I do indeed welcome that appointment, and I thank the member for raising the matter. I have written to the minister in question, Tracey Crouch, to congratulate her on her appointment, and I have offered to work with her and to share our draft strategy.
The Equal Opportunities Committee’s first recommendation in its report on age and social isolation was that the Scottish Government should develop a national strategy to tackle social isolation. There have, of course, been other important developments since then, not least the one that Ms Wells mentioned. Members will be aware that, before her death, Jo Cox established a commission on loneliness. She recognised loneliness as an important human issue, one that does not discriminate and one that—to use her words—is everyone’s business. Following her tragic death, her parliamentary colleagues have taken forward that work, and late last year the commission published a call for action for Governments to show national leadership in this area.
Last year, I was privileged to meet Brendan Cox to discuss our work and the commission’s, and I am grateful for its support and encouragement for the leadership that we—and, I hope, from today, this Parliament—are showing.
On Tuesday, I was proud and pleased to take an important step when I launched the draft of our national strategy for tackling social isolation and loneliness, “A Connected Scotland”. In it, we aim to articulate a vision of the kind of Scotland that we need to build. It is a vision of a Scotland in which community connections are increased and everyone feels able and encouraged to participate as they want to. I visited the hidden gardens in Glasgow. That is a fantastic example of a community-based project that supports people to connect socially, and such community-driven work is absolutely vital if we are to bring about change.
All the evidence tells us that the issue is an important one that we need to address. The campaign to end loneliness review highlights that loneliness has impacts on our health that are comparable with those of smoking and obesity. Age Scotland has pointed out that loneliness can increase the risk of mortality by 10 per cent. It has been identified as a serious public health issue by the Mental Health Foundation, Age UK and many others. Further evidence tells us that being lonely or socially isolated can lead to depression and contribute to an increased risk of dementia.
Carers UK suggests that eight out of 10 carers feel lonely or isolated. In the first half of 2016, 31 per cent of callers to Silver Line Scotland identified loneliness in how they were feeling. The GoWell study in deprived areas of Glasgow found that just over 31 per cent of working-age adults who were disabled or suffering long-term health conditions were frequently lonely and that 17 per cent of men and 15 per cent of women in those areas reported frequent loneliness. Childline figures for 2016-17 reported that a large number of counselling sessions—the majority of which were with girls—focused on loneliness.
We know the significant physical and mental health impacts of loneliness and that particular groups—carers, those who are living in poverty, young mothers, those who are in poor health, disabled people, the bereaved, our lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community, and those in our ethnic minority communities—all face an increased risk of suffering from social isolation and loneliness. Above all, loneliness is an issue that touches each one of us. It may be something that we have personally experienced and it is more than likely that each of us knows of or worries about someone who is right now feeling lonely or isolated.
There can be no one-size-fits-all approach; nor is this a problem that can be legislated away or fixed with a single initiative. As a Government, we have already taken important steps. Our Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015 strengthens the voices of communities in decisions that matter and has the ambition for truly meaningful local decision making through the decentralisation of power. We have invested significant resources in supporting local community-based projects. Last year, our £500,000 social isolation and loneliness fund demonstrated that small grass-roots initiatives can have a profoundly positive impact on the number of social connections that a person has.
However, this is about more than just money. It is about what all of us can do to build a more connected and cohesive society. We must challenge and tackle the stigma surrounding social isolation and loneliness—stigma that makes too many people reluctant to admit that they are lonely or feel isolated, and which makes people feel that it is their fault that they are in that position or that they are a burden. That stigma takes away whatever confidence people had and makes them retreat from the social connections that are so vital to our wellbeing.
Recent work by the Carnegie Trust has identified that kindness can go a long way to reducing social isolation and loneliness. That work has kick-started a real conversation about the role that kindness can play. I want to ensure that our approach to tackling this matter is informed by that conversation.
