2. Will the Minister make a statement on the support available to people living alone during the COVID-19 pandemic to avoid the risk of loneliness and isolation? OQ56300

We have taken a number of actions to support people to stay connected with family and friends, including additional funding for the third sector and local government, and for mental health and emotional support services. Our regulations also allow people to form an extended household if they live alone. 

Can I thank the Minister for her response? And I know that she shares my concern regarding loneliness and isolation. No-one should go a day without speaking to someone, but, unfortunately, many do. Does the Minister agree we need to ensure either whole contact or virtual meetings for those living alone, who don't have any family who they can form a bubble with, to ensure that they have priority in being dealt with, especially when they're self-isolating and they have to keep away from people anyway? The COVID crisis will eventually end, but unless action is taken loneliness and isolation will not. Does the Minister agree with me that we need to take action to ensure that people have daily contact with somebody?

Thank you very much, Mike, for that question. And can I thank you for consistently raising in this Chamber issues related to loneliness and also issues related to older people? Because I know you chair the cross-party group on older people, which I attended recently, so thank you very much for that.

Yes, I believe it's absolutely crucial that we do all we possibly can to make contact with people who are lonely. I think that we know that in this pandemic those people who were lonely to begin with are now much more lonely, and particular groups are likely to be lonely, including older people, but, of course, younger people as well, and other groups, such as disabled people suffer from loneliness specifically.

I have responded, in similar questions, to make reference to the Friend in Need initiative, which was organised by Age Cymru, which guarantees a telephone call every week to an older people who is lonely, which I think is the sort of initiative that Mike Hedges would support, because it is giving that contact. So, we actually give £400,000 to Age Cymru to deliver that. And I've actually taken part in one of the sessions, and I can see how much it means to a lonely person to be able to talk over the week to a volunteer, who is often an older person themselves, but who has been trained to specifically take part in this project. So, yes, that reaches a small number of people, but it's initiatives like that, and the other initiatives that I referred to in my first answer, that I think are crucial that we continue to carry out in this pandemic.

Thank you for your answers, Minister. There's very little I can add actually to the excellent points that have just been made by Mike Hedges in his question, other than to reiterate some of those issues. As you said, the health risks of loneliness and isolation were there prior to the pandemic. So, in many ways, those issues have been exacerbated by the pandemic, and it's not just for older people, it seems to be across a wider section of society. So, as we emerge from this difficult time, and we are seeing this reality for people who haven't previously experienced it, what strategy are you developing to help people suffering from mental health issues, which we know are on the increase, and also, specifically, to tackle this loneliness aspect of those issues?

Thank you very much, Nick, for that question. I absolutely agree that it is widespread. I think we tend to think of it as older people who are suffering from loneliness, but it's specifically younger people, and, as I said earlier, disabled people, people from the black and minority and ethnic community and people suffering from mental health problems. This has all been an additional difficult time for them. So, we've certainly recognised this by the funding that we have put in, with additional funding for mental health support—an additional £42 million for mental health in our draft budget to support this—because we certainly see the effects of this pandemic as carrying on beyond the period of the pandemic, and there will be some scars on people that we'll have to continue to work with. So, as I say, we're putting extra money in for the mental health support, and we'll be doing all we can to continue some of this support for people who have experienced loneliness, and some of them in a way that they haven't experienced it before.