Loneliness and Local Communities

Debate between Rachel Reeves and Nick Thomas-Symonds

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.