As with so much of what we as a Government need and want to do, tackling social isolation is not the responsibility of one part of our work—it is a collective responsibility across Government. We will continue to promote positive health and wellbeing, and to support the development of strong and positive relationships by giving our children and young people the best start in life. We will continue to tackle poverty and inequality through the 50 concrete actions in our fairer Scotland action plan, and we will continue to support and recognise the key role that is played by the third sector and volunteers in our society.
We will continue to ensure that our places and spaces encourage people to get out and about and to shape their own environments. Accessible public transport is vital to people being able to remain socially active, particularly in rural areas, so our forthcoming transport bill will aim to give people access to the best possible services. In our cultural strategy, we will seek to reflect the important fact that people can connect through the tremendous national asset of Scotland’s rich culture and heritage. We will continue to invest in our country’s national digital infrastructure to ensure that people can connect beyond their local communities.
We are doing a great deal already and it is right that we see how each part of the work that I have mentioned, and more, can contribute to the task at hand. The Government has an important role to play and leadership to show. However, the real impact will come not just as a result of national and local government working together but through working with and listening to our communities and neighbourhoods, our third sector organisations and our businesses—a partnership that harnesses and values our collective expertise and experiences.
The draft strategy rightly emphasises the point that people and communities have a central role in building and maintaining social connections and supporting those who may be socially isolated, and that the role of Government is to create the conditions that allow the ideas and initiatives that grow from communities to flourish. It is an approach that involves everyone, because we need everyone. It is not top down or ground up; it is about working together.
The solutions lie in our communities. Each one of us will know of a local activity or initiative that works because it goes with the grain of the community. We will know of work that is not directly focused on tackling loneliness but which, by bringing people together for one purpose, increases and reinforces the social relationships that we all need. Last night, I heard of a national health service-driven initiative to help older people exercise to reduce the likelihood of falls and increase the body’s capacity to recover from a fall. That initiative provides real lived evidence that its work reduces feelings of loneliness and improves mental health among those who go along. Another example might be a men’s shed that draws in a disparate group of individuals who discover talents that they did not know they had and shared interests that would have gone unknown but for that locally devised and locally driven opportunity. On Tuesday, people involved in such an initiative took the opportunity to make sure that I knew that, as individuals, they felt less lonely and more connected.
Governments do not do that; people do. Our job in Government and across the Parliament is to recognise that and use our resources and powers to support and encourage that work. Regardless of our political differences, we must recognise that, on this issue, the challenge for us all is to show collective leadership. I want us to ask ourselves four questions. What needs to change in communities to reduce isolation and loneliness and increase social connections? Who can play their part, and what can they do more or less of? What do we, as a Government, need to do to empower people and create the conditions for positive change? Each of us should ask ourselves, “What can I do, in my community, to tackle loneliness and social isolation?”
The draft strategy sets out the work that is already happening, led by Government, the third sector and local communities. It also sets out the evidence on the issue and information to increase our understanding. Above all, though, the draft strategy invites all of us, as well as our stakeholders and the communities of Scotland that we serve, to start an open and co-operative dialogue in which we listen and focus on the task at hand and on the concrete steps that we can all take to tackle and reduce loneliness and social isolation.
The draft strategy signals the Government’s commitment to tackle social isolation and loneliness. It sets out our belief that we must do more to empower communities to lead in the area and that our role is to create the conditions for change to happen and to lead by example. Building a connected and cohesive Scotland is everyone’s business.
I move,
That the Parliament recognises that social isolation and loneliness affect people of all ages and stages of life; believes that it is people and communities themselves that have a central role in building and maintaining social connections and supporting those who may be socially isolated; acknowledges that the Scottish Government has an important role to play in showing leadership as well as creating the conditions that allow people and communities to design and deliver solutions that best meet their needs; welcomes therefore the publication of the Scottish Government’s draft strategy, A Connected Scotland, and encourages everyone to respond to this important consultation, and further welcomes the good work of a range of organisations from the third sector and elsewhere in tackling these issues, including the Campaign to End Loneliness and the Jo Cox Commission on Loneliness, which aims to highlight the fact that everyone can do something to help lonely people in the community.
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