Cumberlege Review: Pelvic Mesh

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 5th December 2024 Westminster Hall

[Chris Vince]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I could not agree more. In the case of Debbie, who I have spoken about, she did not even need the procedure in the first place, but clearly that information was not provided correctly to her. Many women absolutely would not have gone through with the procedure if they had known about the dangers—and, as I say, in Debbie’s case she did not need to go through with it.

The Cumberlege review made a number of recommendations. First, it recommended establishing a separate redress scheme to meet the cost of care and support for people who have experienced avoidable harm caused by the pelvic mesh. It also recommended:

“Networks of specialist centres should be set up to provide comprehensive treatment, care and advice for those affected by implanted mesh”,

and that a database should be created of all patients who received an implant of medical devices, including the pelvic mesh.

The previous Government published their response to those recommendations in July 2021. They did not accept the report’s recommendations about redress. However, in December 2022 they announced that they had asked the Patient Safety Commissioner to explore options for redress, and that project began in the summer of 2023.

On 7 February 2024, the Hughes report was published, setting out recommendations for redress for those harmed by sodium valproate—a medicine used to treat epilepsy—and pelvic mesh. The report calls for the establishment of an independent, two-stage redress scheme to provide both financial and non-financial redress for affected patients.

I realise that I have been talking for quite a long time, Mr Stringer, but I think you appreciate the importance of this subject. I will quickly go through the recommendations of the Hughes report, so the Minister is aware of them. There are quite a few recommendations and they are as follows:

“The government has a responsibility to create an ex-gratia redress scheme providing financial and non-financial redress for those harmed by…pelvic mesh. This scheme should be based on the principles of restorative practice and be co-designed with harmed patients.”

We have seen that throughout this process patients have not had a voice and it is hugely important that they have a voice in finding the solution.

The Hughes report’s recommendations also said:

“Redress should provide all those harmed by pelvic mesh or valproate”—

the other medicine I mentioned—

“with access to non-financial redress. To deliver this, the government should work with other government departments, the healthcare system and local authorities to measurably improve harmed patients’ access to, and experience of, public services.”

Another recommendation was:

“The government should create a two-stage financial redress scheme comprising an Interim Scheme and a Main Scheme… The Interim Scheme should award directly harmed patients a fixed sum by way of financial redress… The Interim Scheme should be followed by a Main Scheme. This would offer more bespoke financial support to directly harmed patients based on their individual circumstances and…those indirectly harmed”.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. The NHS has a clinical negligence scheme and it spends a lot of money on lawyers. Does my hon. Friend agree that victims of this particular scandal should, like many others, get no-fault compensation? And does he think the NHS should look at its clinical negligence scheme and move towards no-fault in order to reduce the spend on lawyers?

[Chris Vince]

I thank my hon. Friend for the question. I broadly agree with her. Over the last year we have seen some terrible scandals, the Post Office scandal and the infected blood scandal. When we have debates on those in this House, we recognise that things should have been done much more quickly and that we should have been much more open to providing financial support to the people affected. We should look at this case in those terms.

To continue the recommendations, the report states:

“Patients who received relevant treatment through either the NHS or independent sector should be eligible for the Interim Scheme and Main Scheme…”

and adds that patients should find the application process for both schemes “straightforward”. Again, that speaks about accessibility and making the process non-adversarial, which is really important. It comes across in both reports that victims of the pelvic mesh scandal were made to feel guilty and that it was their fault, which is absolutely not the case.

The report states that both schemes

“should be administered by an independent body which commands the confidence of patients.”

We want those patients to feel confidence in the scheme. Both schemes

“should effectively signpost harmed patients to services which can provide them with free emotional support.”

I reiterate the importance of that emotional support. Finally, the report states:

“The government must ensure that the launch of the Interim Scheme and the Main Scheme is accompanied”—

this goes back to the point made by the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis)—

“by an awareness raising campaign to ensure that all potentially eligible patients are made aware of it.”

