It is a pleasure to serve under your chairpersonship, Mr Stringer. I declare my interest as both an honorary vice-president of Carers UK and a board member of the Fife Carers Centre, which celebrated its 30th anniversary last week.
It is now just shy of two years since my private Member’s Bill, the Carer’s Leave Act 2023, received Royal Assent, and a little over a year since the necessary regulations were passed to enact the legislation. It came after years of work by dedicated campaigners both within and outside Parliament, and I had the pleasure of meeting some of them at an event to celebrate the law passing. I said then what I say now, which is that by passing the Act, I stood on the shoulders of many who came before.
But the job is not done just because the law is passed. Employment rights are useful only if they are known about and enforceable, and if they solve the policy issue that they intend to. I want to use this debate to look at how the law has been working for unpaid carers over the past year. The myriad problems and hurdles faced by unpaid carers, or indeed anyone, are not solved by the magic of one private Member’s Bill, as much as I wish they were—as politicians, I think we all wish they were. According to the latest census data from all four nations, there are at least 5.8 million people in the UK providing unpaid care for an ill, older or disabled family member or friend. Of those people, 2.8 million were recorded as balancing that caring responsibility with work.
Thank you for your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. The hon. Lady is making an important speech and I thank her for her work on this issue. She will know about my passion to support unpaid carers, particularly young carers. She is giving some very important and high figures. However, is it likely that those figures are actually higher, because certainly many young carers, and I suspect it is the same with adult carers, do not recognise that they are carers?
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to point that out. I occasionally use my husband as an example in this debate. He cares for his elderly mother who is in her 90s, but he would not call himself a carer; it is just part of what he does as a son.
A constituent of mine who lives in Glastonbury told me that she cares for her 95-year-old mum who needs constant assistance. She is concerned because not only is she having to spend more time with her as time goes on, but she has lost her winter fuel allowance and respite care is out of her reach. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is crucial that we introduce paid carer’s leave to ensure that carers get the relief that they need while caring for their loved ones?
My hon. Friend has anticipated some of my speech. There is no doubt that many unpaid carers want to care for their loved ones, but when they need respite or when the caring responsibility becomes too much, they need a social care service to support them. That is one of the challenges that many of them face.
Thank you for securing the debate. It is an important topic and it is a privilege to be here. I used to do a lot of work with carers and young carers in my job in the NHS, and I used to visit some of the Ayrshire carers centres. One thing that people told me was important to them was getting a break, whether it be a day out or a few days away, and another was getting peer support from other carers. Respite has already been mentioned. Do you agree that it is important for carers to get a break and opportunities for peer support?
Order. I remind hon. Members that I am not part of the debate. Can we revert to normal parliamentary language? I do not like correcting people. We have just been through the previous debate and I did not, but I think it is necessary.
I am grateful for the intervention and I think the hon. Lady is absolutely right. In St Andrews in my constituency I met a group called the CRAP Carers—which stood for caring, resilient and positive. There is no doubt that the network of support that unpaid carers can access is really important.
We estimate that the value of the support that unpaid carers give to our economy equates to over £160 billion per year. That is to say that our care force is massive, and it needs valuing and supporting alongside every other industry. We also know, as Members have already touched on, that statistically being an unpaid carer makes someone worse off.
Early this year I hosted a policy breakfast with the Centre for Care at Sheffield University. Although the Minister could not attend, I am grateful that the Department for Business and Trade and the Department of Health and Social Care sent civil service representatives. We heard how the Centre for Care has been doing some important research on the impact of being an unpaid carer on income, which was published last year.
Staggeringly, the research finds an average relative income gap of up to 45% for those informal carers providing the most hours of care. I recommend that the Minister read the research; it is quite heavy on statistical analysis, but I am sure that the Centre for Care would be happy to meet with him, if it has not done so already. The academic research confirms what we already know from the surveys carried out by organisations such as Carers UK: unpaid carers are more likely to live in poverty, and doing something altruistic for the people you love makes you worse off.
