Woman's Hour - Happy Valley & kinship care; Conditions at Eastwood Park women's prison, Declining birthrates in China & Japan, Beyonce

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

A new report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons on conditions at Eastwood Park women’s prison has been released today. We speak to Sandra Fieldhouse, lead for women’s prisons at HMI Prisons about the findings. The TV drama Happy Valley has captured the public’s imagination with the final episode of the final series airing this Sunday. Catherine Cawood played by Sarah Lancashire is the policewoman who we see bringing up her grandson Ryan after her daughter took her own life. We hear from one listener who contacted Woman’s Hour about how as a kinship carer she has felt “heard” by the drama and Anita also speaks to Dr Lucy Peake the chief executive of Kinship – the UK’s largest charity for kinship carers. The Grammy's will be held on Sunday in Los Angeles and Beyoncé leads the pack with nine overall nominations. She has also announced her first tour in seven years, which led to the ticket website crashing. The UK concerts are part of a 43-date world tour in support of her Grammy-nominated Renaissance album. Anita discusses her success with Jacqueline Springer, curator Africa and Diaspora: Performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum and music journalist.China and Japan are seeing a marked reduction in their birth rates which will have a major impact on how their societies function in the next decades. With ageing populations and a birth rate well below the 2.1 replacement level observers are predicting significant problems ahead. By the end of the century China is predicted to drop from more than a billion to around 800 million and Japan’s population will drop from 123 million today to around 75 million. Anita Rani discusses the reasons and implications with Dr Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China Asia Pacific Programme at Chatham House; and Yoko Ishikura an independent business consultant, professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University who is working with the Japanese Government’s Digital Agency. Presented by Anita Rani Producer: Louise Corley Editor: Karen Dalziel

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Anita Rani and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Good morning, welcome to Woman's Hour. Beyonce announced her Renaissance world tour riding a silver stallion in her Diamante bikini. And well, the internet melted. Queen Bey fans have been scrambling to get tickets and they crashed the website. The tickets range from £56 to £199. Or for the really swanky seats, an eye-watering £1,950 to £2,390.

But if you love Beyonce and can afford it, worth it at twice the price. Because you will be able to say you were there. So this morning, I want to hear your stories of the best gig you've ever seen and why it was so special for you. The one that you can bring out at dinner parties and say, I was there. Did you go and see the Prodigy with your best friends after finishing your A-levels? What's your first and most memorable concert with your parents? Maybe you are the parent who have taken your kids to see Stormzy or Adele or Little Mix. How was the experience and what made it so special? Are you one of the

lucky ones who have managed to see Prince, Kate Bush, Oasis, The Smiths, Tracy Chapman, Bjork, Whitney Houston, the list goes on. How old were you? Who were you with? Did you lie to your parents to get there? And what did you wear? Let's all remember the good times this morning. 84844 is the number to text. You can send me an email via our website, or you can drop me a WhatsApp message on 03700100444, or even a voice note if you fancy. Also on the programme, only two more days until the final episode ever of Happy Valley. If you haven't seen it yet, I'm excited for you as you'll be able to binge watch all three series on iPlayer, but you don't need to have seen it for what we'll be discussing today. Sergeant Catherine Kaywood, played by the brilliant Sarah Lancashire, who

deserves to win all the awards, is bringing up her grandson in the series. And one of you wrote into us to say you had never felt more heard once you saw the character and described her as a warrior grandma. So later we will be talking about warrior grandmas, those kinship carers, the incredible grandmothers bringing up their grandchildren. That text number, once again, if you want to tell me about your best ever gig or indeed anything you hear on the programme is 84844. But first, a new report by the HM Inspectorate of Prisons into conditions at the women's prison Eastwood Park is out today and makes for difficult reading. The prison in Gloucestershire, holding 348 women, has received the lowest grade for safety following an inspection in October. The rate of

self-harm had increased by 128% since 2019, with a third of the population having self-harmed in the six months preceding the report. Women with mental health conditions were also being held in cells with scratches and bloodstains on the wall. One experienced inspector said that the conditions in that particular house block were the worst he'd ever seen. To talk me through the report, I'm joined by Sandra Fieldhouse, the lead for Women's Prisons for Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons. Sandra, welcome to Woman's Hour. Let's get into this report, which I looked through yesterday.

It makes for very shocking reading. It was an unannounced inspection, first of all, which included a survey. Can you explain how it works? What happened? Yeah, we undertake inspections of all prisons in England and Wales. And the chief inspector has the responsibility

of commenting on outcomes for prisoners in terms of their treatment of conditions. So we last went to Eastwood Park in 2019. So this was an unannounced return inspection last year at the end of October. So first of all, we go in on week one and we conduct a prisoner survey. That survey asks the women to describe their experiences across every aspect of prison life, from getting there into reception to being released back into the community. So it's a very in-depth survey that we conduct. And then we go back into the prison in what we call week two, and we have a large team

of inspectors who look at every aspect of prison life including things like the food clothing safety respect purpose activity and resettlement so we we do a very deep dive into treatment and conditions and we primarily focus on outcomes for women so the prison might think they've worked really hard to improve things but actually when we look at the outcomes they've either got worse or not got any better Anita. So let's get into what you discovered because like I said the report makes for grim reading it's the second women's prison to receive the lowest grade for safety why is it so dangerous for prisoners what did you find? Yeah sure it's the second women's prison to get the lowest score for safety and that's in the last year.

