Social Policy

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff]

My Lords, I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leicester for securing this debate, and I add my compliments to the noble Lord, Lord Wei, for an outstanding maiden speech. It put me in mind of probably the best advice that I was ever given, which was from my father: if you want to change the world, you need to get to the top but not lose your principles on the way. The noble Lord’s speech showed us that he holds many high principles and is bringing them to enrich this House, so I congratulate him.

Preparing for this debate set me thinking about boundaries and where the responsibility for them lies. The Government—indeed, this House—make laws, and those laws send a message to our society. They set the boundaries of what, within our own nation, we can and cannot do. Most are protective. Some are permissive but they often have a protective element to them, so in providing permission they sometimes also protect people who previously did not have protection. The Civil Partnership Act has done just that, and in providing permission it has also provided protection. I exclude taxation legislation from those comments, I might say.

We then have the boundaries of society, which are where society interprets in practice the laws that are there. Those in authority, particularly health and education, and leaders of all sorts, civic and religious, lead that interpretation at a local level. Then, within our communities, we have the actions within those boundaries of the individual human being. The community and the culture of that community define how we express ourselves and how we express our emotions and our emotional response to things. Part of our human being is our human emotional response. Emotion crosses all those boundaries of sex, creed, religion, race and so on but its expression varies by context and by the permissions or prohibitions of the culture within which it is set.

We live in an interconnected society with relationships—and relationships are key. The right reverend Prelate spoke about autonomy and it is worth thinking for a moment about the meaning of that word, which is self-governance. If we talk about the autonomy of a community it is about the self-governance of that community. If we talk about the autonomy of an individual, it is about the self-governance of that individual. It means that we have to take into consideration the effects of actions on other people. Autonomy does not mean for a community, individual or even a society, “I want therefore I get”. It brings with it a whole set of responsibilities. The abuse of boundaries endangers others. We see that sometimes with the way that the elderly are frightened of youth.

It has been said that we have a demographic time bomb. It is a phrase I do not like because it completely undervalues the enormous potential of an elderly population. We do not value their contribution and yet they have an enormous amount to offer in an interconnected way. Projects such as the University of the Third Age have built and encouraged those intersupportive networks that allow people to help each other, to telephone each other and take people out of loneliness. They eat together, debate, maintain fitness, they are concerned and active and then, when someone in the community has a problem, the others come together in a completely informal, voluntary rota that provides an enormous amount of support that I fear we just do not value as a society because we class them all together as a bunch of elderlies with zimmer frames and so on—with judgmental statements that do not value their worth.

How do we, as a society, harness their worth within our communities? One of the problems is that we have become risk-averse rather than risk-intelligent in the way that we respond to the way that one person responds to another. We have become so worried about child abuse that we have forgotten the importance of the elderly person to a troubled youngster—a person who can listen to the youngster, soak up their concerns and provide wisdom in a non-judgmental way. Perhaps such people are the only ones a young person can confide in. They work in lieu of an extended family now and these elderly members of our society bring their own personal history which is enriching. That personal history can act as an inspirational role model to the youngster who is devoid of aspiration and devoid of a role model and support.

I would like to take a moment to think about the children in our society, because they are also often forgotten when they are really in need. It is estimated that in school-age children, one in 29 is bereaved of a parent or sibling and one in 16 is bereaved of a significant other. That means that in every school class will be one child bereaved of a parent or sibling and two bereaved of a significant other, yet that is something that we brush under the carpet and ignore. We know that those children are at higher risk of depression and of underachieving academically and, sadly, at higher risk of things such as drug abuse and falling into crime, teenage pregnancy and alcoholism further down the line. It is that other army, of elderly people in the community, who can provide the support by marking the anniversary of the significant person’s death with a card, a visit or a word. This means that the person who was of value to you is recognised as also having been of value in our community. Whoever they were, the intrinsic worth of the individual is recognised and this allows the child to move forward.

I worry that we do not harness this enormous potential enough. We somehow have to discourage the stories of the individual, which can be inspirational, being used to harbour bitterness in trying to determine identity. It is those stories that can inspire the social capital that the noble Lord, Lord Wei, spoke about. Sadly, sometimes, things seem to go wrong and we talk about a failure to communicate within our communities or society. However, I wonder whether it is more a failure to listen than a failure to give information. When you talk and listen to people who feel that a system has failed them, it turns out that they were not listened to—they were spoken at. Perhaps we have to relearn those more basic ways of communicating—that is, to listen with our ears and use our eyes, noses, touch and every sense of our being—to understand and develop the interconnectedness that has been alluded to by some of the previous speakers in this debate.

The most reverend Primate spoke about dignity. Indeed, “dignity” has been defined as having a sense of personal worth. We know when we have lost our dignity. We take it for granted that we will have it. We know when it has been taken away from us by not being treated with respect, not being listened to and not being treated as a human being of worth. A grumpy, snappy response or a dismissive tone can make somebody who is already vulnerable feel that they are being a nuisance and a burden. While we talk about the role of government and communities, the effect must filter right down to the interaction of one person with another and individual respect. However, the tone is set by that of the Government in setting the rules and the framework.

It has been said that the mark of a civilised society is how it cares for its vulnerable, which seems to be a pretty good definition. As we discuss this and face a new Government, we face a society with many youngsters who have poverty of aspiration. There is real physical poverty in our midst. I declare an interest as a patron of the Trussell Trust, which has set up food banks. I know of the ones in Wales and the number of people who need food to tide them over for 24 or 48 hours because they have no money to buy basic food for themselves and their children. The food bank system is completely voluntary and is rebuilding connections in some of these very deprived areas and communities.

What should a Government do? Far be it from me as a humble Cross-Bencher to try to advise the Government, but I have some thoughts and I will have the audacity to share them. Perhaps we need to set a framework to allow people to be risk-intelligent, rather than inappropriately risk-averse. This framework would empower a community and enable it to realise its innate creativity, but also protect the vulnerable from exploitation and ensure justice for all walks of life, free from discrimination. That is the only way that we will see our principles realised.