The state of caring survey carried out by Carers UK for 2024 found that 40% of respondents had had to give up work, finding the juggle unmanageable, and of those still in employment, 44% had reduced their working hours, while a quarter had moved to a more junior role. That leaves the vast majority of unpaid carers with less money in their pockets every month. That is at a time when they may be living with the person they care for, and we know that there is a significant disability price tag. The personal independence payment down here, and the adult disability payment in Scotland—now a devolved benefit—are vital, but they are not enough to make up that difference.
Last night, an amendment to the Employment Rights Bill introducing paid carer’s leave was debated in the House of Lords, where a Plaid Cymru colleague spoke from the experience of having been a young unpaid carer herself. In that debate, the Government Whip provided an update of the review into the Carer’s Leave Act 2023. Does the hon. Member agree that the Government must, as part of that review, recognise that in order to make a true difference, carer’s leave must be paid leave?
I am grateful for that update on the progress of the Employment Rights Bill in the other place last night. My party’s policy is for paid carer’s leave, and I am conscious that my Act only formalised some of the less formal arrangements that many people undertake, but it hopefully prompts conversations with the employer. I hope the Government review will look at paid carer’s leave and introduce it sooner rather than later. I would be more than happy if my Act were superseded.
One year on, the question is whether the policy is working. What do we know so far? It is clearly far too early to see an impact on poverty or even net employment rates, and I do not think the legislation that was passed is significant enough for that. Even if the statistics were available, there are too many moving parts to isolate cause and effect, but by now we should have a feeling of how well the Government are communicating advice about carer’s leave to businesses. Are businesses updating their policies and systems for requesting and recording leave? Are they training their managers? Do their employees know about their rights? Would they feel comfortable using them? Has the dial been moved at all towards more carer-friendly workplaces?
My big worry in the first few months after the regulations passed was that the Government were not doing enough to tell businesses about the new rights and what was required of them. I accept that at that time we obviously had a general election and a new Government. For too long, the main advice on gov.uk was on a webpage for new businesses setting up for the first time. I am happy that that seems to have been remedied, and that using the search engine to look for carer’s leave makes the right page pop up, but I am less comforted by the lack of resources on carer’s leave, or on unpaid carers at all, on the Department for Business and Trade’s website.
Yesterday, my team searched for “carer’s leave” and found no results under “guidance and regulation”, no results under “research and statistics”, one result under “policy papers and consultations” and three under “news”, two of which were from when the law was passed two years ago. It appears that the Government’s only interest in carer’s leave is in announcing a review into how it is working. Given that I secured this debate, I am clearly happy to see how things are going and how we can improve them, but I venture to say that the Government risk abandoning their responsibilities to working carers if they do not take an interest in promoting the leave that is available right now. What are they doing to ensure businesses, big and small, know about the rights of their employees and are supported in implementing them? How is this information getting out to business owners and busy managers, who simply do not have the time to look up a right that they might not even know exists? The Department for Business and Trade and the Treasury have more power to reach companies than any other organisation. If the review finds later this year that companies did not know about the leave, and therefore that it has been ineffective, DBT will need to look at its own failings and at the fact that it did not do more.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this important debate. She has been an advocate for carers throughout her parliamentary career, and I thank her for all her hard work.
Unpaid carers are the backbone of Britain’s social care system. They carry out remarkable and irreplaceable roles, often with little help and too often at great personal cost. I would like to tell the story of one of my constituents, Sarah. She spent nearly 30 years as a full-time carer for her son, who has profound and complex needs. He suffered neurological damage before and during birth, and although he is verbal, he has severe autism and behavioural challenges, which, through no fault of his own, have dominated the lives of everyone around him. Sarah’s story is one of lifelong dedication and unconditional love. For years, her son’s unpredictable behaviour dictated his family’s routine. He was excluded from multiple schools and, later, from supported living settings because his needs were too challenging to manage in shared environments. He now lives with one-to-one professional carers. The support that he receives is of a high standard, but it costs as much as all the benefits he receives.
