Social Care in England

Baroness Thomas of Winchester Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Thomas of Winchester (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I declare that I receive self-funded care and disability living allowance. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, for securing this debate, and for her very powerful opening speech. I will speak very briefly about home carers. This is a growing sector whose growth has been accelerated by the pandemic.

As others have said, more money is needed right away to pay such carers a better wage, and for their travelling time in rural areas, where there are more home carers, and in towns with heavy traffic. This cannot wait until 2023. As we have heard, carers are among the lowest-paid workers, earning less than cleaners and shop workers. This is appalling as most of them are highly skilled. Demand for care from working-age adults rather than from older people is increasing, as we have heard, although as the population ages, this will change quite rapidly. Also, there are about 112,000 vacancies for carers. According to the recent King’s Fund report, more experienced care workers earn only about 12 pence more than those starting their careers, which is one reason why the workforce needs more pay, training and development.

I turn very briefly to unpaid carers. The whole care system would collapse if they did not exist. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said, they save the economy literally billions every year. I would like to ask the Minister what the uptake of the carer’s allowance is. It is quite a complicated allowance and is not generous, so my message to the Government is to make sure that carers are better rewarded and that the carer’s allowance is simplified and increased.