Thank you very much, Deputy Presiding Officer. I’m very grateful to Joyce Watson for giving us the opportunity to discuss the challenges we face in tackling the issue of loneliness in our Welsh communities. Our communities have traditionally been, and continue to be, places where people look out for and help each other. But, as society changes, a growing number of people are experiencing social isolation and loneliness in our cities, towns and villages. Where, once, generations of the same family would have lived their lives within miles of each other, in the same street, the same community, today, members of the same family are often scattered across the country or even scattered across the world as they pursue work opportunities or start their own families. As a result, the older generation may be left behind, as Eluned Morgan highlighted in her contribution.

Loneliness and isolation, of course, isn’t just a phenomenon associated with ageing. We all experience periods of loneliness and, as is very clear and has been highlighted in this debate, loneliness and social isolation pose a major public health risk—often referred to as the silent killers, often associated with poor mental health, with cardiovascular disease, hypertension and increased risk of dementia. The Welsh Government is determined to tackle loneliness and social isolation in Wales and we’re committed to developing what has to be a nation-wide and cross-Government strategy to address loneliness and isolation. But, it has to encompass not just Government nationally and locally—local government are playing their role and the health service—but the third sector and our communities as well.

There are a number of community-based approaches to supporting people who have become lonely and isolated and they’ve been mentioned today. Joyce has brought them to the fore in this debate. It’s important that our strategy, any Government strategy, promotes sustainable models that are integrated in communities. We’re already taking action to tackle loneliness and social isolation in Wales through a range of programmes and initiatives and some of these have been mentioned. The previous Minister for Health and Social Services set up a three-year programme of volunteer-led community networks, which were sometimes called compassionate communities. These support lonely and isolated people through a social-prescribing model and help address the harmful effects of loneliness and isolation.

Work is ongoing with communities to protect local facilities that do bring people together, including libraries, leisure centres and museums. These are very important to older people and to people who are living on their own, going through periods of unemployment or isolation. Of course, they have to be able to access those facilities and, indeed, many of those have been threatened and reduced by austerity and we need to ensure that we can protect and safeguard them.

The concessionary bus pass is an important point. It’s become a social lifeline for older people in Wales with 92 per cent saying their bus pass maintains their independence and 81 per cent believing their quality of life would suffer without it. So, our bus services are key, as Joyce Watson has said. They do enable and empower people—not just older people but also disabled people and their carers. It was mentioned in the Red Cross report that mobility limitations result in vulnerability, leading to loneliness and isolation—without independent means to leave your home, befriending schemes, as well as travel and bus pass opportunities. They’re all part of the important links that enable people to be part of community life.

So, the British Red Cross scheme—of course, the Welsh Government funds the British Red Cross in partnership with the Royal Voluntary Service—to support the Positive Steps befriending project is clearly important. It’s key to this. Those two organisations are working together to create a new programme to support older people experiencing acute loneliness, isolation and ill-health. We’ve funded the commissioner for older people in Wales to act as our independent voice, to champion older people across Wales and to deliver the Ageing Well in Wales programme. This brings individuals and communities together with public, private and voluntary sectors to develop innovative and practical ways to make Wales a good place to grow old. The programme focuses on five themes, including loneliness and isolation, and it’s developed a campaign to end loneliness, in partnership with the Royal Voluntary Service, the British Red Cross and Men’s Sheds as well, which it’s important to mention.

We’ve also funded Mind Cymru’s My Generation, a forward-thinking project that aims to develop and deliver a new programme of support to improve the resilience and well-being of older people at risk: those people who are at risk of developing mental health problems as a result of isolation and discrimination, financial exclusion and poor housing. And one of the main aims of our ‘Together for Mental Health’ plan is to reduce the inequalities experienced by people with mental ill health. Discrimination can prevent people accessing the opportunities that many take for granted, and stigma can make people reluctant to seek support, reinforcing the isolation and distress mental illness can cause. We’ve all got a responsibility to engage people in need, to talk candidly and openly about the issues that, left unchecked, result in isolation and mental distress, but we do need to move beyond discussions. There’s no question that the issue has been raised very powerfully by the media, as well as by evidence from the organisations and campaigns involved, but it is incumbent on all of us to look to the role of Government as well as us as individuals and in our communities to address this.

So, I want to end my response to the short debate about loneliness and isolation by referring again, as Joyce Watson did at the start of her debate today, to the ‘Trapped in a Bubble’ study by the British Red Cross and the Co-op. Again, it’s worth repeating what the study has sought and is delivering. It’s investigated the triggers for loneliness in the UK, and identified four areas in Wales—again, I repeat: Carmarthenshire, Conwy, Newport and Torfaen—where people need extra support. We must all learn from that study in our constituencies and regions. Mark Isherwood has already identified and made contact in his region and, of course, in Torfaen, there’s an opportunity, as well as Newport, Conwy and Carmarthenshire; they’re all constituencies that I know Members wanted to follow up very closely.

As a result of the efforts of Co-op colleagues, members and customers, £50,000 was raised to enable the Red Cross to provide support to the people experiencing loneliness and isolation in those areas. Again, to see the continued generosity of people in communities in Wales in these financially challenging times is very heart-warming. But I think also that spirit of generosity makes it clear that the Government—Welsh Government, local government—must not only deliver but develop a national strategy that crosses all departmental portfolios to help us tackle loneliness and to bring together some of the strands of Government action already to make sure that they are looking at this from a strategic perspective and also being clear what our partners can deliver. And I think the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 actually provides that framework in terms of what actions can be taken, and I think the first key principle of focusing on prevention and early intervention is absolutely key in terms of tackling this issue of loneliness and isolation.

Very, very finally, I would like to thank Joyce Watson for mentioning the pioneering work of the late Jo Cox MP and the fact that it’s now being taken forward by both Labour and Conservative women MPs in Westminster, and we, I’m sure, will engage with that. As far as Jo Cox was concerned, combatting loneliness was very much at the forefront of her inspiring work as an MP: her ‘Hope not hate’ campaign. There’s more that unites us than divides us, and I think this is the policy and philosophy where people in Wales will expect us to unite for the common good accordingly.