What did the Labour Party Conference reveal for an Intergenerational Britain?
When Andy Burnham became Prime Minister in July, we asked what his appointment might mean for an intergenerational Britain. We found that policies not explicitly framed as being about connection, such as affordable buses, support for pubs and a pledge to end rough sleeping, can still foster intergenerational connection by building and supporting the places where generations meet. Since then, Burnham has announced a run of visible, practical fixes, from a crackdown on illegal waste dumping in Bradford to a promised end to "rip-off" practices like fake discounts and subscription traps. He has also increased the initial rough sleeping commitment, with a further £102 million in August on top of July's £340 million, and his £2 single bus fares are due from January.
As the Labour Party Conference approached, it was clear Burnham had given us plenty to celebrate. But through our work as secretariat to the APPG on Tackling Loneliness and Connected Communities, we kept hearing the same problems come up again and again: loneliness and social health treated as an afterthought, short-term funding, and budgets that stay in their silos. Nothing announced so far had fully addressed them. Then, on the 29th of September in Liverpool, Burnham set out a much bigger set of policies on care, housing, pensions and young people. So, as we did in July, we're asking the same question: what could all this mean for an intergenerational Britain? What can these policies do for connection between generations?
Hope ran through the whole speech, and through his early announcements too. This was complimented by an emphasis of the importance of togetherness: "All Together Now" being Burnham’s rallying call to build a country of solidarity not separation. People tend to feel hopeful when they trust their neighbours, know who lives on their street, and see things working for people of every age, and that's difficult in a country that has quietly become so disconnected. Our polling found that only 17% of adults regularly share community spaces with other generations, even though around eight in ten believe mixing would reduce loneliness. Burnham's word was hope. Ours is solidarity, and we think the two depend on each other: hope needs communities that trust and engage with one another, and that doesn't happen by accident. So for every announcement, our question is the same: is it designed to connect generations, or to serve one at a time?
The clearest test is care. Burnham promised a National Care Service with free personal care for older people, introduced in the next Parliament and built around care that starts in the home. Part of the funding is expected to come from changing how the state pension rises from 2030. We're not here to debate the triple lock - but it is apparent that this has too often been framed as a generational standoff, and that the debate lacks empathy on both sides. Pensions and care are a system for all of us: we are living longer, society is ageing, and we are all ageing with it. Families and communities depend on older people being secure, and on care being there when it's needed. Hopefully, this policy leads to pensions adequately supporting people alongside a strong care service.
What the plans don't yet tell us is how that care will actually feel to receive. At a roundtable we hosted for the APPG, providers said connection has to be designed into care, not bolted on. One mixed-age development found 79% of its residents felt less lonely. Additionally, a care provider that reserves a fifth of its on-site nursery places for staff reported turnover of around 8%, compared with about a quarter across the independent sector - demonstrating an actionable approach to improving the wellbeing of careers and inadvertently the people they care for. A council representative described care that does less assessing and more connecting, with home care built around relationships rather than timed tasks. With a service that starts at home, that's the design choice we'll be watching closely.
The first phase is described as being for older people, and disability organisations are already asking what that means for working-age adults. Loneliness doesn't follow age bands: providers told us that more than 60% of adults with learning disabilities report feeling lonely. The Casey Commission is due to report in summer 2027, and we'd like to see it make connection a stated aim, with care settings, volunteering and workforce models that bring generations together.
Housing offers a similar chance. Burnham promised the biggest council housebuilding programme since the post-war era, with new council homes protected from Right to Buy so they remain "for generations to come", plus new powers for councils over empty homes. Permanence matters, because communities form where people stay. But there were no numbers or design standards, and homes alone don't make neighbours. What matters is the relationship between built and social infrastructure: the shared spaces, services and groups around the buildings. Placemaking done well is key to tackling division and fragmentation, and to rebuilding trust and civic engagement across all ages. Our housing work argues that connection depends on this kind of design, with a mix of ages and tenures built in from the start. How these new estates are designed is where intergenerational connection will be won or lost.
For young people, Burnham promised pathways from 14, a 45-day work placement at 16 to 18 and an apprenticeship at 18, in response to almost a million young people not in education, employment or training. Placements and apprenticeships are also places where age groups meet. As we said in July, workplaces that build in structured mentoring and two-way skills exchange tend to do better than those that leave mixing to chance. Adult skills belong in this conversation too. Young people learn and start work alongside adults, yet almost nine million adults in England have low literacy or numeracy, and adult English and maths classes have fallen by 63% since 2010, according to the Learning and Work Institute. Treating youth pathways and adult learning as separate silos would be a missed chance. Family learning, where adults and children learn together, shows another way. Beyond this, one gap stands out: the speech acknowledged that youth services had been all but abolished, yet the new offer is about jobs and skills, not rebuilding them.
Step back from these specific isolated policies and a pattern emerges. Much of what was announced is organised by age: care and pensions for older people, pathways and placements for the young. That's how policy usually gets made, and while much of it may well do real good for the country, it could do more. This is the siloed pattern we keep coming back to, and small design choices can start to bridge it: a care home that shares a site with a nursery, a new estate with mixed tenure (family homes, shared ownership, assisted living) and communal space for every age, a placement that pairs a teenager with a colleague from a different generation. These are the conditions in which collaboration and intergenerational relationships can form. Same investment, designed differently.
Hope is easier to promise than to build. It grows where neighbours trust one another, and trust grows where people meet, which doesn't happen by accident in a country sorted by age. As the National Care Service, council housebuilding and youth pathways take shape, we'll be asking for three things: connection written into care as an explicit aim, mixed-age design in new council homes, and mentoring across ages in work placements. That's what solidarity looks like in policy, and it could help make hope normal again.
