Covid-19 and Loneliness

Marion Fellows Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, even if it is only once today. Congratulations also to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this important debate during Loneliness Awareness Week and for her tribute to Jo Cox. The Marmalade Trust runs the campaign, and the theme this year is acceptance. Its purpose is to encourage people to talk about loneliness in an attempt to remove the stigma and shame around it.

The coronavirus pandemic has made me feel very lonely at times, in spite of a busy life and a supportive family and colleagues. I do not intend to dwell on my own loneliness; I just want to say that this is something I really understand. The groups most at risk of loneliness have already been alluded to, but I can add to them and say they also include members of the armed forces, carers, people from ethnic minorities, migrants, refugees, people from LGBT+ groups and homeless people.

Loneliness can and does affect folk right across society and that has been exacerbated by the covid-19 pandemic. Living through an extended period of not spending time with our friends and loved ones has been painful for everybody, but extremely damaging for some. The SNP Scottish Government are fully committed to tackling social isolation and loneliness across Scotland and are providing investment to promote equality and digital inclusion. The events of this year have reaffirmed the Scottish Government’s commitment to tackling social isolation and loneliness as a serious public health issue. That is why part of the Scottish Government’s winter plan for social protection had a specific focus on addressing that.

In addition to funding communities and digital inclusion, the Scottish Government have also funded partners, including £100,000 for befriending networks. Befriending organisations, such as Befriend Motherwell, BeFriend in Bellshill based in Orbiston, and Getting Better Together in Wishaw and Shotts, all cover my constituency. Those and other organisations switched to telephone befriending services, which, although not the same, are helping many folk throughout the pandemic. I also salute all the organisations involved in my poverty action network that have worked so hard during lockdown, combatting loneliness.

The SNP Scottish Government have invested £4.3 million to tackle social isolation and loneliness through digital inclusion via the Connecting Scotland programme, which has helped 5,000 older and disabled people get online and so tackle isolation and digital exclusion. It also supported families to maintain contact with a loved one in prison custody through digital services and internet access, and it will have invested £5 million to increase the work organisations already do, fund new ones and help provide safe places online and in person for people to connect. We should expect that level of commitment from the UK Government too.

The SNP remains committed to supporting the mental health, wellbeing and equality of our communities. Our manifesto says that the SNP is committed to increasing direct investment in mental health services by at least 25% and ensuring that by the end of the Parliament, 10% of the frontline NHS budget will be invested in mental health services, with 1% of NHS frontline spending being invested in child and adolescent mental health services.

A sense of community, and the resilience that we all draw from it, has helped Scotland get through this pandemic. In the first 100 days of the new SNP Government, they will develop their new five-year social isolation and loneliness plan, which is backed by £10 million over five years and is focused on reconnecting people as we come out of the pandemic and tackle loneliness head on. They will also establish a steering group, inviting cross-party representation in order to progress the delivery of a Scottish minimum income guarantee. People are more isolated if they do not have the funds to make social contacts, travel short distances and view the world outwith their four walls.

Loneliness is a blight on people’s lives and has impacts on their mental health. All Governments should and must work with community partners to end the scourge of loneliness. Funding spent now will decrease the cost to ongoing health services in the future. Governments across the four nations have a duty to improve people’s lives by allowing them to feel less lonely and anxious. Again, following what the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Darren Henry) said, we should thank all the organisations across the UK that have done so much to alleviate people’s loneliness in all sorts of circumstances. As hon. Members have already said, we do not know how someone feels when we look at them, but it should be incumbent on us all to make sure that we always have a friendly word and an understanding of how other people live their lives.