Loneliness and Local Communities

Rachel Reeves Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Rachel Reeves (Leeds West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the effect of loneliness on local communities.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and to see so many colleagues from across the House here to support a debate on the incredibly important issue of loneliness. More than 9 million people in the UK report that they are always or often lonely. The Office for National Statistics believes that the UK is the loneliness capital of Europe. I hope that the debate will be an opportunity for colleagues from across the House to share the impact of loneliness in their communities, but also to celebrate the local interventions that are making such a difference to so many people.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing such an important debate. I see so much work in my constituency by local groups that bring people out of their houses and give them company to deal with loneliness. Will she join me in congratulating all those groups that do so much work in that respect?

[Rachel Reeves]

I will indeed join my hon. Friend in congratulating all the groups across our constituencies, including Bramley Elderly Action in my constituency, which has turned a struggling day centre into a thriving community centre, bringing old and young together.

As well as celebrating what is happening in our own communities, we are also here to support the work of the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, of which I am co-chair with my colleague and friend, the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy). As Jo Cox said, loneliness is an urgent issue. As I see it, loneliness is a warning sign that our needs are not being met. Hunger is a sign that we need food, thirst is a sign that we need water and pain signals that our body is sick and needs healing and repair. Experiencing loneliness tells us that there is a gap between our need to connect and the reality of the connectedness that we have at that moment.

This is not a call to end loneliness, even if that were indeed possible, because if we never experience loneliness—that need for human interaction—we would not know how it felt to be connected again. However, for too many, loneliness is a feeling that lasts too long or never quite seems to go away. Loneliness is today’s silent epidemic; it is both chronic and acute. However, being lonely is not necessarily the same thing as being alone. Someone may be far from home and family and feel lonely, but they might be surrounded by people and feel lonely too.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful speech. I am very concerned about loneliness in younger people. I wonder whether she will come on in a moment to the effect of social media, which can increase the feelings of worthlessness and loneliness, which are fundamental and long term?

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[Rachel Reeves]

Indeed; I think something like one in six calls to ChildLine are from young people who feel lonely or isolated. Loneliness is something we should worry about not only among older people, although that is a significant issue, but among younger people. The connection searched for on social media is sometimes not a real connection, which should concern us, although we should also recognise that things such as Skype can help to keep people connected. I definitely share some of those concerns.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Last week, I visited the Newcastle office of Independent Age and I heard how its friendship service actually has more volunteers than people registered to receive its support. People of any age can volunteer. Does she agree that volunteering benefits not only those who use the befriending service but those who volunteer and provide that befriending service?

[Rachel Reeves]

Absolutely. I met a group of befrienders in Bramley in my constituency. They talked about the impact that their befriending has on those people whom they support but also the real impact that building those connections has had on their lives.

As we all know, loneliness is bad for our mental health, but it is bad for our physical health as well. Research suggests that loneliness is worse for us than obesity, in terms of mortality, and that being acutely lonely is as bad for someone’s health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Just last month, Helen Stokes-Lampard, head of the Royal College of General Practitioners, said that loneliness can be as bad for someone’s health as a chronic long-term condition.

[Gloria De Piero (Ashfield) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Rachel Reeves]

I will give way to my hon. Friend, who no longer smokes.

[Gloria De Piero]

It is close to Christmas, which can be a particularly difficult time for those who are lonely and alone. I celebrate the Kirkby Christmas lunch, which is the brainchild of somebody called Pip Forbes in Kirkby. It brings people together, spreads festive cheer and gives them a Christmas to remember. I put on the record my thanks to people such as Pip Forbes who are addressing this.

[Rachel Reeves]

I know my hon. Friend is a proud champion of the people of Ashfield and the people there who do so much work in our communities. The reality is that, without work like that by her constituent and others, more people would feel lonely at Christmas and throughout the year.

