Ageing: Public Services and Demographic Change Committee Report

Baroness Greengross Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Greengross (CB)]

My Lords, I begin by thanking and congratulating the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, and the Committee for their excellent report.

I want to point out a few things that I have been thinking while listening to the excellent contributions today. First, we are living in an unprecedented situation—unprecedented in the history of mankind’s existence on this planet, which in the history of the planet is perhaps not very long, but which in our minds is a long time. It is a long time since people died before the age of 25 because they were starving, were attacked by wild animals or caught an infection that they had no possible means of correcting.

We know now that most of us are not as certain as we used to be about what happens when we depart this world, so we want to hang around for as long as possible. For that to happen, we want to be in good enough health to enjoy living and be recognised by other people as part of society—not an add-on to be cared for or looked after, but a real part of the total society in which we live. We have to plan, which is what the committee’s report emphasised, across the board to cope positively and to enable us to celebrate in the appropriate way this incredible change in the longevity that each of us can expect to enjoy—real planning for today’s society, and not, as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, pointed out, planning the future on the basis of what we did in the past. That would be a bit like planning for a war on the basis of yesterday’s war technology and weapons. If we do not, as the report points out, needs will remain unmet, cost pressures will rise inexorably and the balance of responsibilities between individuals and the Government will not change in the way that is absolutely essential. Again, the report points this out.

We need radical reforms across the board but this will be very difficult to achieve because there are many pressures not to change. The report points to the essential fact that, as the noble Lord, Lord Warner, said, we have to look at everything in the light of what we need to keep as it is and what we must change.

In the world of work, we need employers and government to work together because people cannot save in the way that they need to unless they work for longer. We know people have to save more, so they have to work more. In order to do that, employers need help in creating the kind of workplace in which older people can work. There are some brilliant examples in other countries and there are a few in this country. We have to change.

We have to look at how we pay for the kind of care and pensions that we will need in the future if we are to live decently. The move to support old age must take place. If not, age-related spending is projected to rise from an annual cost of 21.3% of GDP in 2016 to 26.3% of GDP in 2061, which is a rise of £79 billion in today’s money. We must therefore consider at all options. We must look at pensions and benefits, and look again at property values, and consider how we will pay for our needs in old age with an open mind.

The support ratio is projected to fall. The Pensions Bill was a laudable attempt by the Government to begin to get this right, on which I congratulate them, but the support ratio—which, by 2051, will be only 2.9 workers to every person of pensionable age—means that this is even more necessary that we thought previously. To make employment realistically possible for our ageing population, flexible work must improve. However, many other changes are needed in work patterns and employers need to be supported in that.

Our built environment must be designed for the real society of tomorrow—not only in terms of housing, critical as that is, but our parks, our open spaces, our roads, our pavements, our transport. The design for the ageing of our population will benefit all of us but it must be taken into consideration. On education, we must look more closely at mixed-age learning centres and open up to the new technology and what it can do.

This is not a party issue or an issue only for the Government, employers, unions and the voluntary sector; this is a whole-society challenge. Major works are going on, in which I am grateful I can play a part, and I wish to mention two or three. The King’s Fund has set up a commission looking at the future of health and social care, of which I am delighted to be a part; the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales is looking at a strategy for the ageing society; Business in the Community is looking at responsible business practice going forward; and the current and future work of the ILC is part of the Commission on Ageing and the Voluntary Sector. These organisations are trying to address these issues so that we can truly celebrate the ageing of our society in the future. It is a triumph. We must therefore ensure that both our older and our younger future populations together create a society where age does not mean stigmatising labels, but rather that we are all valued for what we are, what we do and what we contribute, so that we can forget about the number of birthdays we have celebrated.