make well into their later years, which should earn them comfort and security in those years, but unfortunately we know that that is not always the case. Ageing grandparents are economically squeezed. The contribution that they have made is not recognised economically by this country. We are often told that care for the old is inadequate. When they need medical attention they do not always get the respect that they deserve. Grandmothers are a hidden wealth and deserve acknowledgement.