Unpaid Carers

Helen Maguire Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Helen Maguire (Epsom and Ewell) (LD)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) for securing this important and timely debate.

Unpaid carers are the unsung heroes of England’s health and social care system. Without their dedication and sacrifice, the whole health and social care system would have collapsed by now.

There are so many different types of unpaid carers. Unpaid carers are young or old, working full time or part time, in school or further education, unemployed or retired. However, all unpaid carers are bound by their dedication to looking after a parent, a child, a sibling or a partner or loved one. They are also tragically united by many worries: how long they, their health and bank accounts can keep going, and how they will overcome all the barriers, unnecessary hurdles and lack of Government support.

Let us talk about the Williams family. It is made up of Sarah, David and their two young children. They are no exception to all of this. David, through no fault of his own, develops a serious health condition that leaves him needing substantial daily care. Sarah becomes his unpaid carer, because the family, like so many, cannot afford expensive professional care. To do so, Sarah reduces her working hours to manage David’s personal care, appointments, medication and domestic needs. She helps him to get out of bed, changes his clothes, helps him to shower, administers his medication, drives him to appointments, does the school run, cooks dinner, cleans the house, pays the bills, and looks after their children.

As a result, the household income falls while expenses continue to rise. Over time, the situation begins to affect the whole family. Sarah is exhausted and stressed, and her own health begins to suffer. She is increasingly isolated, with little opportunity for respite or socialisation because of the all-encompassing nature of her responsibilities. She struggles to spend quality time with her children and misses important school and extracurricular events. The children also take on additional responsibilities at home, including helping their mother to care for their father. They are forced to grow up quickly, with less time for their homework, activities and friends.

Financial pressures create further problems. The family falls behind on bills and they have to use their savings to cover everyday expenses, but eventually their savings run out. The family are then forced to move to cheaper accommodation, which is cramped and not fit for David’s care needs. As time passes, Sarah’s employment prospects deteriorate because of the time she has spent outside of work caring for David. She has lost opportunities for promotion, built up less pension entitlement and now has very limited financial means. David feels guilty that his illness is placing such a burden on his family, while Sarah is exhausted, stressed and feeling trapped between needing to work to earn an income, caring for David and supporting their children.

The Williams family might be hypothetical, but their experiences are far from uncommon. According to the 2021 census, there are 5.8 million Sarahs in the UK, providing unpaid care.

[Anna Dixon]

Obviously, most unpaid carers are women and the sacrifice they make not only affects them in the short term but feeds into their poverty in later life through the gender pension gap. Does the hon. Member recognise that?

[Helen Maguire]

Absolutely. I referred to that, and the care also affects their career prospects.

The care that unpaid carers provide is worth an estimated £152 billion annually, which is equivalent to the annual NHS budget. The 2021 census also found that in England and Wales, women are more likely to provide unpaid care than men, with women accounting for 59% of unpaid carers.

The number of unpaid carers has risen by 70% in the past two decades, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, and 1.7 million of the 5.8 million unpaid carers provide 50 or more hours of care every single week. In England and Wales, women aged between 75 and 79 are most likely to provide 50 or more hours of care a week, while among men it is those aged between 85 and 89.

The sacrifice to step up and work as an unpaid carer is not without significant impact. Evidence consistently shows that unpaid carers experience worse health outcomes than non-carers. The 2021 census in England and Wales found that around one in four carers reported “not good” health, compared with fewer than one in five non-carers. The GP patient survey in 2025 found that 72% of carers said they had a physical or mental health condition or illness. An academic study that analysed the GP patient survey data found that for those providing care for 50 or more hours a week, the health impact of being a carer is equivalent to their losing 18 days of full health each year.