As I mentioned earlier, 617 people directly harmed by the pelvic mesh implants contributed to the Cumberlege report, and 471 people directly harmed by the pelvic mesh implants provided evidence to the Hughes report. That shows the huge number of women affected by the scandal. I am delighted to see how many Members from across the House have been contacted, as I was by Debbie, by constituents who have been impacted by this. In August this year more than 100 women who experienced pain and complications from transvaginal mesh implants received payouts from three manufacturers of the product, but there was no admission of liability.

I thank the Minister for his time and for giving consideration to the recommendations. I truly thank everybody from across the House for contributing to this debate and I look forward to hearing from them. I finish with a quote from the Hughes report, from a patient harmed by pelvic mesh:

“It always comes back to we innocently trusted that we were having something that was going to fix our embarrassing health condition and then from that we have had our lives shattered. This is not our fault.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It is an honour to speak under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I again congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Chris Vince) on securing this important debate and highlighting the trauma caused to many women, such as his constituent Debbie, by the pelvic mesh scandal.

Before entering Parliament I spent 20 years in the health and care sector, including at the Department of Health and Social Care as a senior civil servant. Patient safety and quality were part of my responsibilities. I was involved with some of the inquiries into tragedies of maternal and infant deaths, such as at Morecambe Bay; with the Government response to the Francis inquiry into the tragic deaths at Stafford hospital; and with subsequent reviews by Sir Bruce Keogh. That is more than a decade ago.

As my hon. Friend was saying, the NHS is fantastic at its best; it is there to heal and cure. But it is a tragedy that there continue to be patients who suffer harm as a result of medical care and treatment. The pelvic mesh scandal, I am afraid, follows a long line of other scandals—not least the infected blood scandal. I am obviously pleased that the Government have recognised the harm caused by that scandal and are committed to a full and fair compensation scheme. Obviously, here we are seeking redress for the women who have been harmed. It is important that we learn from the past as well as prevent scandals such as this from happening again in future.

As has been the case with many other Members, a constituent approached me about this issue. I am pleased with the male allyship on show today. The voices of women are often not heard; there are power issues when it comes to surgeons, who are often male. This follows other scandals involving unnecessary hysterectomies, for example. We need to remember some of the horrific consequences for women such as Julie, who lives in Baildon in my constituency. Her story is similar to some of those that have already been shared. The details are pretty harrowing. Her life has been torn apart as a result of both the mental and physical consequences. I will not go into the details of her case, which are similar to those already mentioned. We must look for redress for the unnecessary suffering and seek to put the issue right.

Like other Members, I pay tribute to Baroness Cumberlege for her work on the review. I have admired her from afar for a long time; in the 1990s, she was Health Minister when I was early in my health career and she did fantastic work on maternity services in 2015. That resulted in recommendations and the setting-up of networks; we have seen progress on that as well as care and advice, and obviously I welcome that. For women who had mesh inserted, particularly for urinary incontinence and vaginal prolapse, it is vital that such services are accessible in every region, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow said.

More needs to be done. In particular, under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 the statute of limitation for faulty medical devices is just 10 years. That is obviously too short a timeframe for pelvic mesh, because it can easily take longer than 10 years for the most serious negative effects to come to light. I have written to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, seeking an amendment to that Act to increase the statute of limitation to 20 years for faulty medical devices and products. I am pleased to say that a review is under way. Will the Minister follow up on that and ensure that the representations made are followed through on behalf of people affected in the future and seek justice?

Drawing on my professional background, I want to address the points made about the products. There are significant clinical trials for drugs and pharmaceuticals, but we do not gather sufficient evidence before products such as mesh go into widespread use. I again urge the Minister and others, including the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence and the National Institute for Health and Care Research, to ensure that all devices and products—particularly implants—go through a proper clinical trial process before they are licensed. That relates to the point about device licensing. Drug licensing is very strict and takes place over many years, but do we have sufficient device regulation for these sorts of implants?

On professional regulation, we obviously give the surgeons the benefit of the doubt and hope that they were using best practice at the time, but we have to recognise that in some cases surgeons and doctors do not operate in the best interests of the patient, and that full informed consent may not be given. We have seen examples of that, even after the problems with pelvic mesh came to light. I urge the Government to look at whether the professional regulation is strong enough.

