Conflicts: Impact on Older People

Rachael Maskell Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2026 Westminster Hall

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on securing this debate. I also wish his mother a very happy birthday for next Tuesday.

In many areas of deep conflict, the population rarely reaches our definition of older people. In Gaza, life expectancy has plummeted from 73 years to just 40.5 years. In Sudan, life expectancy is 66 years, and in Nigeria and Chad, it is 55 years. Compare those numbers with the UK life expectancy of 81.3 years or the life expectancy in Japan of 84.7 years. It is a privilege that our nation is safe, secure and conflict-free. Those figures show that conflict shortens lives by decades through poor access to healthcare and pharmaceuticals; disability, disruption and displacement; prevalence of disease and hastened frailty; and an environment of climate change, floods and famine.

Gender-based violence scars the lives of its survivors. I am so proud that our Foreign Secretary has rightly placed tackling the prevalence of the use of gender-based violence as a weapon of war at the heart of her work. Access to healthcare, an issue that I particularly look at in my work in the House, is significantly reduced, with the targeting of health facilities and health professionals now central in many conflicts. We have seen that in Gaza and in Sudan. Health professionals working there run these risks in the work that they do and because they are targeted by weapons. That breaks the rules of just wars, but these wars, of course, are never just.

We have also seen the shrinking capacity of healthcare against the increased demand, whether from the wounds of war or the poor mental health sustained from the sharp rise of sexual violence against women. As a result, the ability to access healthcare is reduced, and that, of course, will always impact older people the most. Often in war, we look at the wounds and we understand why, but it is the chronic conditions—the cancers, the diabetes and other illnesses—that often get forgotten; it is the drugs not getting through, the treatments not available, the clinicians simply diverted to acute care. Our hearts beat when we know that a child has been rescued or a life has been saved, but although the life of an older person is of equal value, often the resources are not there to save or sustain that life.

As the hon. Member for Strangford said, it is often the elderly who stay behind in conflict zones because they cannot move—they cannot be displaced, and they stay in those areas. We have seen that in Ukraine and in many other areas. Our research shows that moving an elderly person has other impacts; it can cause much confusion and have a real impact on mental wellbeing. We need to take on board why so many older people die in conflict; it is because they are in the direct firing line, or because the facilities and infrastructure that keep them going are removed.

This is not just about healthcare. It is about social care and the social infrastructure when family is no longer available to provide support. State provision can be disrupted, and pensions no longer available. Food supplies are diverted into emergency and humanitarian aid. It is so important that we put older people at the front of all agendas. I say that as chair of the all-party parliamentary group for ageing and older people; I take this matter very seriously.

Now, with severe cuts to international aid, a humanitarian response is more challenging. I urge the Government to return to 0.7% as a matter of urgency and to provide leadership once again, to ensure that we can provide aid. Not everyone will be able to receive that, but we should provide it to as many people as possible. Older lives matter, too.

When infrastructure breaks down, resilience plummets and that is particularly stark among older people. The Government must be mindful of that when appraising their priorities. Without financial resilience, even the basics become barriers, especially for women in conflict zones. Aid must ensure provision of food, care, medicines and support. It needs to be a lifeline.

This is not just about the physical impact of destitution and the health consequences. The psychological trauma must be recognised, too. Elders play such a pivotal role in communities and families. If their resilience is broken, so is that of their societies. In many societies to this day, women are at particular risk of violence and abuse, including sexual violence. It has been a taboo subject, not least among the older generation, yet it is so traumatic. Last Ukraine day, an event was held in my constituency where I heard from a Ukrainian woman and saw a film about the sexual violence being perpetrated against women in Ukraine, and the horrors and the scars that it has left them with. They did not speak, because of the shame it brought them and the trauma that they were going through, but, when they started to share their stories, it brought healing between them.

Without the proper support and psychological care wrapped around individuals, that healing does not come. That is why I am so proud that our Foreign Secretary has recognised that and has put resources into it, particularly in the Sudan region. We need to make sure that women there access the support.

[Gordon McKee (Glasgow South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful and important speech, particularly on women in Ukraine who have suffered sexual violence during war. Does she agree that having proper support for those women, and an ability to record what they have experienced, is important, not just to support them, but to make sure that when the war in Ukraine ends, justice, as much as it can be done, is done for those people?

