APPG ON TACKLING LONELINESS AND CONNECTED COMMUNITIES

Loneliness affects people of all ages, backgrounds, and life stages, the APPG seeks to develop holistic, cross-sector solutions that create meaningful and lasting change. ·Loneliness is often described as an individual experience, but we increasingly understand it as a structural and societal issue, shaped by how we design communities, services and systems. This inquiry will take a specific focus on intergenerational connection as a pathway to tackling loneliness. We know that age segregation has grown in many parts of our society - in housing, in education, in the workplace - and this separation fuels isolation and weakens community bonds.​

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Through this APPG inquiry, we will explore:

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• What works in preventing and reducing loneliness

• For whom and why certain approaches are effective

• Where policy and practice gaps remain across sectors

• How systems can work better together

• How intergenerational connection can contribute to long-term prevention

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Over the coming year, we will focus on six key areas:

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• Health and Wellbeing — embedding connection and prevention in community-based health models

• Housing and the Built Environment — designing homes and neighbourhoods that bring build loneliness prevention into development

• Workforce and Employment — addressing loneliness at work and supporting age-inclusive workplaces

• Culture and Community — using creativity, sport and culture to strengthen belonging

• Youth and Education — ensuring young voices shape transitions and solutions across the life course

• Social Care - reimagining care as relational, not just transactional, by building intergenerational support, community connection and prevention into care systems.

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Alongside these roundtables, we are running a year-long programme of evidence sessions, parliamentary events and community-based engagement to ensure this inquiry is open, inclusive and grounded in lived reality. Our ambition is simple but significant: to help build a more connected society, where no one is excluded by age and where everyone has a role to play in shaping our shared future.

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The work of the previous APPG demonstrated clearly that loneliness is complex, structural, and deeply interconnected with how we design services, communities and policy. It showed that loneliness cannot be addressed in silos, but requires joined-up thinking across government, sectors and the life course.

This renewed APPG builds directly on that foundation. Inspired by the legacy of Jo Cox, who powerfully reminded us that “young or old, loneliness doesn’t discriminate,” we are continuing the national conversation she helped to ignite. Her leadership paved the way for the UK’s first Minister for Loneliness and a cross-government strategy; our role now is to ensure that this momentum is not lost.

Through a strong intergenerational lens, the APPG will continue to deepen and extend this work, connecting policy to lived experience, broadening participation, and bringing together voices that are too often under-represented. By focusing on prevention, connection and life-course pathways, we aim to translate learning into practical, system-wide change that supports people at every stage of life.