Loneliness and Local Communities

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

We will move immediately to the next debate, which is very heavily subscribed. I want as many Members as possible to have the opportunity to speak, but that will of course depend on interventions and other speakers. I ask Members to bear that in mind.

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[Rachel Reeves]

That is absolutely right. Issues of post-natal depression are sometimes linked to loneliness. What should be the happiest time of your life is not always like that for a lot of people. That is the point: a lonely person is not always the figure that we might have in our mind of an elderly lady outliving her relatives. Loneliness is all around us. People who are lonely will be seen as much on a busy street as in the living room of a house with an older person living there. Part of the role of the commission over the last year has been to do just that—to remind people that loneliness does not discriminate and to get people to be more willing to talk about these issues, because only if we talk about them, as we now do much more about mental health, are we likely to solve them.

I want to conclude by saying a little about the Great Get Together and the work that is coming up with the Jo Cox Foundation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) said, 9.3 million people took part in the Great Get Together this summer. The Jo Cox Foundation will be building on that with the Great Christmas Get Together next month, to ensure that no one has no one at Christmastime.

In December, the loneliness commission manifesto will be launched by the hon. Member for South Ribble and me, so that we start to give some of the answers to some of the questions that I have posed today, building on the work that the commission has done over the year, but also with the input from all the hon. Members who speak today and the different groups that they talk about.

Loneliness is a blight on our society, and too many suffer in silence, so it is up to all of us, from Westminster to our constituencies, to come together and take the action necessary, and do Jo proud.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Before I call Neil O’Brien, followed fast by Tracy Brabin—I just want to give you warning—I am going to impose a three-minute limit on speeches. The three Front-Bench spokespersons, including the Minister, have agreed that they will not take much time at all; in fact, I do not intend to call them until 5.23 pm at the earliest. I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind. Taking interventions will mean that we move to two-minute speeches, which as Members we know is utterly useless, but that is where we will end up if Members take interventions. I call Neil O’Brien.

[Neil O’Brien (Harborough) (Con)]

I, too, thank the hon. Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) for securing this important debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy). I will be as brief as possible, Mr Paisley.

Many hon. Members present will have had the experience of knocking on doors and finding someone who wants to carry on talking to us because we are the only person they have seen for a long time. There are many statistics in this area, which the hon. Member for Leeds West is more knowledgeable about than I am. The statistic that always strikes me is the one from Age UK that 3.6 million people over the age of 65 say that the TV is their main form of company. This is a profound problem, and in my constituency it is one that many people want to do something about. There are brilliant organisations such as Voluntary Action South Leicestershire, which has a befriending programme that helps not just the befriended but the befriender. The Churches do so much, and there are groups such as Age UK, which has great programmes, including Elderberries.

I would like to turn the conversation a little towards solutions. Loneliness is increasingly recognised as a problem. The hon. Lady is right to say that the first step is to measure the problem more, so that we know what interventions best address it. In the short time available, let me suggest just a few different things that we might want to discuss.

We could expand the National Citizen Service—a brilliant initiative from David Cameron that sees young people doing more in their communities. We could think about how to encourage more multigenerational living. Multifamily households are the fastest growing type of household in the UK today. By bringing younger and older generations together in one household, we potentially address not just the problem of loneliness, but some of the questions about the costs of an ageing society, because we would have younger people looking after older people.

We could think about the challenge of ensuring that everyone in our communities has a good ability in English. As I go round my constituency, I am often sad when I knock on the door and meet constituents who are not really able to have a conversation with me. That is not just bad for their ability to take part in our economy and our society, but incredibly isolating for them; they are often women. We could think about how we provide English for everyone.

We could think about how to spread initiatives for young mothers. I am thinking of organisations such as the NCT. This is something that I have experienced in my own family: we have absolutely relied on the network that we built up of other young parents through the NCT. Not everyone is able to access that, because it is a paid-for service, but I wonder how we could spread that kind of service and network to more people. Perhaps related to that, but much broader, is the question of how we can use technology as a tool to fight loneliness. I have been very encouraged in that respect by some of the projects in my constituency. Older people, who always say that they do not want to get involved—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Tracy Brabin.

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[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. Before we move to the next speaker, unfortunately I will have to reduce the time limit to two minutes.

[Colleen Fletcher (Coventry North East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) on securing this important debate.

While none of us is immune to being lonely or socially isolated, we know that older people are especially vulnerable, primarily because they face greater personal or wider societal barriers. In Coventry, which is ranked 59 out of 326 at a local authority level on the loneliness index, it is estimated that more than 3,400 people aged 65 or over are often lonely.