[Rachael Maskell]

I am really grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that point, as it is so important to make a catalogue of war crimes. Whether they are committed against the elderly, or they consist of any other form of violence, including sexual violence, it is crucial that we keep good records so that we can hold perpetrators to account when the opportunity arises.

We know that if older people do not get the right nutrition, it has a massive impact on their ability to function. They can have greater episodes of confusion, making life much more challenging; they can become frailer; and they can rapidly lose their mobility, meaning that they have more complex needs. Good distribution of humanitarian aid is vital for the vulnerable, and we must always ensure that we factor in access to targeted support. It is not only about ensuring that people have the ability to reach that food; it must also be prepared for them in the right way.

We have been talking about some of the challenges that we have seen in Sudan as of late. It is a horrendous and complex war, so I am glad that it was discussed at the NATO summit recently and remains at the forefront of our Government’s mind. It is very much a forgotten war in so many respects. Evidence has also shown that the elderly in Sudan have been in the direct line of violence. It is important that we do not forget that either.

Older people—not least women—play a crucial role in the home and in the community, which often ripples out far beyond. Often, they are the ones who build the bridges, build the civil society, create the pathways to peace and organise communities at their most challenged. It is often the older women who can use their wisdom to bring co-ordination and build a way to the future. Indeed, I have been inspired by many older women leaders who have led the charge out of conflict, into a more resilient future.

However, we must also recognise that there are significant challenges. First, what are the Government doing to provide better protections for older people and their rights? We in the all-party parliamentary group undertook an inquiry into the human rights of older people, which looked at the frameworks and mechanisms that we can deploy to enhance and protect those rights, and to ensure that people can uphold them.

The work of the UN convention on the rights of older people has been inspiring, and it very much follows the lines along which other rights have been established, including the rights of the child or disabled people, to ensure that the protected characteristic of older people is upheld. Of course, it falls on the Foreign Office to advance that work and ensure that the UK plays a full role. We must bring our experience into that space so that older people’s identity can be seen, and so that their needs, in particular, can be supported. I ask the minister: what exactly are we doing to lead that work? Will the UK adopt the UN convention, once it has been established, to ensure that women, men and older people across the piece have their value recognised and their rights upheld?

Having a rights-based framework will move the agenda; it will enable us to focus on that protected characteristic—for example, age-inclusive specialists can help to reprioritise the humanitarian response, particularly in health or care. We must also ensure that we have good data to accompany that work, so that we know exactly how to focus our humanitarian response. Of course, when it comes to healthcare insurance, we can then ensure that pharmaceuticals and equipment are available in conflict areas to meet the needs of the demographic that we are debating today. When only 0.1% of humanitarian funding databases mention older people, we know we have a problem.

Can the Minister assure me that the Foreign Office will write older people into all its work, and will spread that good practice to agencies and other nations? Will the Government ensure that their humanitarian response is always age-inclusive, with an understanding of the risks that older people face when social infrastructure is destroyed by conflict? Will they also ensure that distribution is targeted to reach elderly people who have both chronic and acute health needs, wherever that focus is required?

Will the Government promote opportunities for social protections, such as social security and pensions, among older people in conflict zones to ensure that they can access the resources that they need? Of course, it is important in many countries, as it is in this one, that people can use more traditional ways to access those services. Will the Government ensure that they crunch the numbers for conflict areas and use the data to design humanitarian responses, recognising the prevalence of older people and the focus that they need?

Finally, I again make the point that the pivotal game changer for the issue is to have a UN convention on the rights of older people. That is about giving agency to older people in conflict zones, to better facilitate their participation in humanitarian planning, peace building, monitoring and decision taking. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response, and to contributions from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Fylde (Mr Snowden), and the Lib Dem spokesperson, the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne). I trust that we can rebuild our humanitarian response with good data, programmes and rights to support older people in conflict zones.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We now move to the Front-Bench spokespeople. They are entitled to speak for at least 10 minutes each, but given that we are not particularly time-constrained, I will leave it with them to make a judgment on that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Elmore]

To reassure the hon. Gentleman, he knows that I have a personal commitment to working with our freedom of religion or belief envoy, my hon. Friend the Member for North Northumberland (David Smith). He never shies away from the particular point the hon. Gentleman is raising and nor will I as Minister.

