Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I know the hon. Gentleman had a personal loss to covid, and he is absolutely right to highlight those lessons learned. We are learning lessons, but each pandemic or increase in infection is different. It may have been appropriate to have lockdowns for covid-19, but lockdowns may not be appropriate for other infections, such as strep A or other respiratory illnesses. We set up the UKHSA to provide expert advice. We are learning lessons from the covid inquiry, and we are already taking action.

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

3. What progress her Department has made on discharging patients from hospitals and moving them into social care.

[The Minister for Social Care (Helen Whately)]

When someone no longer needs to be in hospital, it is better for them and better for the NHS for them to go home. That is why we have been working hard to reduce delayed discharges, and we have been making good progress. In England, delayed discharges are down 13% since January, meaning thousands fewer people waiting in hospital and freeing up nearly 2,000 hospital beds every day.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

In my constituency of North East Fife, an average of 14% of social care and social work roles are filled when first advertised, but yesterday the Home Secretary announced plans to make it harder to recruit care workers from overseas. What assessment has the Minister made of the effect of that announcement on hospitals’ ability to discharge patients and free up hospital beds for those who need them?

[Helen Whately]

The hon. Member refers to yesterday’s announcement on migration. First, I am very grateful to all the international workers who come here to help in our health and social care system and to care for our loved ones. Clearly, we must get the balance right between migration and making sure that our health and care system has the workforce that it needs. That is what we are doing, both with the migration changes announced yesterday and with our reforms to the social care workforce to ensure that working in social care is appealing to home-grown talent.

Building an NHS Fit for the Future

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Amy Callaghan (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

It is of course an absolute pleasure to follow the maiden speech of the hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Steve Tuckwell). He made a very compelling maiden speech, although maybe not quite as compelling for me as a nationalist following him.

It is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of my party in a debate centred on our NHS. Few know more about the NHS than the man who contributed to its present-day financial struggles, the new Foreign Secretary, who obviously is not here because he is not elected to this place. It is incredibly unfortunate that this big set-piece event in the parliamentary calendar did nothing to address the increased privatisation in NHS England. Perhaps that is something we can look forward to being addressed in the autumn statement, but for now I will summarise the issue that was overlooked in the King’s Speech.

Privatisation is creeping in through the back door in NHS England, and while health is devolved and we have our own NHS in Scotland, this has dire consequences for our NHS in Scotland through Barnett consequentials. The reality is that money spent by the British Government on England’s NHS dictates how much the Scottish Government have to spend on our NHS up the road. Despite cuts to Barnett consequentials for our NHS in Scotland, the Scottish Government are continuing to invest in new and innovative ways to reduce health inequalities and to protect our NHS for future generations.

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

My colleague in the Scottish Parliament, the MSP for North East Fife, Willie Rennie, has raised the issue of a £10.9 million funding shortfall in NHS Fife, and that is before we see the winter surge. Does the hon. Member agree that, although we might see higher spending in Scotland, there are failures in how the SNP is delivering for our health services there?

[Amy Callaghan]

I thank the hon. Member for her contribution, but I would say that there are definitely structural funding issues because of being tied to this financial Union, which is the point I was just about to make. I hope she recognises that, and will maybe reflect on the fact that being part of this Union does have dire consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

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

I know that we say “the Government of the day”, but this Government seem to be taking that term to new heights.

The NHS is top of what I hear about on the doorsteps. People talk about how long it will take to see a GP, whether their children will get support with complex and little-understood conditions such as paediatric acute-onset neuropsychiatric syndrome and paediatric auto-immune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections, whether specialists are available for support when things go wrong, and how they access mental health needs.

I understand that day-to-day decisions by NHS Scotland are not made here, as NHS Scotland’s running is within the devolved competence of the Scottish Parliament, but, from listening to the hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Steven Bonnar), we would think that everything was great in Scotland. It is right that our spending on the NHS is higher per capita, but that has nothing to do with the generosity of the Scottish Government. We get more money per head to reflect the high cost of delivering services over large rural areas in Scotland—it is simply more expensive to deliver our services. When I look at the GP services in North East Fife, I see them crumbling under the SNP.

[Amy Callaghan]

Does the hon. Member recognise that the lack of capital spending by the British Government in NHS England and its Barnett consequentials mean that the Scottish Government get less money to spend on NHS Scotland, so we are suffering as a result of being tied to this Union?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Part of that comes from the fiscal framework that the Scottish Government have signed up to. The Barnett consequentials have always recognised that services in Scotland are more difficult to deliver because of our geographical size. In North East Fife our NHS board’s finances are stretched beyond the limit, as I raised earlier. Also, we no longer have any specialist A&E support, because no one in Scotland does.

Health services include caring services. My priority for North East Fife is for anyone who needs support to live independently to get it. No one should be left taking up a hospital bed or be on a waiting list because of a lack of carers. A lack of carers has not been addressed by either Government, which is why it is my party’s policy to introduce an elevated statutory minimum wage for social care workers, which will instantly help recruitment and place value in that vital profession.