So that's even more worrying. So we've had two prisons in the last year scoring poor on safety and this has never been known before. So if I just talk you through some of the headlines, Anita. What we found in our survey was women at Eastwood Park were describing some very quite poor outcomes. For example, far more women this time than last time said they'd felt unsafe at some point whilst at Eastwood Park. And just under a quarter of women said they currently felt unsafe at the prison. And we know that they also said that twice as many women actually felt victimised by staff whilst at Eastwood Park. So that as a beginning point alerted us to the fact that safety might have got worse at that prison. You said that self-harm had increased by 128% at Eastwood Park and that's very true.

And that's since your last visit in 2019. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I mean, we have had COVID and some people might use COVID as the reason for that. But still, what we know is that for the past year without COVID, that that self-harm rate has continued to increase dramatically at Eastwood Park. So we can't say it's COVID. So why are the women in such distress? The women told us that there were some very basic things that triggered their self-harm. What we do know about self-harm nationally is they're at seven times higher for women than it is for men in prison. So there's a lot of women self-harming. And what they told us, the triggers for their self-harm were some very basic things, Anita, and I'll just talk you through a few of those. They said that

being locked up due to staff shortages, 30% of staff officers at Eastwood Park were not available for duty. So the women said that being locked up for most of the day, and for some women that could be up to 22 hours a day. Purely because there's not enough staff. In fact, I think on the day of your inspection, a third of the staff were unavailable. Yes, yes, that's true.

About 30% of the officers and the support grade staff are not available for duty, which impacts on every aspect of prison life you can imagine. You haven't got enough staff. You can't unlock all the women. Women can't get to work. Women can't get to the library. Women can't do the things that they need to do. But on top of that, you're actually locked in a very small cell,

sometimes shared with another woman. And women felt the pressure of that, not just through COVID, but since then. And they also said there's not enough purpose activity for them. There was only 62% of women allocated to any form of purpose activity at Eastwood Park when we visit which is just not enough. Women also said that there wasn't enough help with their mental health issues and what we know about women at Eastwood Park is that 83% of them said they had a mental health problem and that's staggering. It's not unusual but it's staggering. What we do know nationally is that

there's real problems in moving women from prisons mental health hospitals and eastwood park suffered with that as well they had managed to move in the last year 31 women from prison to a mental health place basically those women should not have been in prison in the first place and one woman had had to wait a staggering 441 days for that move to happen. So you've got women who are in prison when they shouldn't be, and you've got conditions in prison that are just not enabling women to benefit and to rehabilitate. So if you have 83% of the prisoners saying that they have mental health problems, and you're saying that a lot of them, a majority of them shouldn't be there in the first place are the staff

trained to deal with these specific issues this was a real a real problem a real concern for us at eastwood park um there was too little staff training some of the staff at eastwood park were new to that prison and and maybe some of them had not even worked in a women's prison before. So the lack of staff training around mental health awareness, around trauma and victimisation, they needed to do much more to equip the staff with the skills they need to respond to women in a better way. One of the most shocking findings was the conditions of Unit 4. Who has held it there? Tell us what you saw. Tell us about Unit 4. Yeah, Unit 4 is a small unit. It holds, I think it has about 10 cells.

It tends to hold the most vulnerable women in the prison. So that can be women who are acutely unwell. It can be women who are segregated because they've been badly behaved to other people. And it can be women who are segregated because they've been badly behaved to other people. And it can be women who are on constant supervision because they are continuing to self-harm on a daily basis. So it holds basically the most vulnerable women in Eastwood Park. And when we went there in 2016 and 2019, we were very positive about unit four in fact in 2016 we talked about the care was good it was delivered jointly by health care staff and the prison staff we we we reflected on the fact that every day between two and four mental health workers were on the on the unit

to help support and care for the women and we also said that women were unlocked and had loads of activities that they could get involved in including sort of therapeutic group work and counselling and things of that nature. What we found this time round was for some reason the unit had totally lost its way. It'd become a dumping ground for the most vulnerable women. They had lost any sense of direction for that unit and so what used to be in terms of mental health staff in there every day that had disappeared. Women were not involved in activities on the wing, not as far as we saw and women were living in appalling conditions and I don't know how anybody hadn't spotted the conditions before we turned up. How bad were they? What did you see?

Well, it didn't take me long to realise how bad the conditions were. The cells were appalling. In one cell, we found blood splatter, and I don't mean to sound horrible, but we found blood that had been splattered from a previous resident that had not been cleaned up. We found so much graffiti. It was hard to see the walls for the graffiti. And it basically just showed the distress and the crisis

that women in those cells had actually been in. I walked past the cell and a woman was sat on a bed reading. So I decided to stop and go in and have a chat with her. And she told me it was her first time in prison. She'd been there a few days. She'd ended up in this unit. She wasn't sure what was going to happen to her. And I began to look around the cell.

