Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society

Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, as so many have said, I am grateful to the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury for securing this take note debate. In this, his last appearance in your Lordships’ House as Archbishop, it is right that I express before your Lordships from these Benches the very highest appreciation of his ministry over these past 10 years. We in the House of Bishops have been blessed—a word that I use very deliberately—by a person of extraordinary intellect and ability but with a rare ability to combine that with a warmth of character and to lead by example in the depth of his spirituality. Our debt to him is immeasurable.

The Archbishop has invited a wide-ranging debate, and indeed the subject can only invite that. I am glad that he attempted to give some definition of what we mean by “older”. I was looking forward to referring to him in this debate as my elder and better but, much to my chagrin, I can refer to him only as my better—he is younger than me by six months.

Over 36 years of ministry in the Anglican church—like the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, in his church ministry—I have seen some extraordinary changes in the attitude to the place of older people in society and in the support of the elderly. As the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, said, human beings are not machines and through many factors the ability to function in society in later years is never uniform. As your Lordships have already heard, there are increasing numbers of people able to have a good quality of life at a later age than previous generations have known.

This fact has been signalled for a good many years now. In my diocese, we are very fortunate to have as a lay canon emeritus the author and man of letters Ronald Blythe. He celebrated his 90th birthday this year. He is still writing, still promoting literary giants of previous generations who he fears might be forgotten and still producing a lyrical weekly column for the Church Times. I mention him not only as an example of a distinguished contribution made by an older person to society, but because of an extraordinarily prophetic essay he wrote about old age, which is perhaps all the more remarkable because he wrote it when he was in his 50s. In that essay, he drew attention to the phenomenon of a much larger population of older people and how that was a more recent development than perhaps we allowed.

What has always stuck in my mind from that work was a quotation he used from Paul Tournier, a Swiss medical practitioner, philosopher and theologian who wrote:

“I have come to the conclusion that there is one essential, profound, underlying problem, and it is that the old are unloved. They do not feel themselves to be loved, and too many people treat them with indifference and seek no contact with them ... I think of the multitudes of retired people who hold aloof, who do know that people are concerned that they should have, as we say, decent living conditions, but who know that no personal interest is being taken in them”.

I think that remark reflects what the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, said earlier about that respect, knowledge of self, care and network of history that we have with other people that make you feel that you are still part of life and society. Of course, when you hear something like that, you say, “Can it be true?”. You can immediately think of plenty of examples where it is not. I imagine that for most noble Lords it is not true, but those involved in the pastoral ministry of clergy know only too often of where it is the case.

Times have changed, I am relieved to say, and standards in the care of the frail elderly have improved out of all recognition in my lifetime. Pastoral ministry in parishes takes you into many such establishments. I ministered in one populous north-east parish near the coast at Tyneside. At least 10 care homes were established there. I watched the change from places which sat people all day in a large circle in a day room to the introduction of a state-of-the-art new care home, which specialised in dementia care. The quality of care rose, as did the desire to show that compassion which has been the subject of concern recently for the nursing profession. Standards are rising, but there is still a big gap between the best and the worst, and there is still an issue that the more personal financial resources you have, the better the quality of care you can access. It remains true that there is something of a postcode lottery about the availability of places of care with high standards.

The churches, too, have to look to themselves as to exactly what they are willing to provide and can do at a time when we know that there will be falling numbers of available full-time clergy. For a time, I worked with a person who owned some very good care homes. He was determined to try to improve the quality of spiritual care in them and recognised that there was so much more to do. It was surprising how difficult it was to find wider support, although I am glad that eventually a church institute took up his offer of funding research into the subject.

A systematic approach to thinking about the implications by statutory agencies does happen, I acknowledge, but it can be patchy. Some years ago, I went to an excellent conference which took on board all the implications for our society of an ageing population: the infrastructure that would be needed, the pension question and the ability of a smaller working population to provide the necessary resources. The point was made that we were rapidly approaching the point where 50% of our society would be over 50. It was a forward-looking conference that talked of many things we now grapple with: the need to raise the retirement age and the very positive approach to encouraging significant contributions, paid and unpaid, from people later in life. The trouble is that all that was organised by a regional development agency that no longer exists, and there is no trace from the websites that I can see that that sort of joined-up thinking has been carried on.

The churches can do bits that help bring that together. I think of one initiative by local churches that invited numerous agencies that provided support or opportunities for volunteering for older people to meet in one place. They then invited everyone they knew over a certain age to meet them and to go around in groups—speed dating, so to speak. It was amazing that there was no joined-up thinking between those groups. Some of the offers were being duplicated where they could have provided a more efficient service in different areas. There is much to be done.

Accessing healthcare increases in later years, of course, but the multidisciplinary approach to people who develop a series of needs can be patchy. I do not want to fall into the trap, already referred to, of thinking of older people as a group with problems or as a problem. Of all institutions, as we have heard, the church should know best about the extraordinarily valuable contribution that older people make.

Let me tell the House of one in my diocese. A group of Christians got together to try to provide a therapeutic community for young women who had become addicted to drugs, which frequently led to sexual exploitation. The young women can access a certain amount of care and be provided with a certain amount of rehabilitation, but that can be maintained only if they are given support following the end of that course of rehabilitation. Frequently, that does not happen. They go back to their old haunts and contacts and fall back into that vicious cycle of addiction that leads to exploitation. The vision is to provide a therapeutic community that helps them back into society.

