Carer’s Leave

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Graham Stringer

Wednesday 14th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Irene Campbell (North Ayrshire and Arran) (Lab)]

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?

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

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.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Thank you, Mr Stringer.

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.

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.