Declining Birth Rates

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Finlay of Llandaff (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Nargund, for having secured this debate, and to the noble Baroness, Lady O’Grady, for having introduced the business of intergenerational solidarity. I want to concentrate on the other end—not on birth but on this older population, because it makes a civic contribution through volunteers and through its economic impact.

The total economic impact of volunteers is to save the country around £27.4 billion per annum. Those over the age of 85 in employment bring in £6 billion to £8 billion in income tax revenue annually, and 1.7 million people earn around half what younger earners gain in employment. So they are working and earning less, but they are bringing in tax and certainly not being a burden on the state.

But there are families where the child cannot be looked after in the conventional way, and I will focus on kinship for a moment. In the 2021 census, most children living in kinship care—that is 60%—lived with at least one grandparent. The 2025 survey showed that nearly half the respondents were aged over 60 and more than one in eight were aged over 70. Seven out of 10 kinship carers are grandparents to at least one child in their care. They are taking a huge burden off the state in many ways, yet they suffer significant practical and financial problems, often using their own savings to look after these children. They have found that, if they go for a special guardianship order, they jeopardise their pension going into the future. For some, it is better financially to remain as kinship foster carers because they get a foster care allowance, but that does not provide as much stability for the child. So I hope that the issue of kinship care will be looked at seriously by the Government because we could improve it and the contribution of kinship carers is enormous.

Looking at volunteers—I declare that I am president of Attend—for Attend alone we have 400 groups across the country working in hospitals. They are led by officers who are usually between 70 and 90 years of age. They work many hours voluntarily. There are about 20,000 people actively supporting their community by belonging to one of these groups, and for each of them there are 10 others who are ad hoc volunteers coming in to provide support across their community. Through Attend alone, we have about 20 young people every year gaining work experience as volunteers in order to strengthen their CVs and move forward later—that volunteer contribution is essential.

I also point out, as president of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, that falls avoidance is absolutely essential. If we avoid falls among older people and we connect them with other people, often through volunteering, we avoid loneliness and the problems of people saying that they feel that they are a burden. When people feel that they are a burden, they avoid seeking help early and present with problems later. One of the big problems in this older group is hidden alcohol abuse. These are all aspects that we must address if we are going to address the demographic challenges we face.