Since my early work in this area, I have maintained an interest in patient safety. As the newly elected vice-chair for the all-party parliamentary group on patient safety, I look forward to continuing to work with the chair, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt); I worked with him when he was Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. Hopefully, we will work with other Members across the House to improve safety in the NHS and address the pelvic mesh scandal and other issues. I hope that no one suffers in the way that women such as Debbie and my constituent Julie have in the past. We must protect patients for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Julian Lewis]

Exactly right. That is why my constituent said at the time, “I do not want anyone from the hospital coming near me ever again. I have lost complete faith in them. I have been lied to and told repeatedly that it was my body rejecting the mesh. But unbelievably they kept putting more in.”

Over this period of six or more years I have probably tabled about 12 or 15 questions for written answer, obviously to a previous Government. I will quote three, which were all in the aftermath of the Cumberlege report. In June 2021—for the benefit of Hansard it was question 16777—I asked the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care

“what checks his Department carried out to ensure that surgeons awarded NHS contracts for the removal of failed vaginal mesh implants had not previously been responsible for (a) originally implanting them, and subsequently (b) denying that anything had gone wrong with them; and whether any personnel awarded NHS contracts to work at mesh remediation specialist centres are known by his Department to be currently facing legal proceedings for implanting mesh which injured women who are now seeking its removal at such centres.”

The answer, which came from the then Minister of State, read:

“It is the responsibility of the employing organisations”—

presumably the NHS—

“to ensure that the staff undertaking mesh implantation and/or dealing with mesh complications are qualified and competent to do so. NHS England’s procurement process to identify the specialist centres to deal with the complications of mesh considered a range of clinical and service quality issues. No assessment was undertaken regarding National Health Service contracts or staff facing legal proceedings.”

Somebody in the process of suing a surgeon but still needing ongoing care may have no other option but to go to a mesh centre headed up by—guess who?—the surgeon who she is suing because he damaged her in the first place.

The second written question I will refer to was in July 2021—question No. 31274—which read:

“To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the debate on the Independent Medicines and Medical Devices Safety Review on 8 July 2021…what steps he plans to take to research new and improved techniques for removal of eroded surgical mesh implants.”

As we have heard, it is intolerably difficult to remove this stuff. One would think that the very least the NHS could do would be to make a dedicated effort to develop new techniques for doing it. The description of it being like removing hair from chewing gum is vivid. I have sometimes speculated—I am not in any way qualified to do so—that maybe the answer to this might be to develop some sort of technique that could harmlessly dissolve the material and let it be gradually flushed away, rather than physically trying to disentangle it with the risk of doing more damage. That may be completely and utterly impracticable, but my point is that we do not know because no proper national effort is being made to find a way in which this disaster can be, to some extent, effectively rectified without harming the victims further.

[Anna Dixon]

I think the right hon. Gentleman makes a very valid point. Obviously, from my professional background, I see myself as fairly well-informed, but the scale of the damage done by this particular implant—the pelvic mesh—is also a shock to me. It is really timely that new Members are made aware of this issue. Hopefully, we can support any efforts to continue to raise it, and I commend Members who have been in this place for longer on their work to date.

I hope that the Minister will reflect on the specific point about research. As someone with a research background, I absolutely agree with you—I am sorry, Mr Stringer; I meant the right hon. Gentleman—that more effort needs to be put into research, not only on how we might treat such cases in future, but on the remedial effect.

[Graham Stringer (in the Chair)]

I thank the hon. Lady for correcting herself and acknowledging that “you” refers to the Chair. I also remind all hon. Members that interventions should be brief and to the point.

Tobacco and Vapes Bill

Anna Dixon Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman was not accusing me of misleading the House. The argument that he puts forward is used against all sorts of laws and prohibitions. Most people in this country are law-abiding citizens who follow the law. In my constituency today, there will be people dumping fridges and mattresses on street corners—fly-tipping—because they are irresponsible and not law-abiding citizens. We will not always catch them, either through closed-circuit television or local authority enforcement, but that does not mean that we should not tackle them when they do those things.

