Hansard

I thank Margaret McCulloch and all the members of the Equal Opportunities Committee for their inquiry into age and social isolation. This is a great opportunity to respond to it. It was a very positive exercise and is a very welcome contribution that is also timely, not least because of the festive season, as Ms McCulloch’s highlighted in her opening remarks.

The report has raised important issues about how widespread social isolation has become across all levels and ages in society, including how it can affect and damage a person’s sense of belonging, their empowerment and their contribution to society. Alienation is a word that is often used in the context of discussions about Jimmy Reid’s contribution and Harry Burns’s sense about work, but it also applies to society, with the same risks.

To its credit, the committee has been praised for its inquiry, with what Age Scotland has called the first parliamentary inquiry to be carried out specifically on isolation and loneliness anywhere in the world. I would join in that praise.

Alongside the constructive recommendations and evidence in the Equal Opportunities Committee’s report, there is a strong moral case for tackling the issue. We are social creatures. A lack of social contact hits people across the board with poorer health and a shorter lifespan, and it makes it harder to follow through on good lifestyle choices that could have beneficial impacts.

There are not any quick fixes—let us agree on that. Everyone in Scotland has to be committed to addressing social isolation and to taking tangible, measurable actions against it.

To begin, we must consider the differing needs of age groups in society. For example, there are the implications for and complex needs of our ageing population, which are only projected to continue. Twenty per cent of children born today—I repeat, 20 per cent—will live to be 100 years old, the statisticians tell us. Our young population has a whole range of ways of communicating and interacting socially that previous generations did not. Among the young there is a strong emphasis on technology and virtual contact, but it can have negative and positive impacts on social isolation. Changing working patterns, family patterns and social patterns also cause our forms of interaction to change, as indeed they always have over time. What we must do is adapt.

The good news is that we are together on the need to bring about greater community. That is a very helpful place to start. From the Parliament and its members, the passionate people who contributed evidence to the committee’s report, those in public services, communities and the ordinary and, frankly, extraordinary people who, with good will, are trying to make a difference, there is already a collective sense of willingness, commitment and social obligation to tackle the issue. Leaders, organisations, communities and individuals want to work together to capitalise on what they are already doing that is good; they also want to learn from that and to share it more widely.

I want to outline our strategic approach to the committee’s recommendations. We will endeavour to build this strand of work into all of our on-going, broader programmes and the frameworks that are already in place—I am referring to the Government’s purpose and objectives, the national outcomes and the overarching approach to public service reform—because we recognise the issues that have been raised. Community planning partnerships and the health and social care partnerships, which Margaret McCulloch highlighted, have an important role and will be included. We can create an integrated approach to the specific issues of age and social isolation, as with all the other things that those partnerships have been set up to tackle. They exist to tackle the problems that no one service can tackle on its own, and they have developed considerably in their efficacy over the years for which they have been in place.

Under the Christie principles, we recognise the need to alter the balance of public services and to move away from crisis intervention towards more preventative approaches. That is an article of faith around the Parliament, and I am glad of that agreement. Tackling isolation before it leads to further harm is a perfect example of preventative action. Around Scotland, we have an ever-clearer view of what works in public service design and delivery and the challenges ahead. In all our work, we will drive things forward through a Scottish approach, which involves working in partnership rather than having experts who are detached from lived experience dictating from on high. That approach itself recognises the value in relationships, networks and the input of people who make up the communities. Health and fulfilment lie in attachment to others, to society and to having a life with purpose, but that attachment also informs what we do and it should inform good policy making.

The findings of the Equal Opportunities Committee’s report will be included in our fairer Scotland discussions and the subsequent social justice action plan. People with direct lived experience of various forms of exclusion are helping the Government to shape the way in which we deal with social justice. That will be true in respect of the literal form of exclusion that we are discussing, just as it is true of financial or any other form of exclusion. The people who have lived the challenges that we want to solve are the ones who are best placed to tell us the answers.

As we go through some of the main recommendations in the committee’s report, several jump out. A key recommendation is that the national social isolation strategy should be “integrated within all policy”. We completely agree that the changes that are needed for mainstream services to respond to isolation in a human way must be embedded in the approach and planning of a wide range of services, including health, education, housing and transport. We want our social justice action plan to have that same broad reach, and I believe that our forthcoming action plan can fulfil that role by making social connectedness an important element.

In connection with the two recommendations on the need for more evidence, we have committed to commissioning research and publishing findings in summer 2016 on how widespread isolation and loneliness are and on identifying those who are most at risk. That will include analysis of the association between social connectedness and a wide range of important physical and mental health measures, which will provide further rigorous evidence on which to base further action. As well as recognising what the problem is, as I think we all do, we must try to get insights into how we can start to tackle it and what works. In December 2015, NHS Scotland published a review on social prescribing in the context of mental health problems that looks at the benefits of linking systems much more widely.

I want to move on to the issue of a publicity campaign to raise awareness of social isolation. We certainly intend to work with our stakeholders and partners to consider what approaches we can use to raise awareness across communities and to tackle the stigma. A documentary called “The Age of Loneliness” that is to be shown on BBC 1 on Thursday night sets out to present the issue and will do so to a wide audience. I would love to claim the credit for that timely presentation on the television but I cannot, which again goes to show that the Government does not have the arm to reach into telling the BBC what to do.