It is grimly ironic that we're holding a debate on loneliness on Valentine's Day, but as many have noted, it's a timely debate. I did not serve on the committee, but I think that the call to action is spot on. But I am frustrated that the solutions ignore the technological shifts that other countries around the world are seizing on. The three paragraphs of the report that do address the role of technology in tackling loneliness reference microwaves as inciters of isolation, and set out social media and FaceTime as 'future technologies and innovations'. Let’s get one thing straight: social media isn’t a 'future technology'. FaceTime is eight years old. The fact that it isn’t already in widespread use through the health and social services system should be a cause for concern, but let’s not allow ourselves to set our ambitions so low.

Because whilst we dither over whether a GP can handle Skype, other countries are trialling cutting edge artificial intelligence assistants—a sort of next-generation Siri. Luke Dormehl, in his book Thinking Machines, sets out some examples. He talks of a Microsoft chatbot in China that responds to text messages that users send it, which has caught the attention of millions. Xiaoice—I believe it's pronounced—uses deep-learning techniques to scan the internet, looking at how humans interact. It uses this learning to create lifelike responses to texts that it gets sent. The bot tracks the lifestyles of its users, including if they're dating, their jobs, things they might be worried or anxious about, and refers back to these in later conversations, mimicking the behaviour of an old friend. In Japan, they’ve developed the world’s first therapeutic robot: a sociable baby seal that can look you in the eyes and which adapts its behaviour depending on how it is treated—a sort of twenty-first century Tamagotchi. The baby seal’s seeming ability to empathise with its users has been found to provide comfort, particularly amongst older people.

Now, Luke Dormehl isn’t suggesting that AI assistants will be able to replace all forms of human interaction, and neither am I, but there are clearly opportunities for technology to play a role. What troubles me in this report is that these opportunities are barely alluded to, because we should all be able to envisage how technology might help people with dementia to stay in their homes, to retain their independence for a bit longer. The tech already exists to monitor behaviour to check, for example, if people are opening and closing cupboard doors more than they normally would, or leaving a long time before using the oven, to check if their behaviour is erratic. And we can also imagine tech that notices if somebody hasn't managed to dress themselves right or that translates slurred speech. This stuff is all within reach, so we should set our attentions to explore how tech might help us to end and ameliorate loneliness.

Downplaying the role of technology in this epidemic and reducing it to simple communication devices that are already a decade out of date, I think, is deeply problematic. As part of a package of measures, technology offers us cost-effective and sustainable means of tackling isolation and loneliness, and I would implore the Minister to look into this as a matter of urgency. Diolch.