Well-being

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Thursday 12th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, when I was a student in the early 1980s here in the UK, I visited my father who was commanding a mountain division. He was the major-general at the Chinese border, and his role was to protect Bhutan. We went to visit Bhutan, one of the most fascinating countries I have ever visited —Shangri-La on earth.

Five years ago, I was in India. Prime Minister Narendra Modi was hosting a conference, “Vibrant Gujarat”; I heard one of the most memorable speeches of my life, given by the Prime Minister of Bhutan, Mr Tshering Tobgay. He said:

“Bhutan is a small country, tucked away in the Himalayas, sandwiched between the world’s two largest countries, India and China. Our economy is”


less than $2 billion. He said that there were many people in the audience worth much more than his country’s GDP, and that he knew that Bhutan’s economy is small,

“but we have used our limited resources wisely.”

He went on to say how they have achieved economic growth, social progress and democracy, and then said:

“Our … King has famously said, that for Bhutan, ‘Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product.’ Gross National Happiness has attracted considerable attention and interest, both within our country and from abroad. And so scholars and philosophers, politicians and economists, have offered to define GNH in countless ways, but His Majesty the King has repeatedly reminded us that Gross National Happiness simply means development with values.”


I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for initiating this debate. I wish my noble friend Lord Bird all the best with his Bill about well-being for future generations; it is terrific.

In 2011, Prime Minister Cameron said that the UK would

“start measuring our progress as a country, not just by how our economy is growing, but by how our lives are improving; not just by our standard of living, but by our quality of life.”


The ONS has developed measurement frameworks consisting of 10 domains and 38 measures of well-being following national consultation. We have these well-being indicators: personal well-being, relationships, health, what we do, where we live, personal finance, economy, education, skills, governance and environment. In February 2020, the What Works Centre for Wellbeing published a report about the lessons, as did the Commission on Wellbeing and Policy in 2014. We have seen shifts in policy and public opinion towards mental health, community, promoting volunteering, addressing loneliness, income, work, economic growth, unemployment through active welfare, well-being at work, governance, and treating citizens with respect and empowering them more—so we are making progress.

I was introduced to Action for Happiness, an organisation that the noble Lord, Lord Layard, is very involved in and which my friend Sir Anthony Seldon introduced me to. It has a pledge:

“I will try to create more happiness and less unhappiness in the world around me.”


It says:

“Recent research into brain functioning has confirmed that we are hard-wired for love and compassion … When we’re kind to people we know it strengthens our connections with them and provides a source of support … Doing kind things for strangers helps build co-operation, trust and a sense of safety in our communities … Mindfulness has been shown to help us be healthier, less affected by stress, more relaxed, more creative, more open to learning, sleep better, improve our relationships with others and feel happier and more satisfied with our lives.”


We heard that very clearly from the noble Baroness, Lady Burt, who attended the mindfulness course in Parliament, which the head of my team, Monica Sharma, also attended and was glowing about. Hundreds of parliamentarians and members of staff have attended this course, run by the Oxford Mindfulness Centre, free of charge.

As Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, I consulted one of our academic staff members, Daniel Wheatley, at the Birmingham Business School, who is an expert in this field. He said that well-being

“is closely linked with definitions of ‘happiness’ and ‘quality of life’, and incorporates both physical … and psychological well-being which is concerned with our mental health and happiness … Mental health costs to the Department of Health and Social Care equate to around £12bn per year … which reflects around 10% of overall spending … poor mental health and well-being include those associated with crime, lower educational outcomes, reduced access to work ... Work is central to the health of individuals, organisations and society … work could be designed and organised in a way that would allow it to be undertaken without having a negative impact on employee well-being and could potentially promote or enhance employee well-being.”

He said that work is good for you and that recent evidence from the 2019 UK Working Lives survey shows a “positive impact” on well-being and health, but also that work can act as a “significant stressor” and cause “negative health impacts”.

He went on to say:

“Poor quality staff health and well-being has”


huge cost implications in the UK. For example,

“absence caused by sickness and injury in 2018 equated to … 141.4 million working days”,

with a

“significant proportion of absences related to minor illnesses”.

We are talking about coronavirus at the moment but, as Daniel Wheatley said, minor illnesses such as colds and flu constitute 27% of the total absences, musculo- skeletal problems such as back pain constitute 20%, and 12% of working days—17.5 million working days—are lost as a result of “stress, anxiety or depression”. He said that the Working Lives survey

“shows that two in five workers experienced some form of work-related health condition”

at the time, and states that low quality of work and mental health are estimated to cost £34.9 billion. We have to do something about all these negative aspects. He went on:

“The costs for organisations … associated with low quality health and well-being highlight the potential value … in improved health and well-being”.


We have the well-being measures that we have spoken about: life satisfaction, our relationships and health, and where we live.

In the 2019 World Happiness Report, which the noble Lord, Lord Layard, was involved with, the UK came 15th in the rankings; Finland came first. The report produced by the Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress by Joseph Stiglitz and my friend Professor Amartya Sen of Harvard, says that the

“key message, and unifying theme of the report, is that the time is ripe for our measurement system to shift emphasis from measuring economic production to measuring people’s well-being. And measures of well-being should be put in a context of sustainability.”

It says that well-being is “multidimensional”, and:

“All these dimensions shape people’s well-being, and yet many of them are missed by conventional income measures.”


When my father retired as commander-in-chief of the Central Command of the Indian Army, with 350,000 troops under his command, I visited him and saw that everyone was happy. Everyone was smiling. I said, “Dad, what’s your secret?” He said, “Son, the secret is not just having an efficient team, but having a happy and an efficient team.”