The main person behind this vision is a retired person who is giving countless hours. The place that the group is hoping to turn into the community needs a lot of physical labour and refurbishment, and most of that is being provided by retired people with the necessary skills. It is an extraordinary example of the older generation providing care for the younger. That is being repeated time and again throughout this country, and I hope this debate helps to raise it above the radar. It has not been mentioned yet, but this year we have had the finest example of all of an older person serving this nation: Her Majesty the Queen. If she is not an example to inspire, who is?

I hope that the tenor of this debate helps to make the gloomy prognostication made by Tournier in the late 1970s lack a certain currency and that we can find the way to offer love and opportunity to older people. I thank the most reverend Primate for introducing this debate.

Piracy

Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, I should like to echo the gratitude to the noble Lord, Lord Luce, for introducing this debate at this time. It has been heartening to hear about the reduction in the rates of piracy and also what needs to be done to establish the long-term solution to this awful modern scourge. However, I feel it incumbent on me to remind the House again of the human cost to the crews of those ships.

We are very well aware of that from that excellent organisation, the Mission to Seafarers, which works very hard to care for those who have been released from captivity. We can certainly be very glad that the number of people who are now being held captive has been reduced. Nevertheless, if the report by the Oceans Beyond Piracy group, The Human Cost of Piracy 2011, is anything to go by, one of the very disturbing aspects is that, while there might be fewer people being held hostage, the violence towards them is getting worse. There are very serious reports of people being horribly mistreated, such as being put in the freezers of the ships for 40 minutes or left out in the blazing sun without clothes, among other things. That is extremely disturbing, and not surprisingly leaves people horribly traumatised afterwards.

The Mission to Seafarers, a Christian maritime charity, is working with seafarers in this high-risk area and has chaplains at Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Aqaba, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. Chaplains are trained in post-trauma stress counselling to help seafarers adjust when they come back. Very often, Mombasa is the port where newly released ships arrive. The welfare facilities there, with that network of chaplaincies, are able to reconnect people with their homes and families and provide counselling and debriefing.

I should like to put some flesh on this. The vessel “Asphalt Venture” was taken two years ago on a journey from Mombasa to Durban. Fifteen crewmen were initially on board when negotiations began. Six months after being taken, the ship was released after ransom was paid, along with eight seafarers. The remaining seven were taken on land into Somalia and they are still in captivity. One of them is a 27 year-old Indian seafarer called Daniston Lytton. There has been little or no movement in freeing the remaining crew, who now have now been held hostage for over two years. His family is desperate to know what more can be done. The Mission to Seafarers in south India has been providing pastoral assistance and counselling some of the families associated with the ship. The chaplain has regularly written to the Indian Government and liaised with the ship owners and agents in the hope of finding a satisfactory conclusion to this case, but nothing has come of it. The national media in India are beginning to ask whether the Indian Government have forgotten about the nationals being held hostage and there is speculation that two of them might even have died since, though there has been no confirmation of that. That is the reality of what being a hostage taken by pirates is about.

Most of the seafarers come from major labour supply countries such as India, the Philippines and others. In the light of what the Mission to Seafarers is offering at the moment in terms of counselling and help to release seafarers and help to their families, I wonder whether the Minister would be willing to meet representatives of the mission to ensure that suitable support is available in the event that British hostages—I hope this never happens—are taken. There needs to be joined-up thinking about this. As we have already heard, so many of these seafarers come from Commonwealth countries, so can the Minister indicate what assistance Her Majesty’s Government might be able to offer to other nations, particularly those within the Commonwealth, which are working to secure the release of their nationals?

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me for introducing this human cost, which, of course, will be solved entirely if the measures outlined solve the international situation. An urgent human problem continues and anything that we can do from this Chamber to support those who treat and care for people in that situation, and who can do more for those who are still being held hostage, must be welcomed.

Arms Trade Treaty

Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich Excerpts

Monday 21st May 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I am not totally clear of my noble friend’s question. She supports what has been achieved and, as she rightly says, a considerable number of countries have signed up. However, countries which we thought might be much more reluctant have not done so. Certainly, there are key issues yet to be finalised on weapons to be covered and export criteria. These are difficulties. If my noble friend’s question was whether we would walk away if it looked like too weak a treaty, I say that we do not intend that to happen. We intend the treaty to be at least where it is now, with broad agreement discussed on many crucial issues and out of which we can produce a robust treaty.

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, we have long been supportive of a robust attitude to such a treaty. Can the Minister offer any advice as to whether the Government are able to help and support some of those fragile nations which are emerging from conflict or are still in conflict to be able to take part fully in these negotiations? They have so much to gain from a robust treaty.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

These fragile nations certainly have much to gain and we want to see their participation. Like all nations, they have a legitimate desire to defend themselves. One must be realistic: if one wants to protect people and nations, some hard-power defence—in other words, weaponry—is needed. There has to be support for sensible, non-repressive arms supplies across international barriers, which can support the proper protection of young nations as they struggle to establish themselves and achieve stability against incursions from outside.