Loneliness and Local Communities
Debate between Rachel Reeves and Jo ChurchillWestminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
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Rachel Reeves
My hon. Friend is right. We all came together last June on the anniversary of Jo’s murder as part of the Great Get Together to share food, laughter, companionship and friendship with our neighbours and friends. That was a really powerful moment in paying tribute to Jo and everything she stood for. There are, indeed, plans to take that forward, which I will come on to later.
As well as older people and men, loneliness affects disabled people and carers. Our partners in the commission, Sense, found through its research that 50% of disabled people will be lonely on any given day, while a staggering one in four people admitted to avoiding conversations with disabled people, feeling they will have nothing in common. Carers UK surveyed carers around the country and found the sobering statistic that eight out of 10 carers felt lonely or isolated as a result of caring or looking after a loved one.
Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)
I thank the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) for all the work they do in this area. The Great Get Together certainly brought communities together in my rural area, as does the great work of the Rural Coffee Caravan, where a coffee shop is put in a caravan and taken round communities. The hon. Lady very articulately made the point that sometimes things happen to us in life that cause us to be lonely, as our horizons diminish. Carers do not ask to care. People who suffer from Alzheimer’s also fall into this group, along with young children at school, with the pressures of social media. Does she agree that this can happen anywhere and to any one of us?
Rachel Reeves
I thank the hon. Lady for that powerful intervention. She is absolutely right that loneliness does not discriminate; it can happen to anybody. I pay tribute to the work in her constituency in Suffolk through the coffee caravan.
As well as having a direct impact on those experiencing it, loneliness has a social impact. Lonely people tend to visit GPs more often. Seven out of 10 GPs say that at least one in 10 people coming to their surgeries are there primarily because they are lonely. Lonely people stay longer in hospital and find it harder to cope and heal, adding even more pressure to our national health service.