Young Carers Support

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for young carers.

It is a privilege to move the motion with you in the Chair, Mr Owen. One of the special things about being a Member of Parliament is the opportunity we are given to find out more about the extraordinary people in the communities that we represent. Following my election back in 2010, there are few more extraordinary people who I have come into contact with than the young carers I have come to know.

John, for example, is 17 years old now and started caring for his mum when he was 10 years old. She has fibromyalgia. John says:

“This causes her muscles and bones to become weak and most of the time she is unable to walk or even get out of bed. As a young carer, I help my mum with shopping and things inside and outside of the house. I don’t get much time to go out with my mates or have much time to myself. My life is different because I am looking after my mum, making sure she is taking her tablets and eating and drinking.”

John was one of eight young people from Sheffield who I took to meet the Prime Minister last May. I thank the Prime Minister—she has one or two other things on right now—for finding time to sit down for half an hour with us. Another one of the group was Holly. She is now 14 years old but she started caring for her mum and her sister around the age of four or five. Her mum has an underactive thyroid and her sister has a reflux in her right kidney. Holly says of their life:

“I don’t get much time to be a child or to spend time with friends. I don’t mind, but it sometimes gets really frustrating if I can’t sit down for five minutes or so. My life is different to young people who aren’t carers, because I struggle a lot with life and have people to care for. They get to be kids and live their life. I still get to live my life but I have to an adult and I have to be very careful. The highs are that I get to spend lots of time with my mum and my sister. The lows are that I have no other family around, so it is just the three of us. It is very painful for me and very emotional to have to watch my sister screaming in agony.”

Holly and John are the lucky ones, because they have made contact with Sheffield Young Carers, of which I am proud to be a patron. They are getting tremendous support and the opportunity to meet and share their experience with others in the same position, but most young carers are hidden from view. One in 12 children and young people is taking on mid to high-level care for a family member. Their average age is just 12 years old, the average annual income for their families is £5,000 lower than others, 68% are bullied at school, 26% are being bullied about their caring role, 45% report a mental health problem, they achieve nine grades lower at GCSE and they are four times more likely to drop out of further and higher education. The right support is vital, and we owe them nothing less.

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

This is such an important issue, and I am glad that my hon. Friend is raising it. He has said, quite rightly, that in many cases young carers are unidentified within the system. Does he agree that it is important that schools and GPs, who will have contact with the people the young carers are caring for, do all they can to try to make sure that young carers are flagged up in the system, so they get the support that they need?

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. She anticipates my next point, which is how important it is that we as a society identify young carers. When I sat down with our young carers in Sheffield and asked them what their priorities were, typically selflessly they put that at the top. They were not thinking of themselves but of the others who had not come into contact with the local group. As she points out, schools and GPs are in the best position to play that role.

Ending Exploitation in Supermarket Supply Chains

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Paul Blomfield

Thursday 18th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Kerry McCarthy]

I agree. That is very much about the complexity of the supply chain and the need for greater transparency.

If the supermarkets and the big food companies act, that could make a huge difference. Oxfam has found that all the major supermarkets in the UK—Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrisons, Lidl and Aldi—lack sufficient policies to protect the human rights of the people they rely on to produce our food. Oxfam’s “Behind the barcodes” scorecard provides supermarkets with a rating based on their transparency, accountability and treatment of workers, farmers and women. Aldi languishes at 1%, while Morrisons and Lidl are at 5%. The highest scoring is Tesco, at a still fairly unimpressive 23%. However, I was pleased that Tesco came along to the joint APPG meeting yesterday, and it seems very willing to try to improve that score.

There are key actions supermarkets can take, from conducting human rights due diligence in line with UN guiding principles on business and human rights to respecting living wage and income benchmarks in supplier negotiations. Needless to say, they should be paying their own staff the living wage too. Supermarkets need to end the fantasy of social audits, which are almost entirely for PR purposes. They need to engage constructively with trade unions throughout the supply chain that are working to ensure real living wages, root out bad practices and provide a route for whistleblowers—whether that is Unite and the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union in the UK; Nautilus, the seafarers union, which has already been mentioned; or global framework agreements with the International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers Associations.

The Government can also do more. With the Modern Slavery Act 2015, the UK became the first country in the world to require large businesses to report on the steps they are taking to eliminate slavery from their supply chains, but there have been only 13 convictions in the past 18 months. The Government must do more to ensure that all businesses are compliant with the law, with tough financial penalties if they are not. A new evidence briefing from the Independent Anti-slavery Commissioner and the University of Nottingham has found that just 19% of the agriculture sector is abiding by the terms of the Modern Slavery Act.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is right to mention the role of the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, and I am sure she agrees that the independence of that role is critical to its success in unrolling the strategy and holding the Government to account. The first commissioner, Kevin Hyland, who did a great job, took a strong stance in calling for enhanced application of the transparency in supply chains section, but he cited Home Office interference as one reason he has resigned from his post. The job application for his successor impedes that independence by requiring them to set a programme of work with the Home Office and to have their performance appraised by the Home Office. Does she agree that it is vital that the Minister gives us the assurance that the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner can operate with true independence?

[Kerry McCarthy]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point, and I certainly hope that the Minister will reply to it in her winding-up speech.

As I said, only 19% of the agricultural sector is abiding by the terms of the Modern Slavery Act. By contrast, the rate of compliance with the new gender pay gap reporting rules was 87% on day one of the first year of reporting.