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Enterprise and Culture Committee, 16 Jan 2007

16 Jan 2007 · S2 · Enterprise and Culture Committee

Item of business

“Growing older and wiser together—A futures view on positive ageing”

Baird, Shiona Green North East Scotland Watch on SPTV

The report is fascinating and I would like to pick up on many issues. I wonder whether the point that was made is just a question of perception. People may feel cheated—they have worked and paid into a pension scheme on the assumption that they would retire at one point, then they are presented all of a sudden with the possibility that they might need to work longer. That perception could easily be overcome.I will pick up on the language that we use to talk about age and retirement. Could we begin to talk about phases of our lives? Before I was elected in 2003, I was expecting to slow down and begin to do things for myself, because my children had almost finished attending university. All of a sudden, I was bounced into the job of an MSP unexpectedly—no, not unexpectedly. I do not believe the amount of energy that I did not realise that I would have to do the job and how stimulating the job is. If we can remove the perception that, on retirement, people stop what they are doing, we can think of it as a phase in which we move away from the phase of work that we have done for two or three decades. Retirement provides the opportunity to move into a different phase. That is what the report says. Part-time work and voluntary work can all slot in happily and be acknowledged as positives for us.I will raise two other issues. How will the report influence education at school? We need to rethink our lifespan of working, so we need much more flexibility in how we educate our children to take on board whatever comes at them. We have moved away from the idea of a job for life. Planning and design are also involved—I was fascinated by the idea of co-housing and lifetime homes.All such ideas need to be taken on board. As a member of the Equal Opportunities Committee, I have worked with disabled people, who argue that a home needs to be designed to accommodate the possibility that we might need a wheelchair or aids if we want to stay in that home. The home needs to be designed to be flexible. We need to start considering all those fascinating aspects of the issue. There is a gap in the scenario, which is the omission of environmental change—climate change. How we move to a low-carbon economy and, as we explore what that really means, how that economy will impact on skills and on how we are going to live our lives in smaller communities need to be explored. We might need to revisit and use the skills of older people, particularly the skills that they used to have but that have been lost. There is also the matter of how the global impact of climate change will influence population movements. We might not need to worry so much about not having the younger generation coming on, because inward migration will be vital as some areas become less habitable—I am looking two to five decades ahead. It is fascinating how, if we start this conversation now, we can prepare ourselves for all sorts of scenarios. The climate change scenario needs to be included and to be taken on board, because it will have a huge impact.

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Enterprise and Culture Committee, 16 Jan 2007

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