I regret that, once again, the UK Government have failed to support the estimated 10.6 million unpaid carers across the UK. Whether they are helping with washing or arranging appointments, our unpaid carers sacrifice their time and, too often, their own health and wellbeing as they care for their loved ones and others. Carers UK research has found that almost a third of all unpaid carers—3.6 million—are struggling to make ends meet, while 75% of those receiving carer’s allowance are struggling to cope with the cost of living crisis. They are worrying about money, how they will care for their loved ones, how to stay in work, and whether their work will result in losing their carer’s allowance. There is so much worry, it is no surprise that Carers UK has found that almost four fifths of carers feel stressed or anxious, and 65% agreed that the cost of living was having a negative impact on their mental or physical health.

We can and must do more to help. I was proud this year to see the passing of the Carer’s Leave Act 2023. Once it is fully enacted, carers will have, for the first time, the right to take leave from work for their caring responsibilities. However, we are not quite over the line yet, so I would be grateful if the Minister could confirm whether the Government programme will include time for the regulations under the Carer’s Leave Act, and set out when we can expect those to be laid.

Going forward, I want that leave to be paid. Carer’s allowance must be reformed to enable people to enter and stay in work, and to lift those who cannot away from poverty. At the moment, carer’s allowance is a disincentive to entering work. Given that it is supposed to be a priority for the Government to get people back into work, I hope that there might be some change in the autumn statement next week.

North East Fife is a wonderful place, often ranking highly for its hospitality and stunning scenery. Of course, it is the home of golf. I could not miss an opportunity to applaud St Andrews university, currently ranked the best university in the UK. It is no wonder that we are a top destination internationally. You would be welcome to visit any time, Mr Deputy Speaker. However, I must highlight the damage that has been done by the UK Government’s policies. The success of St Andrews university is down not just to student experience and outcomes but to its incredible research. However, the continual delays in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s processing of academic technology approval scheme applications disincentivises the brightest minds from coming to our shores. The delays in gaining associate membership of Horizon have led to funding losses and frequent complaints that UK researchers were left out multinational proposals. Meanwhile, there have been cuts to official development assistance budgets, which help to fund vital research on how to tackle the greatest issues facing the world. I am looking forward to hearing from the new Foreign Secretary on that very issue, given his previous opposition to the cut in ODA funding.

Thinking about your visit, Mr Deputy Speaker, it would be a sad trip if the hostelries in North East Fife were shut or you had nowhere to stay due to persistent post-Brexit labour shortages. I would want to show you our brilliant distilleries—Lindores Abbey, Kingsbarns, Eden Mill and Daftmill—but, again, the Government seem to be intent on making it harder for such businesses. Their refusal this spring to include distilleries as high intensity energy users for support with their bills, while simultaneously hiking tax by 10.1%, was a betrayal of the Scotch whisky industry. That means that a responsible drinker of whisky will pay an extra £200 of tax per year compared with others such as cider drinkers. I urge the Government to stop their unfair treatment and the Chancellor to freeze duty on spirits in his statement next week. The Government said that they would do that, so it will be great if some of those long-term decisions for a brighter future were committed and kept to.

I wonder if the Chancellor will pick up the slack from the total failure to mention vital local services such as banking hubs and post offices in the King’s Speech. We have had seven post office closures in North East Fife alone. Post offices used be the heart of a community, where people could do basic banking, buy their stamps and apply for passports. Those needs have not gone away, particularly in rural constituencies, and neither has the need for physical banking. In Cupar, in the centre of my constituency, the last physical bank standing is Nationwide. It is great to still have a building society presence, but what about all those other customers in other banks and in the villages outside Cupar, too? I very much hope we will see from the Financial Conduct Authority a proper way to assess how a community will benefit from a bank hub that goes simply beyond the last bank in town being lost.

Mr Deputy Speaker, I would like briefly to take you back to the joy of a visit to North East Fife. The East Neuk coast is stunning and an inspiring sight for tourist and local alike, and, in summer, a favourite for swimming. That leads me to the failure to regulate water companies and the challenge in Scotland of the ongoing discharge of sewage into our sea. This is as much of an issue in Scotland as it is in other parts of the UK. Monitoring over the summer found that Lower Largo’s beach was at least 50 times above the recommended contamination limit at least three times, its filthiness a stain on any claim by decision makers to protect our environment. The challenge —this comes from a Liberal Democrat investigation earlier this year—is that only 4% of 3,500 outflows in Scotland are currently monitored, and the 1,000 additional monitors they want to put in will not be available until the end of 2024 at the earliest. That is also true in other places, such as Eastbourne, where Southern Water has lots to answer for.

To conclude on the point made by the hon. Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders), yes a reshuffle slows things down. How much of the King’s Speech will we actually get through before a general election?