The economic and employment prospects of unpaid carers are also heavily impacted. Census data shows that nearly 3 million people in the UK balance unpaid care with paid employment. Polling by Carers UK suggests that the number could actually be much higher, with one in five workers, or 6.7 million people, providing unpaid care. In addition, 69% of carers who are employees report not having focused on their career as much as they would have liked to, 61% said that caring has impacted the type of employment they have taken on and 21% said that they had taken on a lower paid or more junior role that better fitted with their caring responsibilities.

This polling also found that in the past two years 1.1 million people have left employment to provide care. That is equivalent to around 1,500 people leaving the workforce every single day, which is an increase of 150% compared with polling in 2019 that showed the figure was 600 a day.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution to the debate. She is focusing clearly on those in work. I was sitting there thinking about the young carers I first met, who were between 11 to 17 years old. The impact on them is clear and graphic. Their work and their education suffers. When they go home from school they have to do their homework and have to look after their mum, dad or siblings, so the impact on them is even greater than normal. Does the hon. Lady agree that for those in education, there is a big impact as well?

[Helen Maguire]

I absolutely agree.

WPI Economics research found that being out of work is the single strongest quantitative predictor of poverty for unpaid carers. Those negative impacts of caring are particularly felt among under-represented groups. Ethnic minority carers are more likely to be struggling financially and have concerns around services not meeting their needs in comparison with white British carers. Similarly, LGBT+ carers are more likely to be struggling financially and more likely to say that caring has impacted on their mental health in comparison with their heterosexual counterparts.

The Liberal Democrats have always been the party of carers. We have campaigned to ensure that they have the financial resources, training, support, rights, respite and access to services that they need to live their own lives to the fullest and look after their loved ones. We are proud of the successes that we have had so far in helping unpaid carers, including introducing the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 and securing increasing carer’s allowance in 2024.

However, much more must be done. We are happy to see that social care has moved up the agenda under the new Labour leadership, and we look forward to continuing to work constructively with the Prime Minister on this topic. However, the failure in social care is devastating family finances, forcing thousands to sell their homes, crippling the NHS with delayed discharges and unnecessary admissions and bankrupting local authorities. We will make sure that unpaid family carers are not overlooked as the whole system is reformed. They cannot continue to be seen as a never-ending source of labour that will always be there to cover the shortcomings of state support.

Our first test of Labour’s social care reforms will be whether family carers are front and centre with guaranteed rights. Those must include respite care and a full replacement of the broken carer’s allowance so that families can afford the care. Could the Minister clarify whether working-age adults will also be in scope for the national care service?

The Liberal Democrats will ensure that unpaid carers have a fair deal by increasing the carer’s allowance by £20 a week and expanding the eligibility for it; introducing a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks for unpaid carers; establishing paid carers leave and building on the entitlement to unpaid leave previously secured by the Liberal Democrats; creating a carer support service in every hospital to support carers before, during and after a loved one leaves hospital and to involve them in their discharge planning; making caring a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010; and requiring employers to make reasonable adjustments to enable employees with caring responsibilities to provide that care and launching a young carers pupil premium as part of an education guarantee for young carers. We also want to see the NHS do more to identify and support unpaid carers, including by promoting the health and wellbeing of carers as part of integrated care board plans.

We are also calling on the Government to establish a new £75 million a year national scheme that would fund guaranteed respite care in every part of the country. That would alleviate the burden on carers and prevent hospital admissions due to carers becoming too exhausted to look after their loved ones. Unpaid carers deserve the right to a break. Many are overwhelmed and at breaking point because of their caring role. Being able to take a break is often described by carers as the No. 1 way to prevent burnout and in turn reduce pressure on our health services. That is particularly important as one in three NHS workers are unpaid carers themselves, and 65% of us will become unpaid carers at some point in our lives.

I urge the Minister to reflect on all the contributions and calls made by myself and other Members here today. We cannot let this crucial opportunity to strengthen support for those who provide essential care to others and reduce the risk of burnout among the millions of unpaid carers on whom our health and care system depend pass by. We must ensure that unpaid carers and the people that they care for receive the long-overdue support that they truly deserve.