The truth is that loneliness could be killing us, but no one is talking about it. However, somebody talked about it: our friend and former colleague, Jo Cox. Jo said that loneliness was an urgent but solvable issue. Jo came into Parliament in 2015 wanting to do something about so many issues, including loneliness. For Jo, it was personal. Jo’s grandfather was a postman in Cleckheaton, and as a young girl during her holidays, Jo used to accompany her grandfather on his rounds. She realised that, for many people, her grandfather was the only person they saw that day.

Later, when Jo went to university, she experienced loneliness. Most of us will remember Jo as a confident, fun-loving person who was always full of life and energy, but it was not always like that for her. When she went to university, away from her friends and family and, particularly, from her sister, Kim, whom she was so close to, Jo too felt the chronic loneliness we are talking about.

[Seema Kennedy (South Ribble) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady, who is my friend, for giving way. I pay tribute to the partner organisations that have worked with the hon. Lady and me on making the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness such a success. I thank Ruth Price, Julianne Marriott and Danielle Grufferty for all their dedication in supporting the commission’s work. I know it is not normal for the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary to speak, but I put on the record that, although it is a burden I would never have wanted to carry, it has been the honour of my professional life to carry on work in Jo Cox’s name.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my friend for that intervention. I also thank her because, in Parliament after Jo died, I said that it now falls on all our shoulders—Jo’s friends and family; all of us—to take forward Jo’s work. The hon. Lady heard that speech and approached me in the Members’ cloakroom the next day to ask whether I would become co-chair of the commission.

Until then, loneliness had not been something I had worked on or championed, but I agreed to meet the hon. Lady for a cup of tea to discuss it. Later that day, I received an email from Jo’s former researcher, Ruth Price, who said it was fantastic that I was happy to step into the role. Even later in the day, I received another email from Kirsty McNeill, one of Jo’s closest friends, saying it was wonderful and that all of Jo’s friends and family were delighted I had taken it on. The hon. Lady is indeed a great lobbyist and the Prime Minister has in her a great PPS.

Later, when Jo became the MP for Batley and Spen and was knocking on doors and attending community events, she saw that loneliness was a lived reality for many of her constituents. Jo was determined to put loneliness on the agenda as the Member for Batley and Spen. Jo was essentially a practical person who worked across parties. She said in her maiden speech that

“we…have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]

That was the way that Jo approached politics as well as life. Jo worked with the hon. Member for South Ribble in setting up the commission in the first place, and it is my pleasure and privilege to carry forward that work.

Jo’s view was that, young or old, loneliness does not discriminate, and that is the guiding light of the commission’s work. Over the last year, we have shone a spotlight on some of the different groups who experience loneliness. Loneliness can often be triggered by moments of transition in our lives, whether it is losing our job, going to university, having a child for the first time or bereavement. All those things can be transition points for loneliness.

As I said earlier, loneliness often acutely affects older people, many of whom feel invisible between the four rooms of their home. Age UK has shown that 1.2 million older people are chronically lonely and that half a million people over the age of 60 usually spend every day alone.

[Anne Marie Morris (Newton Abbot) (Ind)]

Does the hon. Lady agree that loneliness is a particular issue in rural communities? For older people, it is not only the fact of their age, but that there is little transport and often no broadband. I pay tribute to my communities, and particularly my churches, which have done such a fantastic job and done the right thing by getting groups together and making sure that people are not on their own at Christmas.

[Rachel Reeves]

There are particular challenges in rural areas, as the hon. Lady says, but there are also issues in towns and cities, where we have so many people around us but we do not perhaps have the close-knit communities that are so important for combating loneliness and isolation.

The commission has also shone a spotlight on loneliness among men. The hon. Member for South Ribble and I visited a Men in Sheds project in May. Some of the men who attended the project lived alone, and others lived with family, but they came together to share craft and companionship. Projects such as those, which do something to tackle loneliness, are not always badged that way, but they are helping people to make connections, often engaging them on issues they have in common.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend and to the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) for the fantastic work they are doing in this area. Another very important initiative connected with the Jo Cox Foundation is the Great Get Together, which made a massive impact last June. I believe that something like 9 million people participated in it. I am sure my hon. Friend is already reflecting on this, but I wonder whether there is an opportunity to join some of the work around loneliness with the work of the Great Get Together and plan something with even more impact in June next year.

