Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, if she will make it her policy to introduce paid leave for kinship carers.

Kinship carers can already benefit from many workplace entitlements designed to help parents and carers combine work with childcare. These include unpaid parental leave, emergency time off for dependents and the right to request flexible working.

In our government response to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, we committed to explore the introduction of additional workplace entitlements for kinship carers. Since then, work has been underway across government to better understand how government can support kinship carers to balance work and childcare. The Department for Education is committed to publishing a national kinship strategy by the end of 2023.