Seaton Community Hospital

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. It is exactly right that Seaton Community Hospital was built by local people. Let me expand on that important point, because a lot of people have talked to me about this and I want to relay to the House the feelings they have spoken to me about at recent local community meetings.

The hospital was built over two storeys and updated in 1990 with an acute wing, which was funded not just 50% by the local community but 100% by local donations. The important thing to note is that the construction would not have been possible at all were it not for the contributions by local individuals. For example, the Seaton & District Hospital League of Friends had a scheme called “Be a brick: donate to Seaton Hospital”. People could make a small contribution—whatever they could afford—and get a little brick as a memento to demonstrate that they had contributed to Seaton Community Hospital. The charity is still a vocal champion of the hospital to this day. The project would not have happened had it not been for the generosity of the local people. What comes with that is a sense of ownership that I cannot really stress enough. There is a really strong feeling that the hospital does not belong to some amorphous NHS: it is their hospital. They paid for it, they were treated in it and it belongs to them.

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by the League of Friends charity after it learned from the Devon NHS that the plan is to hand over the two-storey wing from the Devon NHS to NHS Property Services. The charity was concerned that this could lead, eventually, to the selling off of the hospital wing, and even to its demolition. As soon as I heard that, alarm bells were set ringing for me. It is clear that Devon’s integrated care board is keen to wash its hands of the facility as quickly as it can. In essence, the facility is in special measures, and in a financially dire place. The wing is costing the Devon NHS about £300,000 a year, billed by NHS Property Services.

I was not all that familiar with NHS Property Services a year ago. I had heard of it, but I was under the impression that it was just another division of the NHS. I looked into it a bit further, and I found that it is responsible for the maintenance and support of most local NHS facilities. I was surprised to find that it is a Government-owned company, legally owned by one shareholder. The single shareholder for NHS Property Services is the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. As of today, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle can congratulate herself on taking on NHS Property Services as her new holding. How can it be the case that a hospital built with the generous support of local people is now owned directly by NHS Property Services, rather than those local people?

In 2016, the Government transferred that facility over to NHS Property Services and implemented a consolidated charging policy to levy charges for rent, maintenance and service charges. Some of those charges are extortionate. We are talking about £300,000 a year, which is £247 a square metre. On paper, it might seem prudent to organise the NHS with some commercial expertise in charge of some of these facilities. However, we have to bear it in mind that the people running NHS Property Services are not necessarily thinking about it through the lens of health and social care; they are thinking about how they can maximise the utility of space and make savings to put money back into budgets.

That is worrying, because what I am hearing is that the offer being made to NHS Devon is, “If you wash your hands of this facility, you will receive 50% of the proceeds of the sale”—that will be to the NHS Devon integrated care board—“and 50% of the proceeds will go back into central coffers, back to Whitehall and back into the very large pot that is the NHS.” The House can imagine what that is like for an individual constituent in my part of east Devon, who has contributed perhaps tens or hundreds of pounds—as much as they could afford—in decades gone by, perhaps through a direct debit or regular payment, to maintain the facility. To hear that those decades of investment will be put back into a big pool in London, a long way away, is pretty sickening.

There has been an understandable backlash from people right across my corner of Devon. I have been to a couple of public meetings in recent weeks since the news broke. At Colyford Memorial Hall a couple of weeks ago, there were more than 200 people. It is a cliché to say there was standing room only, but there was no standing room—there was a long queue of people outside in the rain wanting to get into the meeting. People had one overriding feeling that they wanted to convey to me, and that they wanted me to convey to the Minister and to others gathered here this evening: they created this hospital and they are deeply offended by the idea that it might be taken away. What put salt into those wounds was the idea that that should happen with zero public consultation.

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

My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech on behalf of his community. What strikes me is that when the community came forward and made those contributions or bought those bricks, they did not do so to save the hospital at that point. I am pretty sure, like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that they made that contribution to maintain the hospital for future generations. I am not surprised that it feels like a betrayal to my hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Richard Foord]

I very much thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. She is exactly right. I point to two specific conversations I have had with constituents recently. The first was with someone who lives in Seaton, who was close enough to the hospital that she could walk there. Her husband died in the hospital and she was able to go and see him in his final days. She welled up—more than that, tears rolled down her cheeks—as she told me about her husband, who she was able to see in his final days.

Now we have moved to a situation in which patients are cared for at home. Of course, that means that some of the staff previously based out of the community hospital are driving to people’s driveways and providing that care in their homes. That works for some individuals, but the other day I had a lady in my surgery who was almost shaking with nervousness because her husband, whom she loved dearly, had just been discharged from the acute hospital in Exeter and she was charged with looking after him but did not feel able to look after his needs, as he was overcoming his operation towards the end of his life. We are putting some of our constituents in a really difficult situation that they do not feel equipped for.

The reason for the beds being removed from the hospital in 2017 related to so-called workforce issues. There was a substantial consultation of local people in 2017 when beds were removed from local hospitals, but I fear that following that consultation, which showed the outrage and indignation of local people, the NHS does not want to get involved such a consultation exercise again, hence the desire for the ICB to get shot of the building as soon as possible.

