Carers

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for improving the lives of carers.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare an interest as vice-president of Carers UK.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Earl Howe)]

My Lords, we understand the urgency of reforming both the NHS and the social care system to provide more control to individuals and their carers. The coalition agreement makes it clear that we will,

“extend … personal budgets to give people and their carers more control … We will use direct payments to carers and better community-based provision to improve access to respite care”,

and we will,

“extend the right to request flexible working to all employees”,

including carers.

[Baroness Pitkeathley]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that helpful reply. In national Carers Week, I am sure that millions of carers will be glad to hear of the Government’s commitment to support all that carers do. In their national carers strategy published in 2007, the previous Government pledged that no carer would be in financial hardship by 2018. Are the coalition Government planning to honour that pledge?

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness for all that she has done over the years to highlight the work of carers and their needs—indeed, the Government are very pleased to support Carers Week. We are entirely supportive of the ambitions set out in the previous Government’s strategy. We naturally need to focus on delivering the things that will have the greatest impact on improving carers’ lives. I think that there will be three strands to that. The first is to make sure that carers are able to stay in work if they wish to. The second is to help carers who wish to get back into work to return to employment—Jobcentre Plus has in train a number of initiatives in that regard. The third is the safety net of benefits and we will review the benefits system in a way that encourages, among other things, fairness.