Support for Carers

Debate between Wera Hobhouse and Helen Whately

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Care (Helen Whately)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone.

I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this debate on such an important topic. The right hon. Member spoke powerfully of his own first-hand experience of care, first as a child and now as an adult caring for his disabled child. As others have said, sharing such personal experiences adds so much to the conversations we have in this House. I am also truly grateful for all the work he does to champion the voice of carers.

Other Members have also spoken powerfully. For instance, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) talked about Holly, and what he said really brought to life the experiences of a young carer. The hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) described some things a Member of Parliament can do for their constituents. Sometimes, they seem to be small things, but they make such a big difference to an individual’s life. The things we can do as constituency MPs to unlock something that has been locked away because of a decision made somewhere up there makes all the difference. The hon. Gentleman really brought that issue to life.

I pay tribute to all the carers and young carers across the country. Caring for a relative, a friend or a neighbour is something that many people do. In fact, around one adult in 10 provides care, and about 23% of carers have high-intensity caring responsibilities, providing more than 50 hours of care a week. Carers do an amazing thing. The compassion and fortitude they demonstrate, often in difficult circumstances, are truly inspiring to all of us, but their task is hard. It can leave people with so little time and energy for themselves.

I come back to the numbers. There are at least 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK, and about 5.4 million in England. That is based on the 2011 census, which is now around 10 years out of date, so we know that the figure is now significantly higher, and may have increased due to the pandemic.

The last sixteen months have clearly been incredibly challenging—especially in the early weeks and months of the outbreak, when we all found ourselves facing the steepest of learning curves. For carers, as for frontline health and care workers, the complex and demanding routines that they follow became even more complex and intense due to the restrictions. Many carers were also looking after somebody who was likely to be vulnerable to covid, so had the added worry of what would happen if that person was to catch the virus. However, just like our dedicated NHS and social care colleagues, carers of all ages kept going throughout the pandemic: they kept caring and doing what was needed for the person close to them.

I want to briefly mention the support the Government have provided to carers during the pandemic. We have focused on supporting them—a focus that continues to this day, even as the remaining restrictions lift and we try to move towards a new kind of normality. That is why we included exemptions from some regulations and added flexibility to help carers, including allowing emotional support to count towards the 35 hours of care provided by carers, and relaxing the rules for breaks in care. We listened to carers’ concerns about access to testing, and made them a priority group alongside other essential workers.

There is one vital achievement that I want to mention: the fact that hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers have now received their vaccine—an important step in protecting them and the people they care for from coronavirus. I would beg to differ from the portrayal presented by the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton. Ministers have worked hard—and I can say this for myself, personally—to ensure that carers were prioritised to receive the vaccination after recognising their concerns, often, for the individuals who they cared for.

A huge collective effort went into identifying carers during the vaccination programme—identifying those already known to GPs, the DWP and local authorities, and working with local carers’ organisations to identify carers eligible to be prioritised for the vaccine. That work has also brought other benefits; it has fostered new local connections and dialogues, and has helped to raise awareness across primary care services about the critical role that carers play and the significant contribution that they make.

I will pick up on a point made, I think, by the hon. Member for Sheffield Central, on the importance of identifying carers. There has been ongoing work to better identify who carers are. We know that carers do not necessarily even think of themselves as carers, and that young carers can often be overlooked. There is a particular line of work in working with schools to identify young carers and provide them with more support.

[Wera Hobhouse]

I thank the Minister for giving way, for her response and for her clear understanding. Will she listen to our demand to look at the eligibility criteria so that all in education can be included in the carer’s allowance?

[Helen Whately]

Yes, I have heard that. I have also received correspondence about the situation of somebody who may be in full-time education and seeking eligibility for the carer’s allowance. Yes, I am absolutely listening to that. I truly recognise the pressures that carers experience, whether it is juggling caring with work or with education. I have spoken myself to younger carers in that situation as well.

I want to go further on identifying carers—overcoming some potential data protection issues—and on trying to bring together our data sources, so that we have a clearer sense of who carers are and so that we will be able to contact them to offer support. During the pandemic, I found that it was not possible to write to all the carers in the country and say, “This is what is available to you.” I want us to go further on having the best data that we can.