And basically the cell was really dark and dingy there was lots of graffiti but not a lot of furniture for it that way it it felt so traumatic I don't know how she felt but I I was upset by it and and the worst thing for it was amidst all the graffiti I could see what looked like fingernail scratches coming down the wall. I'm sure it can't have been fingernails, but there was something that had scratched the wall and it just, it did traumatise me. I know it traumatised Chief Inspector and I know one of our healthcare inspectors, who's a mental health specialist by background, as you said, just reflected on it as the most appalling conditions he'd ever seen, very un women held in it was it was horrible and i don't know how anybody had not spotted it before we walked in i mean i'm sure our listeners hearing this are feeling

very shocked and the vast majority of us will never have to experience anything like this um no yeah you had to be there you had to be there to believe it actually um and just just a few more of the stats before we get into what what's going to be done about it the number of times force had been used against women had increased by almost 75 percent since the last inspection very high rate in comparison with most other women's prison why was force being used and in what circumstances i'd love to give you the answer to that, actually. And I'd love for us as an inspector to perhaps look into it in more detail at some point in the future through a thematic. But basically, it seemed to be that a lot of the uses of force, that's where physical force is used, was in an attempt to try and stop women from self-harming.

We couldn't see whether it was either appropriate or proportionate because we couldn't view much video footage to actually determine that. So it's an issue that we want to look at in future inspections of women's prisons. So why are conditions so poor at this prison? Is it down to inadequate staffing? Is it training? Is it investment? What are the issues here? Why has it failed so terribly?

Don't get me wrong. The conditions at Eastfield Park generally were fairly decent, and we did judge it to be reasonably good overall in terms of respect. So that would include living conditions. It was Unit 4 that had been allowed to deteriorate, and it needed much more than a leak of pain. Unit 4 needed somebody to invest time and energy into getting it back on track, into setting up proper therapy, proper help, proper support for the women in there.

Across the rest of the prison, conditions were reasonably good. But the lack of staff was impacting on most things some very basic things Anita like women told us it was very difficult to to get some basic requests dealt with by staff and and indeed some staff would promise to do something and then not do it which also frustrated them but one of the issues in women's prisons that women often tell us about and we see is the fact that if they're wearing prison clothing, then the prison service has never thought about designing prison clothing for women. So women actually have to wear men's clothing,

which is just, it just is disrespectful. Just another thing you just don't even think about. And then when you hear it, it just beggars belief, doesn't it? really so you know a woman is left wearing a tracksuit that's been designed for a man so you can so who's ultimately responsible for this well it's got to be the ministers the minister of justice and hmpps there's no doubt about it and what can you do about it you've gone in there you've inspected it you've written this shocking report. We're all hearing the findings. Everyone listening is appalled. What can be done about it? Well, the chief inspector has made a commitment that we'll go back sooner rather than later. And there's a couple of things we can do. We can either go back and review progress.

So we can go back and see whether they've made any differences to our 14 concerns that we left them with. Or we can go back and do another full inspection, Anita. So we'll be there much sooner than we would normally. But how can you be confident that your recommendations are going to be implemented? You made 28 recommendations in your 2019 report. Four years later, only nine have been fully achieved. Is there a willingness to implement what you're suggesting? I think the, no doubt about it, COVID probably got in the way of taking forward

some of those recommendations. There's no doubt about that. But I think the critical things in the prison service at the minute is the lack of staff to actually put in place steps to improve outcomes for women. Are prisons serving their purpose of rehabilitation, given your findings? Well, what we judged at Eastwood Park was that it was reasonably good when it came to resettlement and release planning. And generally across the women's prisons, we find reasonably good provision for resettlement uh there are some some weaknesses

and i think in men's prisons the provision tends to be slightly poorer as well but i think the problem is if recording in progress the problem is if if you're not getting out of your cell how on earth can you rehabilitate and we're aware that the time out of cell that is being put forward by the prison service is just not good enough. What would you do? Well, we've left them. We've left them with, as you said, we've met 14 concerns. And some of those we've said, here are the priority concerns. And so the chief inspector has been very clear about his priorities. Staffing?

Staffing's the first one, actually. You've got that spot on. Staffing's the first one actually you got that spot on staffing is the first priority without the staffing how on earth can they do what they're supposed to do but we also point out to them that they need to do more to reduce self-harm the self-harm rate is huge they're not doing enough to proactively care for women before women get to the point of crisis they're tending to leave it to be reactive so, oh, she's self-harmed, we need to do something. But much more needs to be done to give women at Eastpool Park the therapeutic

emotional support that these women need. And a bigger question, I would say, according to the Prison Reform Trust, most women, 68% in 2021 who entered prison under sentence committed a non-violent offence, 7 in ten reported being victims of domestic abuse and just over a third had been taken into care as a child. So the

question is, is prison always the best place for these women? Prison's not always the best place for women at all, Anita, and women going to prison on remand or for very short sentences, it doesn't do them any good. They don't have enough time to make improvements, but they have lots of time to just hit rock bottom. So you're right, there's got to be better alternatives for some women other than going to prison. Sandra Fieldhouse, thank you very much for speaking to me this morning. I'm sure that will be a story that we will be coming back to

time and time again. Your thoughts, 84844. We do have a statement from a spokesperson from the prison service, and they said this is a deeply concerning report. We are already addressing the serious issue it raises, including appointing more staff and creating a new task force to improve women's safety at the prison. We've refurbished House Block 4 since the inspection in October

and restored the specialist therapeutic support that inspectors expect for the vulnerable women in our care there. 84844 is the number to text. Lots of you getting in touch about the best gigs of your life. We're going to be talking about Beyonce. She's announced her Renaissance tour. Everybody's eyes lit up when I mentioned her name. She's got the power of the name, Beyonce. Siobhan says, I went to Glastonbury with my daughter when she was 14.