On the wider point that the hon. Gentleman raises about supporting and working with older people on peacebuilding and resolution, which my hon Friend the Member for York Central also raised, I reassure him and the House that the Department has an instinctive view that locally led, inclusive peacebuilding needs to include elders—the older women and men who understand many of the challenges in the community. We need that support because they bring trust and knowledge. They are leaders in their communities, whether they are of any faith or none. It is extremely important that older people are part of that peacebuilding resolution. In many cases, where older people are engaged in peacebuilding, the process actually lasts longer. That is particularly true of women; when women take part in peacebuilding, there is much evidence to show that many years of peace follow. It is extremely important to the Government that that work continues.

A number of Members mentioned Ukraine, including the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, the hon. Member for Horsham (John Milne). I reassure the House that the budgets for overseas development and for additional support through the 100-year partnership have been protected, specifically for Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon and Sudan. I reiterate that point because it is extremely important. The House will know that events in Ukraine disproportionately affect older people, as the hon. Member for Strangford said. There is some concerning data that shows disproportionate suffering among civilian casualties, with older people accounting for more than 45% of civilian deaths. Those are real people, not just statistics, and they show the incredible impact that conflict has on older people across Ukraine.

We do specific pieces of work to support older people. A number of colleagues raised the issue of assistance and pensions; let me to try to offer some clarity on that. Through the UK Government’s partnership with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and UNICEF, we are supporting the Government of Ukraine in relation to strengthening national social protection systems. We are also trying to make sure that there is more specific support for winter cash assistance and that older people have more support during power outages. The work that the Government do is focused in many of the areas where there is an adverse impact on older people.

There has been much conversation about data. I reassure the House that FCDO partners should use disaggregated data, including on sex, age and disability, to understand who is being reached and, crucially, who is missing out on support. I wanted to put that on the record because part of the reason for that expectation is that when considering age-related barriers, we are talking about the risks linked to disability, or based on gender, poverty, health, isolation, displacement and other forms of marginalisation. That expectation is very much set out by the Department.

In my time as a Minister, I have never been given a list of questions in advance by the Member leading the debate. I have tried to answer each of them and not miss anything. I have a couple of points to make. One is about the violence against women and girls response. I reassure the hon. Member for Strangford that older women are a part of that work, as I said earlier in my speech. To make that very clear point, it is not about forgetting women who are victims of sexual violence; it is about trying to be as inclusive as we can to offer support to victims in recovery, and to try to prevent sexual violence in conflict.

My hon. Friend the Member for York Central and the hon. Member for Strangford raised the UN convention on the rights of older persons to recognise older people and their legacies. I can confirm, as I have done in response to parliamentary questions and to various colleagues who have written to me during my time in this role, that we are supportive of a UN convention on older persons. There are many existing support mechanisms for older people in the UN multilateral system, but that does not mean that some form of convention should not come through. The negotiations are ongoing, but when it happens, although I cannot give a cast-iron guarantee in the sense of who the Minister will be, there is genuine support across HMG for the work of that resolution in supporting older people.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am grateful because this is such a fundamental issue that I have focused on for some time. Will the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to expedite the process, and what kind of timescale are we looking at to see that convention in place?

[Chris Elmore]

On the timescale, I should warn my hon. Friend that the process has been a matter of debate for some years. She probably knows far more about it than I do, so I cannot stand here and say it will be done by x date. What I can say is that we are a part of those conversations. Our contribution is to try to make sure that as the work that might lead to a convention on older people is brought together, we are not stepping away from it. We are a part of the work that is ongoing.

[Rachael Maskell]

I am really grateful, not least because of the work done in Wales around the rights of older people and having the commission there. Will the Minister ensure that our Government take a real leadership role in moving that work forward and ensuring that other nations contribute and participate, and that we get the rights established? Ultimately, we know that it could be really transformative for establishing a rights-based system for older people across the globe.

[Chris Elmore]

To reassure my hon. Friend, I frequently meet other Ministers in the UN space in New York, and also in Geneva at the Human Rights Council, where the issues are discussed, and I think there is a willingness for the process to succeed. That work is very much part of the conversation and we are there in the room for much of it. I give her that reassurance.

As the global population ages and as conflicts and humanitarian crises continue around the world, the number of older people affected is likely to increase. That is why the UK is working with humanitarian partners to ensure that older people are not overlooked. At the heart of the debate is a simple principle: no person should become invisible because of their age, and no society should overlook the dignity, rights and contributions of those who have spent a lifetime contributing to their communities. The United Kingdom will continue to champion the protection, inclusion and participation of older people in humanitarian action around the world.