Sarah no longer qualifies for carer’s allowance because her son no longer lives at home. However, as a mother she remains deeply involved in his care. Over the years, she has given up work. She is approaching 60 with no pension or savings and with health problems of her own. On top of that, she now supports her elderly in-laws and ageing parents. Like so many others, she is a carer several times over—unseen, unpaid and exhausted. Sarah described herself to me as simply “broken” from years of having no room to breathe or recover.
Sarah contacted me not just because of the long hours of care or the loss of income, but because of the fear caused by the Government’s proposed changes to disability benefits, especially the personal independence payment. Her son relies on PIP; the suggestion that that support could be taken away or turned into a voucher system has devastated Sarah’s mental health. She told me that she cannot sleep and feels physically unwell from anxiety.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) not just for securing this debate but for her tireless advocacy for carers. Her landmark Carer’s Leave Act was a vital first step in recognising the contribution of unpaid carers, and showed just how committed the Liberal Democrats are to securing a fair deal for carers.
In Wales, the situation of carers is especially urgent. Over 310,000 people in Wales identify as unpaid carers—more than 10.5% of the population, which is a higher percentage than in any other UK nation. In some parts of my constituency, particularly in the Swansea valley, the figure is closer to 13%, which itself is likely to be an underestimate. Many carers do not realise that they qualify as such, so they go without vital support.
The value of the 310,000 carers we have in Wales is £10 billion, so they are saving the Welsh economy—or the DWP here—£10 billion. Surely, we must have a system whereby carers, through the leave that they can receive, are empowered to apply for jobs that will give them the opportunity to work and care at the same time. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that having such a system is vital for the DWP’s money to be used wisely?
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The issue is not just immediate poverty although that is a very real issue, but about tackling poverty among pensioners, especially women, who are still more likely to be unpaid carers and to subsequently reduce or stop working as a result. We have a gender pension gap because we have a gender pay gap. The latest Government data sets that gender pension gap at 35%, but other organisations put it much higher. We know that caring plays a large part in that.
Responding to Carers UK last year, over two thirds of carers who had given up work said that they were worried about managing in the future, while over half of those who had reduced their hours said that they had cut back on savings for their retirement. All of that matters, not just to the individuals and their families who are struggling or to those who have promising careers that never reach their potential, but to this Government, who need to respond to the rising rates of poverty among older people while trying to reduce the benefits bill.
The struggles that lead to people stepping back from work are entirely understandable. Caring is hard, tiring, stressful, time-consuming and does not neatly fit into our free hours of the day. Flexible working does make up some of that picture, which I am sure the Minister will acknowledge, but there will always be pinch moments when care arrangements need changing, extra hospital appointments need attending or where all the tiny acts of care and admin for a loved one cannot be fitted in and around work.
The risk is that people use up their holiday, which is something that all the evidence tells us is bad for their health—as the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Irene Campbell) referred to in her intervention on respite. The Carer’s Leave Act 2023 was aimed at solving that—or at the very least, helping with it. It was the first legal right for carers to take leave from work for caring. It was an acknowledgment of how hard it can be, aimed at prompting a conversation about support in employment.
The enforcement of legal rights is not the only way the Department can encourage carer-friendly workplaces. Businesses could be signposted to a whole range of resources, including guidance from the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development and the Employers for Carers network. Carer Positive in Scotland is done with the Scottish Government, and I am pleased to say that my office is a Carer Positive employer. There is no reason why similar initiatives could not at least be encouraged down here.
As to what is happening with businesses, we can get something of a snapshot from an employer survey report published by Carers UK in January. I say “something of a snapshot” for one big reason: the employers answering the surveys are those already tapped into the networks and already alive to the issues facing carers, so low levels of reform could indicate that less reform is needed because policies were already in place, and high improvements could be because the self-selecting group is motivated to go above and beyond. But there are some really promising findings in the responses. Almost 90% of responding organisations reported no challenges in implementing the Act. More than half have a dedicated carer’s leave policy, compared with less than a quarter before the legislation came in. Some 23% of organisations saw an increase in uptake of their internal networks or support groups for employers. Many responded in free text that the law change had prompted greater understanding about what it means to be a carer, and about how people can move in and out of that status.