The ICB was talking about getting shot of it by the end of this calendar year, although that has gone to Devon County Council’s health scrutiny committee, so it may be pushed into next year. What we need tonight is an intervention from the Minister in relation to NHS Property Services, which is charging a clinical rate for a space that has not been used for acute medicine—it has not had clinical beds in it—since 2017. Organisations are coming forward with a desire to use it not for clinical use but as a care hub to provide other services.

I want to make hon. Members aware of how those clinical beds got removed in the first place. In 2017, there was deep concern that the removal of the beds was an arbitrary decision made following a last-minute intervention by the then right hon. Member for East Devon, Hugo, now Lord Swire. In fact, it is revealed in a book by his wife, Sasha, that Seaton Hospital was to be kept open, with its beds maintained, but, because of that last-minute intervention by Hugo Swire, the bed closures moved to Seaton and the Sidmouth Hospital beds remained.

As a result of that decision, there was no additional funding to set up extra services at Seaton. Instead, the ICB began charging this exceedingly high rent for an empty space. What we really need to do is reduce that rental fee from its clinical rate to one that acknowledges that there are community alternatives. The palliative care nursing team can operate out of this space, and organisations such as Restore and hospice at home carers can work out of it, too. The friends of Seaton and District Hospital are coming up with a strong business plan, but they do need more time to develop it and a concessionary rate—not the clinical rate—to operate from it. If no solution is found, the ward is most likely to be either sold off or demolished. Again—I cannot stress this enough—we need to do this for the people who feel that they paid for the hospital.

There is a precedent for it, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for letting me know that the hospital in Cornwall was saved from the jaws of NHS Property Services. However, there is a big difference between what I am proposing for Seaton and what happened at St Ives. St Ives hospital was paid for by a single philanthropist. As we have heard, Seaton Hospital was paid for with contributions—or subscriptions —from thousands of people.

National Carers Week

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) on securing this debate and on the work she does as chair of the all-party group on carers. The debate is testament to the work done by her and by other Members in the Chamber who have direct experience or have been involved in this space for some time. I have been on a bit of journey since securing a slot in the private Members’ Bill ballot and taking forward my work on carer’s leave. I wish briefly to pay tribute to a number of groups I have met while doing that. In St Andrews, we have a group, supported by Fife carers, called the CRAP Carers—compassionate, responsible and patient carers. It is a remarkable group, mostly made up of women—the hon. Lady mentioned how many of our carers are women —and they do incredible work to support their loved ones. I also want to highlight Fife Young Carers, which sadly lost its chief executive officer, Kirstie Howell, last month. I pay tribute to her and the work she did.

It is estimated that Scotland has up to 800,000 carers. My husband is one of them, as he looks after his mother, although he continues to refuse to recognise himself as such. The hon. Lady referred to a number of the challenges they face and the statistics on that. According to Carers UK, 45% of carers are currently unable to afford their monthly expenses and 83% are worried or extremely worried about managing them in the future. One of the most distressing things for me is that a third of carers are spending more of their money on products that they use for care, such as incontinence pads. The money is not coming to them from elsewhere and they are having to use their own resources for those things. Three quarters of carers receiving carer’s allowance or the carer element of universal credit are worried about energy bills and other bills, and are concerned that they will be unable to heat their home to a safe level. We know, and have discussed in this House many times, that it costs even more money to be disabled, and a number of people care for those with disabilities. We need to be aware of that.

We must not forget our young carers. We are waiting for the census results in Scotland, but the census in England and Wales shows that about one in 21 of our 16 to 24-year-olds are carers. They face difficulties with finances and accessing education. During my work on my Carer’s Leave Bill, I became concerned that we could create conditions where young carers will never have the opportunity to enter the workplace, particularly given the cliff edge that carer’s allowance presents.

I wish to highlight the story of one constituent, who wishes to remain anonymous, as it demonstrates some of the challenges. She cares for her elderly mum, who has Alzheimer’s, mobility issues and long-standing mental health issues. There is live-in care, but she still spends hours on care and care-related administration. Another source of guilt for carers is that they are spending so much time on the admin associated with caring that they feel they are not getting the opportunity to do the caring. Nursing visits happen unannounced, so they do not have proper information and she does not have the time to arrange to be there sometimes. Telephone appointments with GPs and hospitals are not at definite times. She describes putting her camera and mute on during Teams meetings to answer calls, rather than miss an appointment; that is a difficult balance for carers who are working. She says:

“Personally, I have felt unable to commit to a full time workplace based job for a very long time because I feel I would end up letting my employer down as care stuff with mum takes up so much time or I would end up too ill to work myself. It’s not actually being present for Mum physically in our situation that takes the time now but the admin and domestic and financial matters and dealing with health professionals and issues arising with carers that takes time every day. To have enough flexibility at the moment I work several part time short contract jobs and so lack job security and have a lower income.”