She'd been talking about Stormzy. So she was off with her friends right at the front. And I thought I would go along to the pyramid stage to see what all the fuss was about. Best live performance I have ever seen. And I'm 53 and seen lots of big bands and performers over the years. I was rooted to the spot for the entire performance, brought a tear to my eye at some points. He was so charismatic.

Connection with the audience, incredible. I would have to say, Siobhan, I completely agree with you. I was there. It was a moment in British cultural history. Right, now, if you're anything like me, you'll be glued to your seat on Sunday night watching the last installment of Happy Valley. I have loved it and so have most of you.

If you don't know the show, it's the final episode of season three, which has told the story of policewoman Catherine Kaywood, played by the brilliant Sarah Lancashire, who looks after her grandson, Ryan, after her daughter took her own life. The complicating factor is she'd been raped by her grandson's father, a character called Tommy Lee Royce, played by James Norton, who's a psychopathic killer. We've seen the twists and turns of Ryan growing up. It's an absolute corker of a storyline, and it's one that's clearly resonated with us if the viewing figures are anything to go by. Well, earlier this week, we had an email of one of our listeners, Tina,

who lives in the West Midlands. She told us she loved Catherine's warrior grandma character and said how it made her feel heard as she's also a kinship carer looking after her granddaughter. Well, she's on the line now. And I'm also joined by Dr. Lucy Peake, the chief executive of Kinship, the UK's largest charity for kinship carers. It's the largest charity helping kinship carers and there are over 150,000 of them out there.

That's a double number of foster carers. But first, I'm going to come to you, Tina. Very good morning to you. Welcome to Woman's Hour. I love the fact, morning, I love that you called her a warrior grandma. You've nailed it on the head. Is that how you feel? You even look like a warrior grandma this morning because you've got a warrior grandma. You've nailed it on the head. Is that how you feel? You even look like a warrior grandma this morning because you've got your beautiful... My halo.

Yeah, your halo around you. Yes. I hadn't thought about it and put it into words, but absolutely each and every single one of us is out there fighting for our children all the time. Is that how you feel? All the time. Emotional?

Yes. When you think about the the time. Emotional? Yes. When you think about the reality of it, it is hard. So hard. So what did it mean to you to be able to see that on screen? I loved the fact that it was there in respected mainstream television. Even if lots of people didn't understand the ramifications and the hows and the whys that we have this character who is loved and holds down a really responsible job

but at the same time is doing that she has a traumatized child to look after and and to meet his needs it's amazing balancing act it's amazing to see so what what's your situation? How did you come about to have to look after your granddaughter? My daughter, her mother, was involved in a dysfunctional relationship which had lots of elements of the trio of vulnerability. So parental mental ill health, domestic violence and substance abuse. With the added complication that the nipper's dad was also a lack-experienced adult. So very, very conflicted and very difficult.

And there were lots of concerns by services. And I was called in initially before she was born to see if I'd be available to take her at birth. And that's where it started, a phone call from a stranger and what do you say when someone calls you up and says that uh well you say yes but then you wonder if it's the best thing and then you say no and then you say yes and then you say no and you're so conflicted that it's um you you spend a long time debating it but you go you do what you have to do which is you take the child what's the children what's the conflict what were you debating what do you what do you weigh up in your mind um can you do it have you got the resources to do it

will you be able to do it what will it do to the family will you get the support you need from outside who will support you can you carry on with your job all of those things will you get the support you need from outside who will support you can you carry on with your job all of those things will you have to move house have you got the right car I didn't I had to change my car at a later date um I thought that my life was you know I could now answer to me I could now do another degree and progress a career career path. And actually, I couldn't. I've become a busy working single grandma. Did you have much support? Yes and no.

My friends were amazing. I've even made new friends who are in a similar situation to me. I got support from the National Association of Therapeutic Parents, who I wholeheartedly recommend. I attended their training. I attended their support groups. I contacted call rooms for legal advice. And I very luckily stumbled upon Kinship Carers UK, who have held my hand every step of the way. We're going to talk to Lucy in just a minute just another huge situation that must have really

taken its toll on you is in order to become the main legal caregiver for your granddaughter you have to take your daughter to court yes well social services took her to court in the first place to get a care order and then she applied to have the care order rescinded. And I wasn't told of that until it was literally going into court. And then I put an application in for a special guardianship, which makes me the NIPA's legal parent. And I fought, literally not physically fought, but fought mum and children's services in court. And that took two years and beginning to end with various hiccups and bumps and to further complicate it Anita I earn too much to apply for legal aid but I'm still I earn enough I don't quite earn enough sorry let me get that right I don't I earn too much to apply for legal aid

