Tackling Loneliness and Connecting Communities

Kim Leadbeater Excerpts

Wednesday 21st June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Kim Leadbeater (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

Thank you, Dr Huq. It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair this afternoon. This debate comes at a very poignant moment for me. I am grateful to my good friend, co-conspirator and football teammate, the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), for securing it. I would also like to associate myself with the comments she made in her excellent speech, particularly around social prescribing, which we could do much more on, and the importance of the UK continuing to play a leading global role in the work on loneliness, not sitting on our laurels but always looking at new ways to drive this work forward. As the hon. Lady said, wherever I go, in this and other countries, loneliness is the one issue people will always come and speak to me about.

Last Friday was the seventh anniversary of the murder of my sister Jo. It was a day that many Members and people in this place remember with a feeling of shock and disbelief that does not get any less painful with time; it certainly does not for me. As I have said before, there is a very strong chance that I would not be standing here today were it not for that horrific event. It is Jo’s birthday tomorrow, so this is always a difficult time of year for our family. One thing that helps to get us through is the way that every year so many people choose to celebrate Jo’s life and what she stood for in Great Get Together events across the country over what would have been her birthday weekend.

I have just come from my first Great Parliamentary Get Together since becoming an MP—a wonderful mix of MPs, peers and staff of all political persuasions putting our differences aside and spending time together, accompanied by an abundance of Batley’s finest Fox’s Biscuits, of course. In the days to come, thanks to the hard work of the Jo Cox Foundation and many other inspirational volunteers and organisations, Great Get Togethers will take place in every corner of the UK.

These events are a brilliant example of how, by coming together to celebrate what we have in common, communities can help create opportunities for connection and offer a pathway out of loneliness and unwanted social isolation. It might feel a bit depressing to think that we have to create situations where people are able to connect, but we have to accept that in recent decades our communities have changed significantly. The pace of life, technology, the internet and changing work patterns are just some of the many factors that in some ways can help us to feel better connected, but in other ways can significantly increase levels of loneliness and isolation.

Loneliness was an issue close to Jo’s heart, which, in her far too short time in this place, she was determined to tackle. From our childhood growing up in Batley and Spen, she knew the importance of social connection and community. We were very lucky to have a close, loving family and a wide network of friends, but when Jo went away to university we both experienced the dark cloud that loneliness can cast over your life. It was a tough time for both of us, and a clear illustration of the words that she spoke much later when she said,

“Loneliness doesn't discriminate and can affect anyone at any stage in their life.”

After her murder, Jo’s work was taken up by my now friends, my right hon. Friend the Member for Leeds West (Rachel Reeves) and Seema Kennedy, the then Conservative MP for South Ribble, as joint chairs of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness. Working with a range of brilliant organisations in the sector, it was their report that led to the appointment of the world’s first ever Minister for loneliness, who is here with us today, and the world’s first ever Government strategy for loneliness.

I remember with much fondness the launch of the loneliness report in Jo Cox House in Batley when I described myself, Rachel Reeves and Seema Kennedy as the latest version of Charlie’s Angels. It was great that we were reunited today at the Great Get Together event next door. I am hugely grateful to everybody who has helped get us to where we are now on the issue of loneliness, and I am very proud, now as an MP myself, to be co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on tackling loneliness and connected communities, working closely with the team from the Red Cross, who provides us with first-class support, and who, along with many others, including the Campaign to End Loneliness, continues to do outstanding work in this area.

As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford said, given what we have been through during the last few years, this work is more important than ever. We need to make sure we keep the issue of loneliness and the importance of human connection on the political agenda and alive within our communities. It is in our communities where so much of this work should and does happen.

It was through my work with Jo’s foundation and the volunteer group More in Common Batley and Spen that I really began to understand and value the role of the voluntary sector and the grassroots work done day in, day out in all our communities across the whole country to address loneliness and social isolation, and the importance of the broader mission to create well-connected, compassionate communities where everyone has a sense of belonging and identity. That tackles a huge range of issues, not just loneliness. The pandemic, which led to such a terrible loss of life and enormous hardship for so many, demonstrated just how vital communities and connections in our communities are. It is a lesson that I hope we never forget as the covid inquiry begins its work.

Although I pay tribute to the many volunteers and organisations across the country, including, proudly, in my constituency of Batley and Spen, we cannot simply leave it to communities and the voluntary sector to do the work. By adopting the loneliness strategy, the Government recognised that they have a role to play and it is our job to make sure that Ministers do not take their eyes off the ball.

The current cost of living crisis, with persistently high food inflation, has exacerbated problems. When you are strapped for cash, the temptation is to stay at home and batten down the hatches. It costs money to go out and see friends for a coffee or for lunch, or even just to get the bus into town. If you are going to invite your family round, you want to put on a decent spread, but if you cannot afford to do that, perhaps you won’t bother.

Although I am now looking at loneliness through a political lens, this will always be a personal issue to me, not least because through my life and career, like Jo, I have always been very people focused. I do not want to lose that just because I now work in the very different world of politics—a world that I am sure colleagues will agree is, sadly, sometimes detached from the reality of many people’s lives, so I have tried to draw on my life experience during my time here, some of which I have talked about but a lot of which precedes Jo’s murder.

My background is in holistic health and wellbeing, and in education, so I have tried to draw on those different chapters in my life during my time in Parliament. Early this year, I published my “Healthy Britain” report with the Fabian Society, which has been well received. I believe that tackling loneliness has to be part of a wider, cross-departmental, cross-sector and holistic approach to improving the health and wellbeing of the nation. As I said in my report,

“Health, education, transport, housing, planning, employment, culture and leisure policies can all make a dramatic difference to reducing loneliness and improving physical, mental and social wellbeing.”

My report also talks about the need for a much greater focus on prevention and early intervention in many areas of health and wellbeing.

I echo the words of the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford: there is a need for renewed energy and effort on loneliness, and as part of that we need to do much more to identify people who are isolated and to support people at risk of becoming lonely. That requires leadership. Here at Westminster, that means using legislation to ensure that everyone has access to social spaces, that they are not forced into isolation because they do not have reliable transport and, crucially, that if loneliness is affecting their mental or physical health, they can get access to a health professional and see them face to face.

As the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford said, we need to build loneliness out of our communities and build connection into them. We also need to hold the Government to account to make sure that happens. In that regard, I welcome the start the Minister has made on this work and it is great to see him here today. Today’s debate, at this particularly important moment, is a welcome opportunity to refocus all our efforts on this important agenda.