I thought that was a very moving introduction by Joyce Watson and I’d like to thank her very much, not just for that presentation but also for initiating this discussion today.

I think loneliness is a curse, really, particularly for the old and that’s the point that I’d like to focus on because I think, with more people moving away from where they were brought up, they leave their parents and people are left alone. That is particularly true, I think, in rural areas, where we have to be, I think, particularly sensitive. But we are now in an age of austerity and we know that, although the situation is bad now, actually it’s probably going to get worse. We’ve been told by our own finance Minister that local authorities are going to have to tighten their belts in future—it’s been generous this year, but we need to prepare.

The consequence, I’m afraid, of austerity being imposed by the UK Government on Wales and on local authorities is the closure of care homes. That is a lifeline for people who are suffering loneliness. I think we’re going to have to rely more, I’m afraid, in future, on neighbours, on communities, on voluntary organisations, to help out local government in these instances. This doesn’t mean that Government vacates the field. It’s really important that there is a role for the state, but I think that, perhaps, what we should be doing is creating a better infrastructure for us to be able to support volunteers. I think it would be useful to establish a single telephone number, for example, where people across the whole of Wales could phone and then there would be a machine, effectively—a machine of people fielding calls to the correct voluntary organisation. I think in this way, we could be alleviating loneliness, but also helping people practically. Changing light bulbs—you don’t want an old person changing a light bulb because they could fall, break their hip and that will have an impact on the NHS. It’s so much easier for us to help them out.