but I can still apply for universal credit. So I ended up self-representing, which is why my support network was so invaluable to me. I've taken court documents into support groups and we've gone through them with a fine tooth comb to get everything we needed right for the court case. Stay there. I'm going to bring in Lucy, tina who is um from kinship carers uk you've got a lot of um a lot of love there from uh from tina is this is this a story you hear time and time again it just so we really i'm from kinship kinship the national charity so slightly different organization but we do work closely together. Yeah, really common story. And I mean, I love the description of the warrior grandma as well. It really speaks to a lot of the carers that we support. So most kinship carers are grandparents, and they're often women. as Tina said and as we see with Catherine there's that life-changing event there's a phone call and

and you hear Catherine in Happy Valley say to her family members I had to take him I had no choice did you want me to put him into care and I think lots of kinship carers are at that they're they're faced with that if you don't take this baby if you don't take this child they will go into care and then it's just life-changing for carers. So, I mean, I think Catherine's character is so, it speaks to kinship carers so much because it affects her relationships. She loses her husband.

She loses her son. Is that quite common? Lots of carers will say, you know, it might be women and they're on a second relationship. Their partner's not related to the grandchild. And they're a bit like, I didn't sign up for this. So they might walk. At the same time, you know, she...

So your life is falling apart at the same time as having to... You grieve. So, you know, Catherine was grieving, was majorly grieving, really angry. She loses those key relationships. She starts to lose her identity and that's what i think claire is such an interesting character that's the sister who she also looks after her sister who is a is in recovery aa uh and why do you think why do you because she we don't want to give any spoilers away for anybody not watching but she does something

that really betrays catherine in the final series but you have some sympathy for watching but she does something that really betrays Catherine in the final series but you have some sympathy for her so she does in the final series and I don't know where that will end but there are those moments where you see that Catherine's only able to balance that job that she keeps in the police force because Claire's at home cooking the tea putting Ryan to bed and getting him to school. So lots of kinship carers aren't able to do that. Half of them are giving up work when they take on the children. Well, just like Tina said. Like Tina said.

Tina, you had to put your life on hold. You had plans to go and carry on and do another degree and it just didn't happen. Did you have the support? You said you had the support of friends around you. Yeah. Yeah. And without them, I would be on my knees more than I have been on my knees. You can't. I'm lucky in that I'm doing this on my own, so I don't have a partner to lose.

It also means that there's no respite, there's no downtime, so my friends have become even more important in our lives. Absolutely. It's worth saying saying here as well lucy that it's mainly women who are picking up the pieces yeah i mean the women that we work i'd say 80 of people that we work with and you know we're our advice service will be supporting about four and a half thousand carers a year so we're the biggest scale in terms of support both national advice service and on the ground where we're we're the biggest scale in terms of support, both National Advice Service and on the ground where we're delivering intensive support. In areas like West Yorkshire, we have project workers who go out, sit with carers and really talk through what's going on in their lives. Most of those people are women. They will tend to be in their 40s, their 50s.

Dropping out of work at that stage is frightening. Many of those women talk about jeopardising their financial futures. You know, they know they've got to turn to the benefit system. They will be on benefits for the rest of their lives because they cannot build up the pension. So we're really penalising people for doing the right thing. And what we really want to see is a national minimum allowance for kinship carers, just like foster carers get. So what is the government policy on kinship carers? So we've had announcements yesterday. So these come out of the care review that happened last year.

The government has for the first time, I think, really set out a set of recommendations which value kinship carers so they see kinship carers as a vital pillar of the children's social care system. They've set out a plan to do an immediate investment of nine million for a national program of support and training for kinship carers but more than that they have said there will be the first ever national strategy on kinship care. So there will be some national leadership. Kinship carers will have opportunities to feed into that. We want to really push hard for a set of supports that really meet the needs of kinship carers like Tina. What would meet your needs, Tina? What do you want to see happen? What would you like the government to do? Specialist training for kinship carers

on traumatised children, legal support, dedicated, as Lucy says, dedicated teams, dedicated charities who can help us in a listening way because practically that's another struggle that we have to deal with and that's without thinking about the additional needs that our children have you know the educational needs they may have physical health needs the therapeutic needs of our community of children are huge and that work needs to start when the children are removed from their parents not when they've got permanence it It's a short term answer to not

do anything. We need to look at this situation for the next two or three generations to get it right, to reduce the figures of children in care, to improve their life chances. What's not there in your perspective? We want financial allowances. That's the biggest thing. Lots of kinship carers are leaving work. They're plunged into poverty. That's not right. We also want kinship carers to have the same rights as adoptive parents to leave, paid leave when they take on a child. Kinship carers are hugely committed. They are basically stepping in and saying, I will be here for this child till they're 18 and forever. We need to treat them with respect.

We need to enable them to take time off work when they're going through court, when they're settling a child who's experienced trauma. And hopefully some of them will go back into work. They'll be able to build their pensions. They'll be able to do the things that they plan to do. So the other thing, I'd echo what Tina said about the children. This is the same group of children

who would have gone into the care system, but there is no equality of support. So many kinship carers are having to pay themselves for mental health support to help their children to overcome early experiences. That's wrong. We need to give our children the same rights to that support as children in the care system. Yes, and we need to support these warrior grandmas as well. You want kinship carers to come and talk to you, don't you? Because you're doing a consultation between now and the end of the year. So talk to our listeners. There will be plenty of kinship carers glued to the radio right now. What would you like them to do? So we're running a campaign called Value Our Love, which really is about transforming support.