[Rachel Reeves]

My hon. Friend is right. We all came together last June on the anniversary of Jo’s murder as part of the Great Get Together to share food, laughter, companionship and friendship with our neighbours and friends. That was a really powerful moment in paying tribute to Jo and everything she stood for. There are, indeed, plans to take that forward, which I will come on to later.

As well as older people and men, loneliness affects disabled people and carers. Our partners in the commission, Sense, found through its research that 50% of disabled people will be lonely on any given day, while a staggering one in four people admitted to avoiding conversations with disabled people, feeling they will have nothing in common. Carers UK surveyed carers around the country and found the sobering statistic that eight out of 10 carers felt lonely or isolated as a result of caring or looking after a loved one.

[Jo Churchill (Bury St Edmunds) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) for all the work they do in this area. The Great Get Together certainly brought communities together in my rural area, as does the great work of the Rural Coffee Caravan, where a coffee shop is put in a caravan and taken round communities. The hon. Lady very articulately made the point that sometimes things happen to us in life that cause us to be lonely, as our horizons diminish. Carers do not ask to care. People who suffer from Alzheimer’s also fall into this group, along with young children at school, with the pressures of social media. Does she agree that this can happen anywhere and to any one of us?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Lady for that powerful intervention. She is absolutely right that loneliness does not discriminate; it can happen to anybody. I pay tribute to the work in her constituency in Suffolk through the coffee caravan.

As well as having a direct impact on those experiencing it, loneliness has a social impact. Lonely people tend to visit GPs more often. Seven out of 10 GPs say that at least one in 10 people coming to their surgeries are there primarily because they are lonely. Lonely people stay longer in hospital and find it harder to cope and heal, adding even more pressure to our national health service.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

Outside of my life in the public sector, I have worked in the hill livestock industry. I remember, from the period of foot and mouth disease, how people in that industry were simply working alone most of the day. I remember the impact that I had as a public representative simply by ringing up those who I knew were on their own and struggling, just to talk to them. A practice that all of us can enter into, especially at Christmas time, is simply to ring people up and say, “I’m the MP. I’m just ringing up to see how you are,” and speak for a couple of minutes. That has a huge impact, enables people to talk about it to their friends and makes them more a part of things. That is a real plus and all of us can do it.

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. So many of the stories today are about things we can practically do, as individuals, as part of our communities and in our role as MPs.

In the last few weeks, in other Westminster Hall debates and in their constituencies, Members have done work to tackle loneliness. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke in a Westminster Hall debate last month about the need for English classes for refugees and asylum seekers. She described how in Glasgow, welcome letters are sent to newly arrived refugees. My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) held a loneliness summit, bringing stakeholders together from across Liverpool, and the hon. Member for Havant (Alan Mak) used the commission’s “Happy to Chat” badges to get older people to chat to someone new at an annual fair in his constituency. The solutions to loneliness have to come from the communities who experience it at first hand and have to be relevant to the communities in which they operate.

[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

Loneliness affects around 2,500 people in Barnsley. Does my hon. Friend agree that as Christmas approaches, local projects such as Age UK’s Barnsley Christmas friendship café play an important role in tackling loneliness?

[Rachel Reeves]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. I know that in her short time as a Member of Parliament, she has already made a real difference in her community on this issue and so many others.

Yesterday I participated in a live discussion on Facebook and asked for suggestions for tackling loneliness, ahead of this debate. Loads of fantastic ideas came through, with hundreds of people getting in touch. People spoke about work to bring children and older people together. Someone mentioned the Friendly Bench, which is funded by the Big Lottery and is a mini kerbside community garden specially designed to connect the lonely, isolated and people with limited mobility with each other and with nature. I also heard from Mush, an app for new mums that encourages them to connect over social media to share their worries but also their happy moments.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this important debate. I have to say that her former colleague would be very proud of her and of my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy). This point has been made before, but I wish to make it again. Charities in my constituency and in all our constituencies do so, so much work. They are often unsung heroes. I wonder if the hon. Lady would pay tribute today again to the work they do.

