Stop blaming the elderly

So, Professor Robert Wright thinks that in circumstances of a declining population, free personal care for older people is madness (5 March, page 30). I disagree.

Why is it that when we are faced with financial difficulties we cut back on the costs of caring for older people? Do we question free care and support for other groups? Do we question free healthcare, free education, child benefit and child tax credit? We do not, and rightly so. But we do leave older people in care homes with a living allowance of £17.50 a week. We see care home food budgets that allocate less for three meals a day than for one school dinner.

I am tired of listening to doomsday scenarios of the crippling burden that an ageing population imposes on the young.

Yes, measures are required to deal with the oncoming imbalance in the age of the population. But we could recognise that people over 50 contribute more than a quarter of the wealth in the UK; we could examine how much Scotland is saving on the unpaid work of older people, including grandparenting, caring for partners and volunteering; we could use the skills of the thousands of older people who are unemployed in an ageist society.

Last but not least, we could start building lifetime homes that would prevent most of us ever having to contemplate moving into care in the first place.