Please look at value our love go online and search that join the campaign and through that you can influence the government so get online and do that and tina last question for you because you got in touch with us uh thank you for doing that why is it so important for you to have felt seen and heard through this character? We're invisible. As kinship care is just invisible. We're just grandma picking the child up from school until you scratch the surface. And we need to be visible. There are so many of us. We need to know that each other is there and services need to recognise us and the absolute effort and commitment we have to our children. And what keeps you going?

Gin. That's very pure art, but watching her be better today than she was yesterday or her difficulties changing and every day there's small improvements and that's what keeps you going, just day by day. Difficulties changing and every day there's small improvements. And that's what keeps you going, just day by day. You are a warrior, Grandma. Thank you so much for speaking to me this morning, Tina and Lucy. Thank you.

844 is the number to text. We've had a message in from Rebecca saying, I'm a kinship carer for both my granddaughters. I've seen many gigs and been to Glastonbury, but the best gig of my life was Bruce Springsteen in 2009 after queuing for days being a tough grandma I was at the front in the pit luckily have tickets for his worldwide tour this year and my granddaughters are coming with me cannot wait we are all jealous now who do you think should feature on the woman's Hour power list? This year we are looking for 30 women in the UK who are making a big impact on sport right now.

They can be athletes, coaches, policy makers or grassroots volunteers. In fact, any woman making a significant contribution to sport at any level. If you want to put someone forward, head to the Woman's Hour website for more details to make your suggestion. Loads of you getting in touch about your best ever gigs.

Diane says, in 2016, I was lucky enough to be given tickets to see Adele in Amsterdam for me and my 10-year-old daughter. I love that so many of you are going to gigs with your kids. This is brilliant. Freya, my daughter, had made a Hackney says hello banner. She saw the banner and Adele then said, who's from Hackney? The audience in front of us all parted and pushed Freya to the front.

And Adele started having this great conversation with Freya. She then dedicated her next song to Freya, who was by this point beside herself. It was her first arena concert. She was in floods of tears. Such a joy and an amazing, incredible experience. She is never going to forget that. How do you top that? Your first ever gig and a song is dedicated to you.

Amazing. Now, the Grammys will be held on Sunday in Los Angeles and Beyonce leads the pack with nine overall nominations. She's now tied with her husband Jay-Z as the most nominated artist in Grammy history with a total of 88, overtaking Sir Paul McCartney and Quincy Jones. And her announcement on Wednesday of her first tour in seven years led to the ticket website crashing.

The UK concerts are part of a 43-date world tour in support of her Grammy-nominated Renaissance album. Well, I'm joined by Jacqueline Springer, curator, Africa and Diaspora performance at the Victoria and Albert Museum and music journalist. Jacqueline, are you a fan? Of course. I think we could do some kind of global investigation

and find out the minority who are not. Although some of them are on Twitter saying, oh, I don't know what the fuss is, but they're doing that to, you know, enter the chat. So even then they're aware of her ubiquity. It's all a bit tiresome, all that anti-Beyonce stuff. Yeah, come on on just get exactly just everyone admit it I mean no you know you don't have to but it's just if people are having

a Beyonce loving let it continue it's been going for several decades now because she is so much bigger than the music isn't she yeah well I think um you know some of the people that you mentioned there in in the you know the annual march for the Grammy Awards you know, some of the people that you mentioned there in the, you know, the annual march for the Grammy Awards, you know, Quincy Jones, the Beatles, you know, musicians, music makers, producers, they become the orchestrators of the soundtrack of our lives. So they matter. And, you know, I was on the WhatsApp group chat yesterday with my girls. And one of them mentioned the fact that it's very clear that we've grown up with Beyonce you know ask any of your listeners what they were doing in 1998 that was the year that they her group Destiny's Child released their first album she has been with us in a musical form since then so we have seen her narrate you know relationship frustrations materialistic men you know, relationship frustrations, materialistic men, you know, self-image issues.

Why doesn't he love me? Infidelity. And she's, you know, she's a mother of three children. Her child is on stage with her now. She commands a stadium to accommodate her musical proficiency. So we've been with her and she us since 1998. And that's a that's a fair chunk of our own sort of emotional and musical maturation can i share with you a very person a quick personal anecdote in 1998 i was a runner at top of the pops and i held a small camera whilst all four of them the original lineup came to perform at top of the pops that is my beyonce moment when when they were just first ever top of the popsops performance and I was there.

Probably Sackleball as well, isn't he? He wasn't supposed to be recording. Don't tell him. Don't tell him. Can we talk about the announcement as well, the image, the importance of the image that she put out there, why the internet melted apart from the fact that she looks unreal, why the cultural significance of her

on that silver stallion in that diamante bikini, if you haven't seen it, Google it. Is it a bikini? Is it a bikini? What is it? You know, I remember looking at that image and I just, and I did gasp and I gasp because, you know, musicians, performers, they possess a confidence that we just don't have.