[Rachel Reeves]

I am happy to pay tribute to the work that happens in Maidstone and around the country to tackle these issues. There is, though, undoubtedly a role for Government, too. Support at the top level is vital if we are to see the vibrant community and local authority-run projects and interventions such as those mentioned today.

We also need systems in place to measure loneliness properly. At the moment, loneliness is measured in the English longitudinal study of ageing. However, we have spent this year talking about how loneliness affects us all, not just the elderly. We need Government commitment to measure loneliness at a national level, and we need local authorities supported and resourced to do more locally. By supporting local authorities to uncover what is working, we can pump resources into interventions that really make a difference to all our constituents.

As the Royal College of General Practitioners has said, loneliness should not be disregarded as a minor problem. Our GPs need to be supported to give not just clinical prescriptions but social prescriptions as well. They could encourage patients to get out into the community, using volunteers—befrienders and others—to ensure that people who are struggling most get the support and access to the local services that so many people have spoken about powerfully today.

[Bill Grant (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Lady for securing the debate. It has almost brought a tear to the eye of an old firefighter as well; this is a very emotive subject. Loneliness, as we see, has no borders. My accent tells people that I am from the other side of Hadrian’s wall, and we have the same problem there. It also spans the generations; it spans the age range. Could I mention just one initiative? There are many groups that try to tackle this issue, such as befriending societies, but in Ayr we have Street Pastors, who play an early-intervention role on the wettest and most miserable nights, at 2 and 3 in the morning. I am sure that Street Pastors operate throughout the United Kingdom and I commend them for their good voluntary work. The Government and we all as parliamentarians need to work hard to ensure that this country loses its title as the loneliness capital of Europe. We need to talk to and befriend people.

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[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Jo very much believed that the solution to loneliness is in each and every one of us. We all have to do our bit to reach out to an elderly neighbour who we know is on their own, perhaps particularly at Christmas time, and to phone someone who we think might be struggling. Actions such as that can make a real difference to people’s lives, and I again commend everyone who is doing such work.

There is a stigma attached to loneliness, and a taboo. One reason for the commission is to try to tackle that and to encourage people to talk about their feelings and experiences. Some of us struggle even to tell our loved ones how we are feeling. A Gransnet survey suggested that the vast majority of people would rather share their feelings of loneliness online than with their friends and family. That might be the quintessentially British thing to do, but it also means that too many people suffer in silence. As I said, Jo thought that solving the issue of loneliness starts with each and every one of us. That is why we use the slogans #HappyToChat and #StartAConversation —to encourage people to do just that.

[Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the flow of a wonderful speech. The hon. Lady talks about people not being willing to talk about their feelings—not being happy to chat. As I know, an issue that often arises is that one partner in a relationship can be suffering from loneliness, for example, following the birth of a child, and the other partner is not knowledgeable about or aware of the issue and does not know how to deal with it. That can exacerbate the situation—it can make things worse—and lead to issues in the home, which reinforces how important it is that we are able to talk to each other in our homes.

[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.

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[Rachel Reeves]

I thank the Minister and everybody who has made such impassioned contributions, either about their experience or the wonderful things that happen in their constituencies. Thank you, Mr Paisley, for chairing this debate.

It has been a huge privilege to co-chair the Jo Cox loneliness commission. As the hon. Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) said, it is not something that either of us wanted to do, but we have both been very proud to take forward our friend’s work. There is so much happening in all our communities, and I hope that next month, when we publish our manifesto, we can reflect all that great work, build on it and, with the Government’s support, help to ensure that this is a country and a world less lonely.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the effect of loneliness on local communities.