We know that women in retirement face challenges because they have lower pension contributions to access, and these kinds of situation embed that. My constituent has described wanting to go back into full-time work and starting the process, but she has had to withdraw because of her mum’s health. That risk of leaving the workforce is high. I struggled to find constituents who would benefit from my Bill because many who were caring had already left employment. I am delighted to see my Bill become law, because for the first time unpaid carers have employment rights, but there is much still to do. I still think that carer’s leave should be paid, because carers need and are entitled to it.

We need to think about putting in place more carer-positive policies. I have been encouraged by my work with Carers UK and the positive employers it works with. The hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who is in her place, and I are Carer Positive-recognised businesses in Scotland; we went through that accreditation process. This would be a great thing for other parts of the UK to look at. I thought I was a good employer, but having to think about how I would approach certain circumstances made me consider how I can be more proactive.

On carer’s allowance, a quarter of carers receiving carer’s allowance or the UC element are using food banks to manage. Over the past 12 years, carer’s allowance has increased by only £15.20 per week, and there is also a limit on how much people can work. I met young carers earlier this week, and the limit while in education is 21 hours per week. The new T-levels, which the UK Government describe as a “gold standard” for young people, involve more than 21 hours a week. People doing T-levels who are caring will, therefore, be unable to claim carer’s allowance. The Scottish carer’s support payment is being rolled out in Scotland, and a number of the challenges I would raise in respect of carer’s allowance are being examined there, but, as always, we can do more.

Too many carers receive little or no wraparound support. We must not forget those who are full-time carers and unable to be in employment or education. In many ways, it feels like they have been forgotten. A statutory guarantee for respite breaks for unpaid carers is important: I have been contacted by several constituents who have highlighted the importance of respite, particularly for those who are sandwich carers. One said to me that, looking back on caring for her elderly mother over the course of her own retirement,

“it was the respite we missed and desperately needed more than anything at the time. We missed doing things together in our latter years, and nothing can bring those years back.”

I wish to highlight two places in my constituency. There is the Rings, near Chance Inn, where Moira and her team provide holidays for those who want to take breaks with their loved ones. The facilities and the efforts and care they provide are huge. Then there is Homelands in Lundin Links. What has been highlighted to me is that a number of our big hotel chains do not necessarily have all the disabled access and facilities that carers need to be able to take their loved ones on holiday, and to give them that degree of respite that a holiday would give. We should be requiring our hospitality services to do more. Again, I highlight the really good work of Euan’s Guide—basically, it is a Tripadvisor for disabled people—which I worked with in my previous job at Diageo. It provides an opportunity not just for disabled people to provide comments on facilities, but for businesses and organisations to talk about what they are doing.

To keep to your timescale, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will just mention briefly that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) tabled an amendment to the Health and Care Bill that would have put a legal duty on the NHS to identify unpaid carers. Sadly, that did not receive Government support. I also highlight the previous private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley).

There is a huge gap between the number of people who are seen to be providing care, or who have provided care, and those who see themselves as having done so. As a result, Carers UK estimates that 19 million people are missing out on support. I hope that my Act will start some of those conversations, so that people recognise that they are caring. Another issue is ensuring that it is not just people doing the physical care on the ground who are seen as carers. I highlight the admin issue here.

Finally, I highlight the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Helen Morgan) on carers and care workers, which, as well as reforming social care, would require the Government to carry out an independent assessment of support available to unpaid carers, including financial support and employment rights. The Government may not support it, but, hopefully, with the work that they are doing on the cross-Government ministerial group, they will recognise that there are elements of it that they can take forward.

I thank everybody in the House who has helped me to bring my private Member’s Bill forward. I thank, too, all the organisations that have engaged with us. The Bill is very much a first step, and I am sure that all of us here are thinking about what we can do next.

--- Later in debate ---

[Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP)]

I hugely congratulate the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) on securing this really important debate and on the work she does with the APPG.

Here we are again in National Carers Week, and things have not improved tremendously since the last time we had this debate in Westminster. Carers UK wants this week to be about communities across the UK coming together to recognise the huge contribution that unpaid carers make to society. Politicians—that’s us—employers, that’s us as well; health and social care services; businesses; education providers and members of the public all have a role to play in raising awareness of caring and making sure carers are able to access the information and support they need.

Like many others here in the Chamber, I went to the parliamentary reception yesterday, where I met Karen, among others. Karen told me her story and how she gave up a high-flying job with a really good salary, right at the start of the pandemic, to take care of her mother. She did so willingly, but it was a full-on job—in fact, so full-on that she did not have time to apply for any kind of carer’s allowance. Three years on, she finds herself almost bankrupt and in danger of losing her home. I think that shames us all. I pay tribute to Karen and folk like her, who are taken for granted. They save the economy billions of pounds and they do not always come out of it well enough, even though they have done the very best they can.