And so, you know, we we try to get slivers of it by osmosis. She's on this, you know, metallic stallion. And that in itself is reminiscence in some way, culturally, of course, of Bianca Jagger entering Studio 54. Renaissance is the thank you for everything album it's a tribute and it's a recomposition sonic recomposition of the glory days of disco of the mastery of you know the marginalized having a soundtrack to keep them going and she's just there and so you have to catch up and this is a lot of the issue with Beyonce you have to catch up with her mind and her creativity you know she she she drops an album

out of the ether replete with music videos a complete package there's no interviews you have it then she drops another one years later that's socio-political. It's talking about her origins and the origins of her ethnicity and race as relates to white supremacism, slavery, etc. and how regional identity, how family make you. And there's a music video where she's hanging out of a police car and it pans to an image and it just says, stop killing us. That was intoned last week. And so that image doesn't, it doesn't freeze Beyonce as an artist. The fact that she can comment on so much of the landscape of living, shared and personal, and then get on a pretend horse looking body oddy oddy you know of course

that you know there are concerns it's over sexualization but if anyone has to have jurisdiction over their body it has to be you and if you now have mobilized since 1998 into a position where you have narrative control then that is that is not the same as somebody forcing you to do so as a black woman in the r&b genre to have endured and to be able to take the platform that she does and fill out stadiums world stadiums i mean i mentioned this yesterday when you think about what a stadium is for, the stadium in itself is to give you, is to promote ocular view, but Beyonce is a singer as well as an entertainer, so you do obviously want to see the splendor. Homecoming has already enshrined that you are going to see something

big and substantive, but you also have this concept album here that's celebrating black music's past from America that's disseminated and ricocheted across you know all of the continents creating dance music here that becomes harder and so on so what you have there you have the perfect place you can't play a small venue although she could it would be a health and safety issue but really what we need to think about is that you have a soul singer an R&B singer who will be in a stadium which is originally designed for you to see things not necessarily hear it and that tells you about the mastery of her voice this woman's voice no matter what if you don't like her hair if you don't like the fact she doesn't do single ladies anymore all All of these little fripperies.

Oh, why did she take Jay-Z back? You're allowed your subjective opinion on her life and her music. But that doesn't change the cold hard facts that you are, that there's a world tour. Those dates are enormous on what that tour will do on those vocal chords. But you will have a soul singer singing in a stadium yeah and the graft it takes to be beyonce as a woman in a music industry full stop the amount the level of work and dedication it takes to be her remember as i you know i keep i keep going back to 1998 and what we need to think about how the media has caught up with so much of the horrors that women endure.

There's a singer, Ray, who reached number one last month. And there's a story on the BBC website where she's actually relaying some of her horrors. The purgatory that she was contractually held in, so she couldn't release the music that she wanted. The fact that she has endured abuse, physical and emotional trauma as a result of that abuse. Beyonce has put elements of her frustration in her music. But what we need to think about is the landscape of an industry that actually reward all of the beehive and the others who have actually caught up with her onward march. You don't have to. We don't care if you don't. You can like what you like. But really what we have here is a moment. We have a moment of one of the premier vocalists of her age singing over hip hop beats and live orchestration.

Who's going to do it in a stadium around the world you're going to be there i didn't put myself through the trauma of trying to get tickets there's no point in ruining my day i'm just going to see what's going to happen one of my friends again in the whatsapp chat she actually um mentioned that she's actually in the queue she's still in the queue and if i may be so bold as to actually break a confidence of she's currently held in position 419278 no oh my god she'll be there tomorrow yeah she'll refresh on sunday i guess i had all these questions about whether she's going to win the grammy we hope she does but actually as you've done everything you've said she's so beyond awards.

Of course, we want to see her win everything. But she's award shows need artists. Artists benefit from having gone to them. But fundamentally, the music's always going to be in in the ether. And for that reason, that's that's the most important that the art endures. Jacqueline Springer, always a pleasure speaking to you. Thank you so much. Beyonce, I mean, they just don't come greater. Chantel says, I went to a special one-off David Bowie concert back in the early 90s

in a little nightclub. What? Only 200 people there and I was right at the front. I was so overwhelmed. I nearly fainted and my husband had to take me to the back to sit down. I still miss David Bowie today, don't we all? I'm 76, says Penny, and I've been to lots of gigs when young. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton, Michael Jackson. But the best was Abba Voyage last year. My 44-year-old son took

me as a birthday treat. It was amazing in every way. We danced and sung together. We'll take the memory to my grave. Keep your messages coming in. Now, one of the big issues we often hear about is population growth and the impact it's having on the environment. But for an increasing number of countries, they're more concerned about the population decline. China and Japan are seeing a marked reduction in their birth rates, which will have a major impact on how their societies function in the next couple of decades. With ageing populations and a birth rate well below the 2.1 replacement level needed to maintain a stable population observers are predicting significant problems ahead by the

end of the century china is predicted to drop from well over a billion to around 800 million um today at the same time japan's population will drop from um 123 million to uh 75 million well i am joined um by dr yuja who's senior research fellow on china asia pacific program at chatham house and the the international affairs think tank based in london she's with me here in the studio and yoko no she's not she's on zoom and yoko ishikura an independent business consultant professor emeritus at hito subashi university who works with the japanese government's digital agency and they both join me now welcome to the program uh yoko i'm going to come to you first let's talk about japan what's the situation there when it comes to population

population is excuse me now as you mentioned i I think it's declining so quickly. And we did know that the population is not going to decline, but I think the speed is much faster. Can you hear me okay? I can hear you perfectly clear. Yes. Okay. So, yeah. Yeah. What are the reasons? What's happening? I know there's a number. A fertility rate is going down, and it's not stable at all. And we are aging. And so, I mean, that's essentially it. And also the women will play a significant role because they are the ones who would have babies and so forth.

