Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society

Baroness Barker Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barker]

My Lords, in preparing for today’s debate I asked a number of people what they would say about the most reverend Primate. The most frequent response was that he had done an amazing job of keeping different people together within the church. That is absolutely right. He has managed to keep within his church a broad and diverse range of people with different opinions. That has been an extraordinarily difficult and at times very painful process for the church and for him. In years to come, his church will thank him for having done that. We in the wider society should do so too because what the church has to say about how enduring values affect issues as our society evolves is important and continues to be so. Therefore, the job that he has done in making sure that, in coming to its decisions, there are many voices within the church is extremely important.

It is therefore no accident that today a number of people have chosen to talk about diversity and older people. I intend to do so, too, but in a slightly different way. I want to talk about a group of people—older lesbians, gay men, bisexuals and transgender people—known by the inelegant acronym OLGBT. A decade ago at Age Concern, I was involved in Opening Doors, which was one of the first ever pieces of research in this area. It was the beginning of a project that endures. We did that because the law had changed in the 1970s and we knew that for the first time a cohort of people who had been out during their lives was coming towards old age. However, we knew that services and society were not ready for them and had not thought about them.

We were right. The prevailing attitude, certainly among service providers was, “We haven’t got any around here”. We said, “No, you would not have any around here because you have never looked for them”. In fact, they were a generation of people who had grown up through times of illegality and then went through a transition of becoming legal but not accepted. They were therefore very hidden and very reluctant to put themselves forward. Antony Smith, the diversity officer of Age UK, talks now about the need for organisations actively to come out and be welcoming of people from the OLGBT community, because if they do not those people will never have trust in those organisations.

In the decade or so for which this project has been running, we have got to know quite a lot, although there is still much that we do not know, about older gay people. We know that they are as diverse as the rest of the population. Some of them have had outstanding careers in the military, in our public services, in business and so on. We have also had some villains among them, as has the rest of the country. Many of the things that older gay people want are just the same as what everyone else wants. They want to feel safe, feel connected and be valued. However, in addition, they want to be understood because they have been so alone and so isolated for so long that they are not understood.

Recent research carried out with Age UK and Opening Doors in Camden gave rise to a description by an old lady that is more telling than I can describe. She said, “I am an older lesbian. If I never have another relationship with another woman, I will still be an older lesbian”. I shall also quote an older gay man, who said, “I think I was 82 before I felt good about myself”. Those two statements together begin to indicate to the rest of us what these people have gone through in their lives.

A very few projects have become established around the country. There is the Age UK project in Camden, which is perhaps the biggest and most well known, the Navajo project in Lancashire and the Equity Partnership in Yorkshire. There are not many more but they are dotted around the country. They provide simple services such as home care, social care and so on. What the people who go to those projects say is that they have given them a renewed sense of being part of a community, a structure to their lives and things to look forward to again—the same things that everyone else wants. However, those projects have also served as good research bases for others. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, in January 2012, used Opening Doors in Camden to carry out some research. It made some interesting discoveries. Lots of people make the assumption that, because in times past some faith groups have been very hostile to gay people, they have left their churches. It turns out that that is not so. Quite a number of gay people remained within the church. They may not be out, but their faith and participation in the church is important to them.

I have mentioned those small projects and there are some others. We got the news last week from the Charities Aid Foundation that the financial crisis that gripped the City in 2008-09 is now sending out its shockwaves and that those are going to hit charities and local authorities. Many of these projects are run by charities which are highly likely to disappear over the next few years, and I think it is likely that much of this work will be lost. Given what is about to happen in the charitable sector over the next three years, does the Minister agree that it is imperative that government takes a more proactive role in promoting diversity, particularly in public services, than they have in the past, so that policy statements across government reflect the diversity of the nation? There are some bits and pieces of work going on. Stonewall Housing, for example, is developing some standards to show what good practice should look like.

I simply want to put the matter across to noble Lords in terms that I think are strong but nevertheless warranted. Throughout the debate, people have spoken about the fact that nobody relishes the prospect of losing their independence in later life. However, having spoken to very many gay people, I know that they have an extra dread that old age may mean dependence upon people who either do not understand them or, worse, hate them. That is a real and constant fear within the community. That is why it is important, just as it is for members of our black and minority ethnic community, that government redouble their efforts to make sure that these people’s needs are included.

I want to finish on the following note. In future, the majority of care and support for old people will be in communities. The church always has and always will have a very important role in shaping the nature of our communities. It is, and will remain, a force which determines very many of the good and strong aspects of our community life. I hope that in the role that he goes on to play in the future, the most reverend Primate will continue what he has done in the past, which is to raise questions about the human condition and about society that cause Governments and the rest of us as individuals to think and to reflect.