Employment Rights Bill

Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 5th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, in the middle of all those amendments is Amendment 185, to Clause 38, which would ensure that training and education for social care workers are clearly within the remit of the social care negotiating bodies the Bill makes provision to establish, and that they are therefore considered as part of the fair pay agreement process in the sector.

I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, who is in her place, for her support for this amendment, and to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who, regrettably, is at a funeral today. I also declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Dementia and as an Alzheimer’s Society ambassador. I am very grateful to the Alzheimer’s Society for its input into this amendment.

I do not need to tell this House that the social care workforce remains turbulent, inhibited by high vacancies, high staff turnover and limited career advancement opportunities, all of which significantly impact the quality of care that those drawing on it receive. I understand that the Government’s intention with fair pay agreements is to help address the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, in turn supporting the continued delivery of high-quality care.

This has been reinforced in recent weeks in the Government’s Immigration White Paper, which points to proposed fair pay agreements as a means to improve domestic recruitment in response to ending overseas recruitment of care workers. With Skills for Care figures revealing that there were 131,000 vacant adult social care posts in 2023-24—almost three times the vacancy rate in the wider economy—there is no doubt that this drive to improve recruitment is necessary and that without it, our social care sector is at risk of further volatility.

However, as I highlighted during my speech at Second Reading, despite the clearly beneficial impact of training on recruitment and retention of adult social care workers, education and training are not currently specified as matters for the negotiating bodies to consider as part of the fair pay agreement process. We know from last year’s The state of the adult social care sector workforce report by Skills for Care that access to training was among the top five factors influencing the retention of adult social care staff, and that turnover rates were 7.4% lower among adult social care workers who had received training, compared with those who had not.

Despite the large numbers of those with dementia drawing on adult social care and their unique needs within this setting, there is no legal requirement for staff to undertake training in dementia, as I know from my own personal family experience. The Alzheimer’s Society is therefore calling for dementia training to be made mandatory for all adult social care staff. I support that, and I hope the Government, as well as the noble Baroness, Lady Casey of Blackstock, are giving serious consideration to this as part of their plans for future social care reform.

While Amendment 185 would not mandate dementia training, it would ensure that the training needs of the social care workforce are considered as part of the fair pay agreement process, which I hope will lead to improved training opportunities for staff in the sector, including training in dementia, and improved care for those receiving it.

I appreciate the indications that I received from the Minister at Second Reading—the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, not the Minister responding to this group of amendments—that the scope of the negotiating bodies could be expanded through secondary legislation. I am very grateful for her letter and for her staff’s time in seriously considering this. When I read in her letter that the intention is to put this into secondary legislation and not into the Bill, I was immediately alert to the fact that I did not see any indication as to whether this would be secondary legislation in the affirmative or the negative. I hope that more information can be given in the response to this debate.

I maintain that improving training and education for social staff is so fundamental to improving quality of care, and to tackling the recruitment and retention crisis in the sector, that the Government should look again. What good reason is there not to include this in the Bill? That needs to be clarified.

On that point, training is very often just ditched when times are hard or when budgets are tight. I refer the Minister—the noble Baroness, Lady Merron—to the Employment Rights Bill: Economic Analysis, published in October 2024, which I am sure is part of her bedtime reading. Under the heading “Unintended Consequences”, it says:

“Where businesses cannot absorb the increase in labour costs, they may look to pass them onto workers by reducing expenditures that benefit workers (e.g. staff training)”.


I repeat to the Minister that I am grateful for the work put in so far, but I believe that it needs to be brought up a level. I hope that she will assure me of that when she replies.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I too will speak to Amendment 185, to which I was very pleased to add my name. It is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, on this amendment and my noble friend Lord Hendy, who spoke to his amendments in this group.

As the noble Baroness already indicated, Amendment 185 relates to training and education for the social care workforce, which is a critical imperative given the care and attention required by the people they care for. I declare my interest as vice-chair of the APPG on Dementia, and I thank the Alzheimer’s Society for its support in preparing for this debate.

Our social care workforce is vital in providing care to those who need it. However, they have been undersupported for too long. This amendment seeks to include training and education in the remit of the social care negotiating bodies that the Bill will create. These bodies will then determine the fair-play agreements in the social care sector, and, in so doing, improve training and education, which will also make a significant contribution to tackling the recruitment and retention crisis that the social care workforce faces.

However, of particular concern is the level of training and education in dementia among the adult social care workforce. The Care Quality Commission’s 2024 State of Care report highlighted dementia as a key area of concern and, specifically, that

“health and care staff do not always understand”

the specific needs of people with dementia. Many of those who, like me, have people with dementia in their families only realise this either when they are training to deal with it or when they are working with them on a daily basis.

A Nuffield Trust report from November also found that people with dementia in England are not consistently receiving good-quality social care, so this amendment seeks to build the foundations to change that, not only for people living with dementia but for all who draw on care, through the prioritisation of training and education within the workforce. That is a simple but vital aspect of ensuring that workers receive the recognition and the value that they deserve. That is what this amendment, if included in the Bill, would do. It would help in introducing opportunities for progression and development within the workforce and improving the quality of care that people receive.

I come to this debate as someone who strongly supports the Employment Rights Bill, because I believe it introduces a number of measures to increase the protection and rights of workers. In so doing, I hope that my noble friend the Minister and the Government ensure that training and education form a part of this legislation. I hope that the Government share these sentiments and see the value of the changes that this amendment would implement. I look forward to the winding-up comments from the Minister.

[Baroness Coffey (Con)]

My Lords, I will begin by mentioning that my sister and I cared for my mother in the last fortnight of her life, and we were significantly helped by carers—to whom I will be forever grateful—in that short time.

Of course, our social care workers right across the country were genuine heroes during Covid-19, and that recognition needs to continue. At the time of Covid-19, I was Secretary of State in DWP and, clearly, the workers there were carrying out tremendous acts of heroism right across the country—but there is a recognition, in a similar way to the NHS, that this drove quite a lot of burnout. However, recognising the importance of carers and the choices that people made in taking up that really important role, I felt it was absolutely vital that we tried to get better organised, to encourage people not only to stay in the sector but to join the sector. That is why I worked with the Department of Health and Social Care at the time, with my honourable friend Helen Whately.

I do not wish to lower the tone entirely, but I turn to the explanation of the creation of this negotiating body and to one of the things that I think is key. I am not at all opposed to it in principle. However, it suggests that the bargaining power of care workers has been low, partly because of low unionisation rates. This is only 20%, it is suggested, of a workforce of 1.6 million, which is about 5% of the total workforce in this country. I must admit I am somewhat sceptical about that.

I do not want to get into a huge debate about social funding. This is a challenge that the noble Baroness, Lady Casey, is taking up. With her capabilities, I am sure she will find a way through in this regard. However, I think we should recognise that there are a whole bunch of employers right across the country, and that social care funding is provided for through national government, through the hands of local government and, of course, council tax payers through the social care levy. That is the key challenge that we need to recognise, and we need to consider how this negotiating body could address that.

I will apologise to my noble friend Lady Browning for not speaking on something. When I looked at my amendment—I have an amendment coming up in the next group—I de-grouped it because I was trying to differentiate thinking about the progress of social care in regard to trying to split it away from the negotiating body. Perhaps I will explain briefly why and then, in the next group, come on to what I suggest could happen instead.

I have already set out that I started working on this, getting DWP to be engaged and thinking through about swaps and similar things. Indeed, one of the things that came out of that was the care pathway on a journey after People at the Heart of Care at the end of 2021, leading to the Next Steps consultation. I would say that the care workforce pathway is working.