By phasing in a generational smoking ban, we are taking a measured and reasonable way of creating a smokefree country. That is the right way to proceed, and it is sensible. I know that he does not agree, but he must accept the trade-off—the choices that he is making for the Opposition. First, he is accepting that people will pay a higher price for their healthcare, either through taxes, if he still believes in the national health service, or through the cost to the individual of their healthcare. Secondly, he must concede that, through the harm caused by smoking, he is fuelling welfare dependency. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions had a point when she said earlier that Labour is the party of work, and the Conservatives are the party of welfare. That is the logical conclusion of the hon. Gentleman’s opposition.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on introducing this once-in-a generation public health measure. As he acknowledges, too many people are dying young from the effects of smoking. They are losing out on being grandparents and on the opportunity to live a long and healthy life. Smoking is a leading cause of health inequality, so does he agree that the proposals will help close the shocking gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I am afraid that one of my first experiences of death was watching my grandmother die a very long, slow, painful death from lung cancer as a result of a life of chain smoking. That is the consequence of this cruel addiction. People who start smoking come to regret it. They struggle to stop, and I am afraid that the stolen years that they could have spent with children and grandchildren are only part of the cost. Part of my argument today, particularly to some Opposition Members, is about better use of public money and reducing the taxation burden. Other arguments, too, may have some currency with Members who might be opposed to these measures for libertarian reasons. We should not forget for a moment the impact of this cruel addiction and the harms caused by smoking on people’s quality of life, family life, and memories.

National Insurance Contributions: Healthcare

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 14th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Karin Smyth]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that his hospice, and the hospices in many of our constituencies, do great work. We are aware of the precarious situation that they have been in for a number of years, and we want to ensure that they are fully part of end of life care. He will know from his time in the Treasury that there are complicated processes, both in the Treasury and in the Department of Health and Social Care. When I talk about the normal processes for allocating money, I think he understands that well. We are mindful of hospices’ concerns, and we will continue to talk with them.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

Between 2013 and 2023, during the Conservatives’ time in government, the number of general practices fell from 8,044 to 6,419. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is a bit rich for the Conservatives to pretend now that they care so much about general practice, given that 1,600 practices closed on their watch?

[Karin Smyth]

My hon. Friend brings a great deal of expertise to the House from her work in social care, so she knows and understands the precarious nature of the sector, which we cannot stress enough. I do not know whether the Conservatives have actually read the report by Lord Darzi, but that report and its appendices give a really clear idea and diagnosis of the state in which the NHS and social care system was left. It will take a long time to rebuild it, and the sustainability of general practice and primary care is particularly problematic. That is why we took those actions in the summer, and why we will continue to support them and build up a neighbourhood health service.

Income Tax (Charge)

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

This Budget rejects 14 years of Tory austerity for public services and instead begins a process of investment and reform to NHS and social care. The 4% increase to day-to-day spending, and a cash injection of over £25 billion into the NHS over two years, will make an immediate impact to improve patient experience. This Budget begins to make good on Labour’s election promise to get the NHS back on its feet and to address the issues laid bare in Lord Darzi’s damning report, which set out so clearly the mess left by the Conservative party: the highest waiting times on record and the lowest public satisfaction. I also welcome the much-needed capital investment to ensure that RAAC-infested Airedale hospital, which serves my constituents, gets funding for a new hospital. With Labour, promises made are promises kept.

But the money is not enough: we need to change the NHS so that it is more focused on improving health, with more care delivered in the community and close to home. Those changes will be set out in the 10-year plan for the NHS in the spring, and I welcome the fact that everyone will have the opportunity to contribute their ideas. Change means spreading best practice; examples include Grange Park GP surgery in my constituency. I was pleased to show the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care this great community-centred general practice, which delivers continuity for patients, group therapy sessions such as singing for lung health and on-site counselling.