But there are a number of factors that I am worried about. The Government should be worried about them too, and should be looking at fixing them immediately, as well as in the longer review. Only three quarters of organisations told their employees about the new right—remember that these are the ones more likely to take action. That tallies with other research, which found that only two thirds of working carers know about carer’s leave. Hundreds of people become carers every day, and most people do not pay attention on their intranet or in their work emails to things that are not relevant to them, so unless that information is easily accessible and reiterated regularly, the chances are that salience among working carers will continue to lessen as time passes.
Even for employees who know about the right, there is a reported reluctance to be open about caring responsibilities or to request time off: 15% of respondents to the State of Caring survey said that they were worried about a negative reaction to taking time off for caring. It is deeply worrying that some respondents said that even though their organisations had policies in place, their line managers blocked requests for support. We should never be hearing reports such as:
“I work for a large public sector organisation, how you are treated all depends on that one single manager”,
or,
“My employer offers flexible working but my line manager doesn’t and says carer’s leave is for emergencies only which it isn’t.”
Given the integral need for line managers to implement carer-friendly policies, it is vital that businesses offer internal training and guidance. It is therefore worrying that of the organisations that responded to the survey on carer’s leave, only a quarter had specifically raised awareness or provided training to managers on implementing the right to leave. If the kind of organisations that are already tapped in to Carer Positive networks are not doing that, it is not hard to imagine what is happening in areas where there is low support for carers. There is a role for the Government to make sure that rights for working carers are a reality, not just a piece of paper.
Finally, there is the elephant in the room that is paid carer’s leave, which has already been referred to, and whether people can afford to take time off. I have always said that I want to see the legislation amended and upgraded. Last year, I worked with the Minister for Employment Rights, the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Bromborough (Justin Madders), on the Delegated Legislation Committee considering the then draft Carer’s Leave Regulations 2024. I recall that he, too, wanted it to be paid. He might reflect on his own frustrations with how long it took to see that law through, and ensure that the can is not kicked down the road.
I will leave it to colleagues to look to the future, but today, I urge the Government to take steps so that the current law—the Carer’s Leave Act 2023—can reach its potential, is known about, talked about and accepted in our workplaces, and that it sparks conversations on what it means to be a carer and how work can be made to work for the unpaid carers that we all rely on.
Carer’s leave is designed to support those who give so much of themselves to care for family and friends, but we must ensure that that support is not undermined by other policies. When carers are able to share some of their responsibilities with professional services and return to work, they should encounter stability, not the prospect that they will have to return to full-time caring because of sudden changes. However, proposals such as the changes to PIP risk having exactly that effect, which causes immense anxiety among the very people who we claim to be helping, including Sarah, who worries whether her son will be affected or not.
Carer’s allowance is just £81.90 a week, which is the lowest amount for a benefit of its kind. Worse still, carers are being punished for going even slightly over their earnings threshold. Tens of thousands of carers are being asked to repay thousands of pounds each, and often through no fault of their own. Indeed, many of them did not even know that they had gone over the threshold, and in many cases it was the Department for Work and Pensions that had failed to update their records in time. That is yet another example of carers being treated as an afterthought.
I am immensely proud that the Liberal Democrats, thanks to the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife, passed the Carer’s Leave Act 2023. The Act gives 2 million employees across the UK the legal right to at least one week of unpaid carer’s leave each year, which was a crucial first step, but now we must go further and make that paid leave.
Caring is vital, emotionally draining and complex work, which deserved to be recognised as such. That is why we should introduce paid carer’s leave and consult on extending the eligibility for it. We should also give unpaid carers a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks, and not just when a council can afford them. We should also increase carer’s allowance by at least £20 a week, with higher earning thresholds and a taper, so that people are not penalised for doing extra hours at work.
Sarah’s story is not unique. Her exhaustion, her fear and her resilience are echoed in stories in millions of households up and down the country. We owe it to her and to every unpaid carer to stop taking them for granted.