Over recent years there has been a greater focus on loneliness among older people in our communities, and that has been accompanied by a shift in our understanding of its impact. We know there is an established link between loneliness and poor mental and physical health. It affects a person’s wellbeing and quality of life, increases the onset of frailty and functional and cognitive decline, and has serious implications for a person’s mortality and morbidity. The consequences of loneliness are felt not only by the individual directly affected, but by society, through our public services, as lonely individuals are more likely to visit their GP, use A&E services, have higher use of medication and undergo earlier entry into residential or nursing care.

Thankfully, in Coventry there are some faith and third sector organisations that offer preventive, responsive and restorative services, such as the collaborative Good Neighbours Coventry scheme. The befriending, practical support and group activities offered through the scheme can prevent loneliness; but even where problems already exist, it can be responsive to them. Finally, it can be restorative, by helping individuals with entrenched problems to build new and meaningful friendships and regain confidence.

If we are ever to get a grip on this wholly avoidable problem, we need the Government to ensure that adequate resources are available in each and every community to prevent anyone from being lonely or socially isolated—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Thelma Walker.

[Thelma Walker (Colne Valley) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Paisley. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) for securing this debate on such an important topic, which she has championed so well.

I would like to start by reading a short excerpt from one of my favourite stories:

“‘Yes,’ said the bear. ‘I emigrated, you know.’ A sad expression came into its eyes. ‘I used to live with my Aunt Lucy in Peru, but she had to go into a home for retired bears.’

‘You don’t mean to say you’ve come all the way from South America by yourself?’ exclaimed Mrs Brown.

The bear nodded…‘You can’t just sit on Paddington station waiting for something to happen.’

‘Oh, I shall be all right… I expect.’ The bear bent down to do up its case again. As he did so Mrs Brown caught a glimpse of the writing on the label. It said, simply, Please look after this bear. Thank you.”

That is an extract from “A Bear Called Paddington” and it is something that we all need to take notice of. Mr and Mrs Brown saved a lonely bear from deepest, darkest Peru. They gave him friendship, love and something he could call a family.

As we talk today about loneliness, we need to listen to Michael Bond’s words. He was someone I knew well, who took inspiration from lonely refugee children with tags around their necks fleeing London during the second world war. That inspired his stories about Paddington. His stories are more than a great child’s favourite; they are stories about how each one of us can play a small part in reducing loneliness, like Mr and Mrs Brown did for Paddington.

Loneliness occurs across the globe, from refugee children in war-torn countries who have lost their family and belongings to places close to home in my constituency of Colne Valley. Clem’s Garden in Lindley is a community project designed to reduce loneliness in over-50s through the simple act of gardening. It is a not-for-profit enterprise set up and run by my constituent Vicky House—

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

Order. I call Ellie Reeves.

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[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) on securing this important debate and on the work that she and the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) have done as co-chairs of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness.

I had the privilege to be part of the Jo Cox women in leadership programme. What Jo said was absolutely right:

“young or old, loneliness doesn’t discriminate…it is something many of us could easily help with.”

In what seems like a lifetime ago, but in reality was only a little over two months, I gave my maiden speech. I spoke about how my parents arrived in this country from the Punjab in India and how they understood what it felt like to feel new, alone and lost. I also spoke about the issues surrounding mental health and emotional wellbeing that can lead to loneliness and how they can be cruel and indiscriminate.

Although loneliness is often automatically linked to old age, it in fact permeates the whole of society—young and old, rich and poor, male and female. According to the Office for National Statistics in 2010, more than half of all people over 75 lived alone, with nearly 4 million older people saying that television was their main form of company. However, new research conducted by Action for Children reveals that more than half of UK parents have suffered from loneliness, with more than a fifth having felt lonely “in the past week”, while more than a third of children also say that

“they have felt lonely in the last week”.

Given that loneliness affects every corner of our society, both mentally and physically, it is imperative that every effort is made to rid ourselves of the concerns presented by loneliness. It really does not take much. We all lead busy and hectic lives, but by taking just five minutes out of our day to speak to someone who might not have any human interaction, we can all make a real difference to someone’s life. I applaud the work being done by various organisations—some of which I have mentioned, but there are many others—on what is a truly preventable problem. I am pleased to have been able to participate in this debate and I will continue to support the battle against loneliness in any way I can.

[Ian Paisley (in the Chair)]

I now call the Scottish National party spokesperson.