Investing in primary care and community health services is vital to a strong NHS, but as the Secretary of State recognises, we also need to deliver with social care. Local authorities have sought to provide social care in the context of severe budget cuts imposed over 14 years by the Conservative party. The Chancellor’s Budget provides a £1.3 billion uplift to local authority budgets, including £600 million of new grant funding for social care. That money is hugely welcomed and much needed, as are the increases in the national living wage, which will lift thousands of care workers out of poverty. However, many non-profit care providers are already on the brink after 14 years of cuts to social care, and may be forced to hand back contracts if their higher costs are not reflected in the fees paid by local authorities. I urge Ministers to explore those challenges with care providers and local authority commissioners to ensure we have a strong foundation for our national care service.

It is right that we ask those with the broadest shoulders to pay their fair share in order to address the crisis in public services. I am confident that this Labour Government can and will restore the NHS, making it a service we can once again be proud of. That is why I support this Budget.

NHS Performance: Darzi Investigation

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Monday 7th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

I will be brief. I think there is general consensus on Lord Darzi’s review of the issues facing the NHS, but in spite of what the shadow Minister says, staff morale is low, particularly when compared with 2010. It has never been so low. I express my gratitude to and solidarity with all the staff, clinical and non-clinical, for the work they do.

I will briefly focus on the key drivers. We have heard a little about them from the Health Secretary, particularly in terms of the Health and Social Care Act 2012. I sat on both the Bill Committees. I was aghast, having just come out of the NHS and having faced the issues. I just knew it would be catastrophic, and it was. It had an almost immediate impact on staff morale.

We must also recognise the impact of austerity between 2010 and 2018. NHS revenue budgets grew by just 1% each year—the lowest rate since the NHS was formed. That compares with growth of nearly 4% a year since then. In 2010, the Commonwealth Fund found that the NHS was one of the top-ranking health systems in the world. It was No. 1 for equity in access to healthcare; we are now ranked 10th. If we compare spending on healthcare, we are ranked 26th in the OECD. Austerity impacted not only the overall funding of the NHS, but the funding allocation formulas. The weighting for deprivation was slashed, so areas such as mine received less money, although we had greater health needs. Austerity also had an impact on other aspects of public funding and local government, and metropolitan areas such as mine were particularly badly affected. It stripped the support from people in need.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I came into politics because of a desire to reverse growing inequalities in health and disability. In my constituency of Shipley, there is a 10-year gap in healthy life expectancy between those living in Wharfedale and their neighbours over the moor in Windhill. While lots needs to be done to tackle poor housing and poverty, there are things that the NHS can do. Does my hon. Friend agree that the NHS plan must prioritise prevention, as well as just treating sickness?

[Debbie Abrahams]

As a former public health consultant, I would obviously agree with my hon. Friend. I have similar health inequalities across Oldham. I was about to talk about the impact of other issues, such as social security cuts, which meant greater poverty, including in-work poverty and children from working families living in poverty. That has had a consequential impact on our health as a whole. We have flatlining life expectancy, and in areas such as mine, life expectancy has got worse. That impacts on our productivity and the wealth of our country.

I will briefly mention a couple of points that I know my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State recognises, and might want to consider. An annual report on the state of our health and the state of our NHS, presented to Parliament before each Budget, would pick up on the points that have been raised about cross-departmental impacts on health. We should have a prospective assessment of the impacts of the Budget and the Finance Bill on poverty and inequality, and subsequently on health and the NHS. That can be done; others are doing it. We should have a strategy to identify and address health equity issues in the NHS. We have seen a bit of that through covid, in the inequity around the use of oximeters. We should introduce something like “Improving working lives” for our staff. That had a massive effect on staff when I worked in the NHS. We need a clear commitment to the 1948 principles of the NHS, under which it is funded from general taxation, and a funding allocation based on need.

NHS: Independent Investigation

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

NHS staff did not break the NHS—the Conservatives did—and this Labour Government will mobilise them to help fix it.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

It was great to see the Prime Minister speaking this morning at the King’s Fund, where I worked as director of policy for a number of years. In my constituency, I met a man who had been told he needed urgent surgery on his leg, but was still waiting 18 months later and had had to give up work. It is clear from today’s report that too many people have been stuck on NHS waiting lists and locked out of work. Does the Secretary of State share my view that a healthy nation is critical to a healthy economy, and will he work with his colleagues in the Department for Work and Pensions to deliver that?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the health of the nation and the health of the economy are inextricably linked. Under this Government, the Department of Health and Social Care is a Department for growth as well as a Department for health and care, and the Chancellor understands those linkages too. I can say to my hon. Friend and all of her friends at the King’s Fund—we were delighted to see them host the Prime Minister this morning—that unlike our predecessors, this Government cannot get enough of experts.