I also pay tribute to two organisations in my constituency, Lanarkshire Carers, which works in Motherwell and Wishaw—it has just been recognised as an exemplary Carer Positive employer in Scotland, which is fantastic news—and North Lanarkshire Carers Together, which attends the regular meetings of the poverty action network that I have set up locally. Both organisations do such immense and positive work to signpost carers, helping them to get money and respite, ensuring that they are included, providing short breaks—afternoon caring time—and even just allowing paid and unpaid carers to talk to others, which is a huge help.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I, too, visited Lanarkshire Carers over the recess, in neighbouring Hamilton, and I heard about the exemplary award and the innovative ways in which they have approached things since the pandemic to ensure that they reach out to carers. They are a best-in-class organisation, and the hon. Lady is very lucky to have them.

[Marion Fellows]

Oh, I know. I thank the hon. Member for her intervention and for the Carer’s Leave Act 2023, which she piloted through Parliament—it will make a difference. I ask the Minister to please listen and give carers some money for the five days off to which they will now be entitled.

Last month, the chief executive officer of Carers Trust told the Work and Pensions Committee that, as Members have noted:

“Carer’s allowance is devolved in Scotland, so there has been a big focus on increasing the adequacy of the benefits. Part of that has been around focusing support on 16, 17 and 18 year olds who are unpaid carers. There have been financial payments, payments of £300”—

quite a lot of money for a young person—

“to allow them to access broader life opportunities, given so much is not open to them.”

They also get a Young Scot card, which gives them free transport, discounts and other things. It also looks as if the Scottish Government will remove the 21-hour rule for study, and I hope that the UK Government do not intervene against that, because it is important. A young carer needs the opportunity to enhance their education and better equip themselves for further work.

In Scotland, we really try to support and help carers. We know how much they contribute to our economy. It has been estimated that there are about 800,000 carers saving the economy £3.1 billion a year—that is an enormous amount of money. We also have to face the fact that most carers are women, and that leads to lower pensions. The gender pay gap already means that women do not get as good a pension as men, but the fact that more women than men take up caring responsibilities mean that they are being hammered twice.

The Scottish Government are very keen on stakeholder engagement. As with the national care strategy that they recently announced, nothing is done without talking to stakeholders. I am very proud that one of my former employees, Sophie Lawson, is working on a Scottish Government initiative on this topic—good luck to her. Sophie works for the Glasgow Disability Alliance, which has done a lot of good work with carers.

I have been the SNP’s Westminster disability spokes- person since 2020, but appallingly, it was only last year that it really dawned on me that there is a huge link between people with disabilities and carers, and how much we all owe to carers, who help the most undervalued groups in our society. Unpaid carers cover all parts of society, but they can often be marginalised. That is where local organisations are useful. I know that is happening all over the country.

One thing that I hope the Minister will recognise is that 29% of carers in the most deprived areas across the UK care for 35 hours a week. There is a real link between ill-health, poverty and the fact that so many people have to give up work to care for their loved ones. There is also real stigma, as has been mentioned. Many people who are cared for do not recognise that they are being cared for, and that can prevent their carers from accessing organisations and help from other people.

I am aware of the time that I have taken, so I will finish. I hope the Minister has listened very carefully to everyone in the Chamber, and will consider what is happening in Scotland. This is an important issue, and it needs to be addressed, especially now, during this cost of living crisis.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Maria Caulfield]

I have just been very clear that we are investing about £200 million in that workforce. In the hon. Lady’s area, there were staffing pressures during the omicron variant, with high levels of staff sickness, which meant that South Tyneside District Hospital had to make that difficult decision. My understanding is that those staffing numbers are much better, particularly for sickness absence. If she is struggling to find out from the trust when it hopes to reopen the unit, I am very happy to meet her and members of the trust.

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

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Sajid Javid)]

Today, we remember the 72 people who lost their lives and their loved ones affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy five years ago.

In the Department of Health and Social Care, we are getting on with the job. We are focused on tackling the covid backlogs. Our new community diagnostic centres are springing up in towns and cities across the country, with 90 of the 160 planned already open and 1 million more tests, checks and scans already delivered. Last week, I set out our plans to modernise health and social care leadership, accepting all the recommendations of the leadership review by General Sir Gordon Messenger and Dame Linda Pollard. Just yesterday, I launched our new data strategy, called “Data saves lives”, to close the digital divide between health and care.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Last month, the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation published an interim statement on the autumn booster programme, in which—once again—unpaid carers have not been included. It is vital that they have equal access to vaccines to paid carers to keep their loved ones safe, as they continue to do right now. Will the Secretary of State advise me when we might receive a final statement from the JCVI on the autumn booster programme?

[Sajid Javid]

I thank the hon. Lady for raising the importance of getting vaccinations right. She will know that we rely on the independent advice of our clinicians—the committee known as the JCVI—and I think it is right that it is independent. Ultimately, it decides on its advice, and it is for Ministers whether to accept it. However, she has made an important point about unpaid carers, and I will ask the JCVI to see if that can be properly considered in the autumn booster review.

