Adult Social Care (Adult Social Care Committee Report)

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Monday 16th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate and I very much appreciate the work of my noble friend Lady Andrews and the committee in producing such an excellent and helpful report.

The big issue, of course, is paying for sufficient care—we have been playing with that issue for 20, 30 or more years—but, short of a grand plan, we can leave that on one side for the purposes of this debate, because, in any event, much can be done. What I would like to stress is the need to take better care of the carers. There is a paid social care service on which there are recommendations that it should be properly funded and properly staffed with appropriate status and skills, but I am very pleased that the emphasis in this debate has been on unpaid carers.

The report sets out excellent proposals and I am sure we have all been sent additional proposals from Carers UK, with an emphasis on issues such as an improved carer’s allowance related directly to the national living wage and—an issue that is extremely important to those concerned directly—some form of carer’s leave.

I want, however, to add an extra point about carers and their pensions. This arises because the unpaid carers are all too often, all too frequently, poor. They are poor because they are unable to work, or have to work limited hours, because of the care they are providing. It affects them directly during the period when they are providing care, but it also lingers on throughout their lives because they have missed opportunities for promotion and career development. The inevitable result is that they end up poor. The problem with their pensions is that, in our current pension system, you get a reasonable pension only if you have had a reasonable income while at work; because of the gap in your employment income, you have a gap in your pension.

There must be some way of improving the pensions provided for carers who have no, or limited, employment income. In one way or another, this will require providing them with credits for additional pension. My favoured approach is that they should get additional national insurance pension on top of their basic pension to make up for the gap arising from their inability to earn while providing care; so, these carers should get some additional credits for their state pension.

This is very much an issue for all carers—male, female, sons, daughters, parents. They are all affected in the same way but, as most care is provided by women, it impacts far more significantly on women. Hence, the main reason for the gender pensions gap, which should get more attention, is that women provide the care. The way to solve that problem is to provide them with some pension entitlements for the period when they were providing that care.

It is not mentioned in the report but I will now be pressing this issue as often as I can. Clearly, it is relevant here: care for carers means providing them with decent pensions.