Social Care Funding (EAC Report)

Debate between Baroness Kingsmill and Baroness Scott of Bybrook

Thursday 28th January 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Kingsmill (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I am delighted that we have at last got this debate, and I share the frustration of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, at the time it has taken. He has been an indefatigable leader and chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee in the time that I have served on it, and I am most grateful to him and my colleagues on it for all the work and energy that have gone into not only this report but others, where we have tried to be practical and helpful and to make achievable suggestions for policy change.

I am also grateful for the passion with which the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has dealt with this and spoken about it today. My passion is somewhat dimmed by defeat, in a way, because it feels as if this is something that I have been banging on about for ages and we are still not really getting anywhere—but I am sure that everyone in the sector feels the same.

I will focus particularly on the plight of the care workers because that is my background and area of interest. The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, has mentioned them, but it is worth going into some of the privations that they suffer in a little more depth. They are under- valued, underpaid and definitely undertrained; they do not have the status of nurses or even of childminders. The sector is subject to very weak regulation: we just do not know who they are or what qualifications they hold, and they are not registered with any professional body. The workforce of 1.8 million people in England is almost invisible—that is, until you need them, when they become very important.

The low status and poor treatment of care workers have led to a really vicious downward spiral in one of the most difficult sectors for workers, with a huge amount of exploitation. It is not just that they are badly paid; most of them earn less than the minimum wage, if you take into account the fact that many of them do not get paid for working in between clients. They are not paid for the journeys that they make and are often subject to very exploitative zero-hours contracts, which destabilise their lives and make it extremely difficult for them to do their work properly.

The workforce tends to be older women or migrant workers, which may very well account for the fact that they are not given much priority within the health and care service generally. They are overlooked and, as I say, we do not really know who they are. Turnover among care workers is enormous—between 30% and 40%—because they are badly paid; sometimes the supermarket down the road is offering a pound an hour more, and they have to go. They are often the main wage earner in their family, and they have to go where they can earn the most money, so there is a terrible, very rapid, turnover.

In the context of the Covid crisis that we are suffering, care workers are seven times more likely than the rest of the population to become infected with it. There is a huge amount of absenteeism at the moment because of illness or isolation, and there is a vast unmet need for care workers at the moment.

The other issue that is important when we talk about care workers is the fact that they have no career opportunities. Attracting people into the profession is very difficult: there is no progression and it is seen as unskilled work, which it most certainly is not because, so often, they need to have the skills to deal with complex feeding methods, using hoists for moving patients, dressing wounds and administering medication, as well as providing vital domestic and emotional support for the care recipients. They have to do all of this in 15-minute slots, if they are a domiciliary worker—

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind the noble Baroness of the four-minute time limit.

[Baroness Kingsmill (Lab) [V]]

On that point, I will sum up simply by saying that I commend this report and hope that action comes as a result of it.