Carers: Financial Support

Baroness Andrews Excerpts

Tuesday 16th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My noble friend makes a very good point. As I said earlier, we are committed to supporting unpaid carers to balance the care they may give alongside work, if they are able to do so. Some caring responsibilities are extremely demanding. My noble friend may know that the Carer’s Leave Bill is currently going through Parliament. This will introduce a new leave entitlement as a right from day one to those being employed, available to all employees who are providing care to a dependant with a long-term care or support need.

[Baroness Andrews (Lab)]

My Lords, we have received the Government’s response to the report from the Adult Social Care Committee and we are grateful for it. Is the Minister aware that in that report we recommended that carer’s allowance be reviewed in the next year? We recommended that the threshold for the hours of caring be reduced so that people could access carer’s allowance more easily, and that the allowance be uprated in line with the national living wage. All those recommendations have been rejected. Can the noble Viscount tell me why?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

First, I wish the noble Baroness a very happy birthday. Moving on swiftly to her question, I very much note the points the report has produced; I read it over the weekend and it makes some important points. I said earlier how much we value the role of unpaid carers. Yes, the rate of carer’s allowance is £76.75 a week. The total caseload is 1.4 million and I think it very important indeed that we continue to review the role of carers and the carer’s allowance, but, as I mentioned earlier, there is a means-tested element here and top-ups are available for those in need.