Government Policy on Health

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

It is entirely legitimate to ask questions, and it is also entirely legitimate for Government Departments to invite people with a wide range of experience and insight to advise on policy debates and discussions. That happens all the time. Where do we draw the line? Do we have to send compliance forms to Cancer Research UK before it comes in to talk about how we tackle cancer? Do we have to send declaration of interest forms to patients who want to discuss awful cases they have experienced?

Frankly, I find this pantomime astonishing. I am surprised that the shadow Secretary of State thinks this is such a priority that she should raise it on the Floor of the House rather than NHS waiting lists, ambulance response times, GP access or the state of social care. It is clear that the Conservatives have not learned why they are in opposition.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend on taking advice from his predecessors. As someone who worked as a senior civil servant in the Department under Alan Milburn, I would like to echo my right hon. Friend’s comments about what a fantastic Secretary of State he was and speak to his record in that position. I also worked as a civil servant under the coalition Government.

Will the Secretary of State also be seeking advice from Andy Burnham who, as Secretary of State when Labour last left office, left record low waiting times and high public satisfaction?

[Wes Streeting]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. How fortunate we are to be able to turn to every living former Labour Health Secretary, from Alan Milburn to Andy Burnham, and in every single one of those cases be able to draw on people whose record of delivery led to the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history. I can confirm to my hon. Friend that, both in opposition and in government, I have been talking to the Mayor of Greater Manchester. He is doing some brilliant work on prevention. I am really looking forward to working with all our metro mayors to tackle health inequalities across the country and to improve the integration of health and care services across the land.

Unpaid Carers

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It demonstrates how prevalent caring is in our society when we have Members who have direct experience of it. Identification of carers, or people identifying themselves as carers, is a key issue that any strategy should address.

The then shadow Minister was right that we need a cross-Government strategy. This is not a new idea, because we have had such strategies before; the last one was drawn up all the way back in 2008, but the problems that unpaid carers face have not gone away. Unpaid carers are significantly more likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population. The most recent data available from the Department for Work and Pensions—the 2023 family resources survey—shows that just under a third of households in receipt of carer’s allowance are food insecure, compared with 10% of households as a whole. That is a huge difference.

To assess food insecurity, the survey asks the respondent whether in the past 30 days: they have has eaten less than they felt they should because of lack of funds; they have been hungry, but not eaten due to lack of funds; or they have lost weight due to not enough money for food. It also asks whether they or someone in their household has gone without eating for an entire day because they lack money for food. Further, the survey found that 13.3% of households in receipt of carer’s allowance—that is just more than one in every eight—had used a food bank in the previous 12 months, compared with just 3% of households overall.

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I commend the hon. Lady for her work to ensure that the millions of unpaid carers in the UK are both valued and supported. As has already been mentioned, I commend her for successfully bringing forward her private Member’s Bill, the Carer’s Leave Act 2023. Under that Act, carers have an entitlement to a week of unpaid leave. Does she agree that further action is needed to ensure that those carers juggling work and care can continue to stay in employment, avoiding the poverty trap that she describes?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. My party’s policy is that carer’s leave should be paid. At the moment, we are formalising a system that already worked for people in asking for time off unpaid with the employer’s agreement, and potentially not taking sickness or annual leave. They are not getting remunerated for taking that leave, and I am cognisant of that.

Going back to my evidence on food banks, the research from the sector aligns with that survey data. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s 2024 report on UK poverty found that 29% of carers live in poverty. More than half of the carers who responded to the Carers Trust adult carer survey in 2022 said that they are struggling to make ends meet as a result of those caring responsibilities. As the hon. Member just said, one of the main reasons for unpaid carers being in poverty is that it is difficult to stay in work as a carer, especially full-time work.