But not too many women would like to get married. And our gender gap report, according to the gender gap report, I think we're ranked like 116 out of 140 or something like that. So we are by far... Sorry. Go ahead. Yes, no, just why aren't women getting married? Why don't they want to get married?

Well, because... I would say because it's no fun. And they are pretty much limited in terms of what are the kind of things that they could do in politics or economics. I mean, according to the Gender Gap Report, the education and health in Japan is ranked quite high. But when it comes to the politics as well as the economy, I think we're ranked very, very low. We don't have too many politicians, women politicians.

It's less than 10%. It hasn't changed at all. And business, where I am, more or less, I think the companies have tried to introduce or bring more women into the labour workforce as well as the managerial positions. I'm going to bring Dr. Yuji in here just to get an idea of what's happening in China. What is the situation? What's life like for young women there? And why is the population declining so rapidly?

Well, really delighted to be at my favourite programme on the BBC Radio 4 here. That's a wonderful way to join us. Lovely to have you with us. Obviously, the population decline in China, there's various factors. And well, firstly, the most important factor is what happened similarly in Japan and also other East Asia economy is that as women getting better educated, especially within China, you have a higher proportion of women entering higher education than men. And then obviously a common sense of female emancipation for women at a career ladder. So most of women begin to focus on their own individual career, individual growth prospects, rather than counting men as a breadwinner and

setting up a family. So that's just a factor of any modern society would encounter. Now, secondly, within China, raising a child is an incredibly difficult and expensive business to do. Firstly, you have to pay all this extra tutorial, extra education classes for your child. And secondly, and also most importantly, that the parents in China are expecting to buy a brand new property for your child as well. And that is just a burden every single Chinese parent has gone through. So why is the population decline such a problem? Because the one child policy was

exactly for this reason, to bring the population down. So why is it now such a problem? Because the one child policy was exactly for this reason, reason to bring the population down. So why is it now such a concern? Well, it is a concern that because in order to have that sense of sufficient productivity to generate China's economic growth, I mean, the party and the government projected the growth they want to have at least around four to 5% in order to justify the governing legitimacy of the party. And that would require the productivity to have a sufficient level. And hence, given the current population decline in 10 years time, it will be almost impossible to sustain the current level of productivity for China. So I think that's a really major concern

for the Chinese government. Now, secondly, this also comes to the social welfare issue, that if China was the population of 1.4 billion facing the aging population, the government again have to have spent a sufficient amount of money to pay the pensions for those athletes, but with less skilled laborers in the market. So it is a really economic, a longer term economic trouble for China. And the same conversations are happening in Japan because it's so acute there. You've got an ageing population who are living for a long time and you just don't have babies being born at a rate quick enough to be able to sustain the economy.

You've got an inverse triangle when it comes to your population. But so what are the government doing about it? Well, the Kishida administration has tried to do a lot of things. And it's been going on for some time. And, you know, for example, Prime Minister Abe encouraged the businesses to introduce or to have at least one woman among the other board members and independent. And that has helped somewhat. And also, right now, the Kishida administration is trying to bring some subsidies and making the kids' education free and all these things.

But, you know, overall, the trend has been going on for such a long time. I remember that I was aware of this population declining almost 10 years ago. But at that point in time, nobody really noticed it because it's so slow and you don't feel it yourself. So that's why. And it's been going on. And all of a sudden we realized, wow, what are we going to do? What about immigration policy? What about the immigration policy? Immigration has been sort of a no-no subject.

It used to be much more so. And however, I mean, I don't really see any other way to keep the employment. And we do have more people from Asia now, you know, working as workers. But when it comes to the official immigration policy, we are still sticking to this high skilled labour and things like that. So it's not going to happen like, you know, caretakers and childcare and so forth. So lots needs to happen, both at government level, but also culturally and shift in sort of the culture of both countries. It's such a huge topic, and we are running out of time. You are both going to have to just come in, Dr. Yuji, especially you, because you'll have to come in and talk to me about it in the studio at some point.

But thank you for your time. We've barely scratched the surface about that subject, so I'm sure we'll come back to it later. Thank you so much for listening and thank you for all your stories of your brilliant concerts. I just went to see Billie Eilish at the O2 with my 18-year-old daughter last summer. I've always been a fan. She's a genius and it was the last summer. I've always been a fan. She's a genius.

And it was the most incredible show I've ever been to. I will love her forever from Mari. Thank you. Join me tomorrow for Weekend Woman's Hour. Are you confused about why your mortgage rate is going up? Unsure of what causes inflation or befuddled over what GDP stands for? I've got the perfect podcast for you. I'm Tim Harford, and in my new Radio 4 podcast, Understand the Economy, I'm taking you back to basics. I'm going to explain all the complex financial terms you're hearing in the news as clearly as I can. Inflation, interest rates, growth, bonds, banks, I'll explain it all.

Search for Understand the Economy, available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who was faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.