Covid-19 Update

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My right hon. Friend makes a very important point about the non-covid health impacts of these measures and of the measures we had in the past. She makes a very fair point about the potential impact on mental health, and we have to accept there will be an impact, but there will also be an impact on the economy and individuals’ education. I accept that point, but I hope she accepts that, to the extent measures are necessary to save lives and to prevent unsustainable pressure on the NHS, it is better to take measures now that might mean bigger, more impactful measures are avoided in future.

On the vaccination data, I referred in my statement to the data that Pfizer published, I believe, today and to a study on transmissibility that was published by the South Africans yesterday. If my right hon. Friend is speaking about other data, I would be happy to know which specific data she is referring to and I will see what more we can publish.

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

When I was on the estate a couple of weeks ago, I was unable to get tested—I had missed the boat—so I had to get lateral flow tests from the local chemist. There was an additional step in which I had to enter a code to get the code to go to the chemist to get my testing kit. That is not the case in Scotland. If we are moving to daily tests for contacts, will we make it easier for people to access lateral flow tests?

[Sajid Javid]

I will look into whether it can be made even easier for people to access lateral flow tests, but I hope the hon. Lady was reassured when I said that we have plenty of these tests and we will make them as easily available as possible.

Covid-19 Update

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

Let me try to unpack my hon. Friend’s question. First, no decision has been made on vaccinating 12 to 15-year-olds who are healthy. We are vaccinating those who are vulnerable. We will not pre-empt the important work that the chief medical officers are doing and on which they are experts. Operationally, we have the infrastructure to be able to deal with both programmes.

The flu and covid booster campaigns are the largest endeavours. As I said earlier, in some weeks we will probably break the record that we set in the original covid vaccination programme. The flu vaccine is traditionally delivered through the brilliant work of GPs and, of course, community pharmacies, and they are doing that again. They have raised their ambition and ordered more than they did last year—which was a record-breaking year—and we have procured centrally as well. I can reassure my hon. Friend that that is our priority. I worry very much about a bad flu season this year, which is why we have been so much more ambitious in that regard, as well as on the covid booster campaign.

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

In his statement, the Minister emphasised that universities should get double jags, but before the recess I highlighted the case of students who had had a jag in Scotland and a jag in England, and had been unable to travel abroad because their covid certification was not clear. At the time, someone from NHS Digital said that they were working on doing the same in England with the NHS covid pass. Given that people who have jags in different parts of the four nations may be discriminated against by vaccine passports, can the Minister provide an update on how that is progressing?

Support for Carers

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Westminster Hall

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on securing this very important debate; reflecting on his own family experiences, he has been championing carers for some time.

Our unpaid carers ought to be supported for the vital work that they do for their loved ones, not left to struggle and, as in far too many cases, left to rely on services such as food banks. Other Members have outlined the importance of unpaid carers and the many difficulties that they face. As my party’s Department for Work and Pensions spokes- person, I will take a moment to outline what we are talking about when it comes to the carer’s allowance. To be entitled to carer’s allowance, a person must be at least 16 years old, which obviously leaves out some of the young carers whom Members have already mentioned. They must spend at least 35 hours a week caring for someone in receipt of a qualifying disability benefit. They must earn less than £128 a week and not be in full-time education or studying for 21 hours or more a week—we can see more exclusions there—and not be subject to the no recourse to public funds immigration rule. Carer’s allowance is non-contributory. It is not dependent on someone’s national insurance record, and it is not means-tested, but it is taxable. As other Members have mentioned, the weekly rate is currently £67.25.

I want to highlight the overlapping benefits rule. There are 1 million claimants who meet the requirements for entitlement to carer’s allowance, and the hon. Member for Bootle (Peter Dowd) referred to the likely number of carers in the UK who do not receive benefits. Just over 900,000 receive the payments, and that is mainly because of the overlapping benefits rule. If someone receives another overlapping income replacement benefit worth at least £67.25 a week, they do not receive carer’s allowance. If the overlapping benefit is worth less than £67.25 a week, their carer’s allowance payments are reduced so that the total is £67.25. What does that mean? In his anecdote about his constituent, my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross mentioned that the gentleman was on a low pension income. The reality is that the overlapping benefits rule impacts most on people receiving a state pension. Some 79% of claimants who are entitled to carer’s allowance but who are not receiving it are aged 66 or over. To put it another way, 92% of eligible claimants aged 65 or under receive carer’s allowance, but 97% of eligible claimants aged 66 or over do not do so.

Simply put, £67.25 is not enough of an income and does not reflect the value that we as a society put on the work of carers. It is less than £2 an hour for 35 hours each week, and we know that full-time caring is not limited to 9 am to 5 pm on Monday to Friday. Of course, people who care for others do not do so for payment; they do it out of love. However, that is not a reason to leave so many people in poverty, from which they have no means of extracting themselves.

