Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Andrews]

My Lords, it is a privilege to take part in such a profound debate which covers one of the great transformational changes of our time. It was introduced by the most reverend Primate on his last appearance. I hope that it is a temporary au revoir and that we will have the privilege of seeing him in another guise in another part of the House before too long because we would sorely miss his wisdom and his joy in the House itself. When I was a very junior Minister standing at the Dispatch Box, the most reverend Primate arrived for his first day in the House of Lords. I took it upon myself to welcome him on behalf of the entire House and said what a great gift Wales had given to the nation—and so it has proved over the past decade. This is a wonderful way for him to conclude this part of his great adventure in the House.

Three hundred years ago Jonathan Swift wrote that,

“every man desires to live long; but no man would be old”.

That reflection is the more poignant because he would not have recognised a society in which a third of life is lived after 50 or where pensioners outnumber children. But then, neither would our grandparents. I grew up in the famously matriarchal society of South Wales, much like my noble friend Lord Griffiths and perhaps the most reverend Primate himself. My grandmothers and my aunties, like Bertie Wooster’s aunties, ruled imperiously. If anyone had questioned their contribution to society they would have been told in no uncertain terms, “Well, we just keep the place going”. How right they were.

It is interesting that since the 1960s and the changes in demography, public health and health care, we seem to have been overwhelmed by the negative. I do not quite know the answer as to why there has been this loss of confidence. It is an interesting cultural question as well as a demographic issue. It took until 2005 for any Government to face up to this in any strategic sense. The policy document Opportunity Age challenged what by then was the stereotype and called for action to explode the myth that,

“ageing is a barrier to positive contribution to the economy and society through work and through active engagement in the community”.

We are seven years on and, despite the overwhelming evidence of the productivity, wealth and contribution of older people catalogued in this House today—and also, for example, in the WRVS report on “gold age”—the argument is still on the defensive.

I completely agree with the most reverend Primate that there is not a coherent picture. We seem to have, at last, a definition of where old age starts but we do not have a coherent language around the concept of ageing, the transfer between the third and the fourth age and so on. Paradoxically, it is undisputable that the contribution of older people to our economy and society has never been greater. I am not surprised by that because the generation that is now growing old and living through this revolution in demographics is used to having its own way. We have been a lucky generation. We had free education, jobs, cheap housing, generous pensions, investment in research and medicine and the National Health Service, and that has brought us the extraordinary gift of longer life. Now we are approaching the biblical definition of “time’s up” we are not ready to sign off.

That is just as well because we have fewer choices. We are being asked to work longer—and the next generation will work even longer. We have heard powerfully about the role of grandparents and older people. When they are not doing those kinds of key services they are providing the unpaid voluntary force which keeps our civic and civil society going. Putting on my English Heritage hat and declaring an interest, 50% of our volunteers are in retirement. They keep our gardens looking lovely and keep our rare books clean—we could not do without them. They find it as fulfilling as we do useful, as does the National Trust.

However, we are a lucky generation, too. We have the power of the internet in our hands; we can plague our children to death wherever they are in the world. We can broadcast our opinions; we can mobilise our friends and our causes; and we can influence the market in a way that no generation has been able to do before. Older people can be the change makers, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Glasman.

Under the previous Government, the new deal for communities was so successful so often in many of the most deprived parts of the community because older people—often women—provided the vision, leadership and the confidence to tackle the most stubborn and difficult of problems in their neighbourhood. Now they man the barricades against horrible local development and they demand better services.

It is an inspiring story that should be celebrated but it is only half—perhaps not even half—of the story. The inequalities of opportunities, health and life chances which that generation also suffered are now deepening. This is predictable, too. When economic and social policy is driven by a crippling programme of austerity, it is bound to bear down on those who use services most—those in poor health and those in need of care—and it is older people who will bear the brunt of cuts in capacity, services and skills.

The most reverend Primate asked how the Government can recognise and liberate the role of older people. Leadership takes many forms, not least in finding the right language for policy. I am not sure that leadership can be effectively vested or contained in a Minister for older people. I am not certain but I think a commissioner for older people might have something to offer by way of powerful advocacy—and, again, it would be another gift from Wales. When we had an identified Minister in the past, it merely revealed the fact that one Minister cannot speak for the entire diverse population of older people because they have an annoying habit of being affected by everything. Funny that, isn’t it? It could be that we are just ourselves growing older.

More useful would be to have a set of consistent and explicit principles built into the design and delivery of services based on values which reflect and impact upon older people. I refer to principles which confirm that prevention is better than improvisation or crisis management; that integration is more humane and cost effective than isolation and loneliness; that inclusion in a community keeps people active and healthy rather than dependent—principles which, in practice, remove the barriers that stop people being active, fully engaged and happy.

In conclusion, I want to talk briefly about housing, which often gets left out of the social equality equation. So much of what we are and can be is determined by whether we are living in the right place at the right time. There is nothing more important for the older person than to know that they can be independent and well cared for in their own home, which is where they want to be. That is why the smaller things matter; that is why handy-person services matter; that is why putting in insulation or a grab rail, which costs £80 as opposed to a hip operation once you have fallen over which costs £8,000, is part of the policy. The other policy is building those homes for the future which can last a lifetime, because they are flexible and adaptable. The other element is building homes which change as needs change. The previous Government had a policy for housing and ageing and this Government have continued with it. But this is where we need more than ever political will, because we are running out of time and working in the worst circumstances.

This has been a profound debate in many ways. It has revealed that, much more important than the quantification of economic benefit from older people, is, as my noble friend Lord Griffiths and the most reverend Primate himself said, the enduring sense we share of what is really important, not just in old age but throughout our lives—love, understanding, empathy, and respect.

Let us not underestimate the role of creativity. Verdi wrote Falstaff when he was over 80 and the great final self-portrait of Rembrandt in his eighties reveals the man behind the painter. I am sure that the most reverend Primate in his new academic career will go on writing the sort of things that change us and our society for as long as we live.