Unpaid Carers

Debate between Jim Shannon and Wendy Chamberlain

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is great to be back, and to see you in the Chair. I congratulate you on your new position.

Caring or being cared for is an almost universal experience. Almost everybody will find themselves being an unpaid carer for their loved ones at some point in their life, or being cared for by loved ones. Who among us does not know somebody who is helping an elderly parent, or supporting a family member with a long-term illness? As new MPs will come to learn, almost every week here, we have an opportunity to learn about and mark a national awareness day for a different devastating illness. For every person suffering from those illnesses, there will inevitably be a family member—unseen—supporting and caring for them.

According to the recent census, there are 5.7 million unpaid carers in England and Wales, but those are just the people who recognise themselves as such. In 2022, Carers UK research estimated that there were up to 10.6 million unpaid carers. Whichever figure we use, that is a huge number, and the figure is growing. According to very recent research published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, by 2035 there will be an 11% increase in the number of unpaid carers, and as degenerative conditions, including chronic degenerative conditions, become more prevalent, the amount of care that carers do is predicted to go up; it is expected that ever more will provide more than 35 hours of care each week.

The Government should care about carers, not just because that is the right thing to do, and not even because unpaid carers are in homes across every constituency in the UK, but because we need them. Unpaid carers are absolutely vital to our economy and our society.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Lady for bringing this debate forward. The House is fuller than usual for this Adjournment debate, which indicates the importance of the issue. Every one of us knows people who are carers. I care for my brother, who had a big accident 20 years ago, and I understand what it means to be a carer and to be available at all times, as others do. Does the hon. Lady agree that respite for carers is an essential component of support, and that inability to access respite care will push many into making the unwanted decision to give up caring and instead institutionalise the people they care for, due to the unbearable pressure on their mental health?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for that intervention. He is absolutely right, and as he and I know, having served in the last Parliament, during covid the lack of respite care was a critical factor for many carers. It is clear that we all need to do more in that area.

We were talking about how vital carers are to our economy and society. The economic value of unpaid care is £162 billion a year in England and Wales, £13.1 billion in Scotland and £5.8 billion in Northern Ireland. We know the country’s finances have been left in a ruinous state by the last Government, and that the social care system is already stretched to breaking point. We must also know that we cannot take the contribution of unpaid carers for granted, so I hope that the Minister will take tonight as an opportunity to show that the Government do care about unpaid carers.

In a debate shortly before the general election was called, the then shadow Minister for care, who is now a Minister, the hon. Member for Gorton and Denton (Andrew Gwynne), committed Labour to developing a new carers strategy if it formed the next Government:

“There will be a carers strategy under the next Labour Government, because we value the vital work our carers do. It will be a cross-Government strategy with the Department for Work and Pensions, Department for Education and the future of work review all feeding into it along with the Department of Health and Social Care. There is a brighter future for those living with dementia and their families and carers. Labour will deliver it.”

Given that promise, I hope that the Minister can understand why I and many whom I have spoken to in the care third sector were disappointed that unpaid carers were not mentioned at all in the Labour manifesto. At the same point in the speech I just referred to, the then shadow Minister said that unpaid carers

“will be at the heart of Labour’s plans in Government.” —[Official Report, 16 May 2024; Vol. 750, c. 228WH.]

I hope the Minister will take tonight’s debate as an opportunity to make that case.