Many of my constituents have written to me, asking for a fairer system that recognises the contribution of carers and that does not penalise them if they manage to balance unpaid caring and work—a system that truly understands the needs of those it serves and that recognises circumstances whereby carers may be delivering care to more than one person, such as an elderly relative and a disabled child. I have constituents who have stopped receiving carer’s allowance but have continued having sums deducted from their universal credit. Like other Members, I have constituents who are simply in dire need of a break, but who cannot afford respite because of the limits on personal budgets. I also have constituents who are pushed on to the breadline because of payment deductions, clawbacks and inflexible assessment periods.

Unpaid carers, almost three quarters of whom are women, have simply been forgotten by the Government, who increased universal credit and working tax credit basic elements by £20 a week during the pandemic but who failed to offer such support to those on legacy benefits—predominantly disabled people and their unpaid carers. It is true that my constituents in North East Fife are able to claim a supplement of £8.83 each week from the Scottish Government. Although that helps, and I recognise the Scottish Government’s more compassionate approach, it is still simply a fraction of what is needed. That is why the Liberal Democrats are calling for an immediate increase to carer’s allowance of £1,000 a year, with a £20 increase to the universal credit carer’s element, in order to prevent this from being a deduction that is immediately offset by other reductions, as I have referred to.

Our unpaid carers are all too often our unsung heroes, and I want to recognise groups in North East Fife that provide support to carers and those for whom they care—specifically, the Fife Carers Centre, its North East Fife wellbeing group, and Families First in St Andrews, which I have had the privilege of visiting. This debate gives us the opportunity to sing their praises, and we must keep fighting for a just system of benefits payments to support the most vulnerable in our society.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Wendy Chamberlain was online, so let us go to Wendy. Welcome, Wendy.

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

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. When I return to my constituency of North East Fife, I will cross into Scotland, where the mandating of face masks is likely to continue. Is it the Government’s expectation that passengers will wear a mask only when they cross into Scotland—or, indeed, Wales? What consultation has happened with the Home Office in relation to guidance to the British Transport police? Do the Government accept that a lack of a four-nations approach to such measures is not helpful?

[Sajid Javid]

Throughout the pandemic, my predecessor and other Ministers have rightly been working with the devolved Administrations, and of course that work continues; it will remain a priority. I myself have already started weekly meetings with all my counterparts in the devolved Administrations. We discuss a number of issues and keep each other informed, but we also respect that in certain areas, in dealing with this pandemic, we may take a different course.

Covid-Secure Borders

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Commons Chamber

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

During the covid pandemic, it is vital that we have ways to manage our borders to allow for travel where it is safe, as well as protecting our population at home. However, this motion talks about the UK’s borders, but we know that the position is not that straightforward.

International travel has sadly been yet another example of a failure of our four-nations approach to tackling the pandemic across the UK. Until very recent weeks, different rules were in place across the four nations, with travellers from some countries arriving in England and being able to quarantine at home, while those arriving in Scotland, for example, needed to quarantine in a hotel. Even now, when we are seeing an alignment in the traffic light system, confusing as it is, there are differences with Scotland. For example, it does not have a test to release scheme. Just because Scotland has done it differently does not mean that it has always done it better. The Scottish Government, like the UK Government, acted too slowly last summer, failing to protect against new variants entering the country or to set up a test, trace and isolate infrastructure effectively to prevent a second wave. During that time, the quarantined travellers’ spot-check target was missed for four months in a row, which was highlighted by my colleague and friend the MSP for North-East Fife.

What we have seen across the UK is no clarity or certainty, which is exactly what is required to enable public confidence. There is no clarity or certainty for the tourism industry or for those wanting to reunite with family members abroad who see a narrative of desperate holidaymakers and watch others here with their loved ones. There is insufficient support for those who need to isolate and still not enough funding available for tourism businesses that have no customers. This is not just about vaccine success in the UK. UK-inbound tourism is vital to North-East Fife, particularly in relation to golf, which I have highlighted several times in this House. This lack of clarity and certainty devastates the industry, with cancellations in 2020 and now in 2021.

Most of all, a lack of a meaningful four-nations approach leads to confusion. If people do not understand the rules, or do not understand why the rules are different across the UK, despite best intentions, they end up not following them. I was contacted by one constituent, a seafarer, who was subject to different rules and quarantine, depending on where he returned to in the UK. He was reaching out to my office in the hope that I could provide clarity, but there are simply inconsistencies. We see the risks of that confusion now as the delta variant, which many have already spoken about, has quickly become the most prevalent variant across the UK in recent weeks.

If the UK Government had worked properly with the Governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland and taken a more joined-up approach, clear rules could have been agreed and adhered to consistently. This problem will not be solved until the covid-19 pandemic has been tackled globally, and although I welcome the UK Government and G7 pledges on vaccinations, they are simply not enough. Until the pandemic is tackled globally, we need to find a way for safe travel, proper border checks, clear rules and support for those who need it, and to do that in the UK, we need the four nations working together.