Carer’s Allowance

Barbara Keeley Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Ms Bardell. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) on securing this important debate. The cost of living crisis is affecting everyone, but the toll on unpaid carers is particularly heavy, as we have just heard.

Carer’s allowance is the lowest benefit of its kind at just £67.60 a week. Many carers are in arrears, but cutting back on what is spent is not an option when the person being cared for relies on an electric ventilator, an electric wheelchair, pressure pads, hoists or a stairlift, or that person must be kept warm due to a medical condition. Other costs facing carers are also likely to be higher and difficult to reduce, such as transport costs to attend medical appointments or food bills due to dietary or nutritional requirements. Inflation is rising as much as 10% for low-income households because a greater proportion of their income is spent on those energy costs. However, the 3% uplift in carer’s allowance next month does not begin to match those spiralling costs of food and energy.

In a survey, Carers UK has reported that two thirds of carers are currently unable to meet their monthly costs and that is before all the spiralling increases. Furthermore, a quarter of the carers surveyed are already having to use foodbanks. That means the number of unpaid carers relying on foodbanks may be substantial, because as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East just said, there are 11 million unpaid carers.

Katy Styles is an unpaid carer who cares for her husband and mother. She is a campaigner for the Motor Neurone Disease Association. She gave evidence this week to the House of Lords Adult Social Care Committee and said:

“It would be remiss of me not to mention carers’ finances, because that makes you invisible and impacts on absolutely everything. I went from being a full-time teacher to being a part-time teacher to accommodate my caring role”.

She then went from being a part-time teacher to

“having to give up my job because it was not flexible enough. You have to be there in core hours. You have to be there during term time. If your husband has an issue or needs a medical appointment that is out of that time, you cannot support them.

I am on £67.60 a week now, having had £150 a day. It is a very different thing. I am lucky, because I actually get carer’s allowance. There are so many carers who are not supported with carer’s allowance. That has to change. It needs reform.”

There is a recognition of that need for extra support for unpaid carers in other parts of the UK. Unpaid carers in Scotland receive the carer’s allowance supplement, while in Wales it was recently announced by the Labour Government that unpaid carers would be given a £500 payment to recognise their commitment to caring during the pandemic. By contrast, unpaid carers in England are being left to get by with only a £2 a week increase in carer’s allowance. That miserly increase would be swallowed up, from this Friday, by paying £2.50 for a single lateral flow test just to keep the person they care for safe. On top of that come the soaring bills I have already mentioned.

My hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East has talked about the mismatch between the increase in the national living wage and the carer’s allowance earnings threshold, leaving carers, as he said, with impossible choices and loss of income. We cannot continue to leave carers without proper support. That includes carer’s breaks. Funding for respite care has dried up and is no longer earmarked for breaks as it was up to 2010. Carers UK has estimated that 72% of carers have not had a break from caring during the pandemic. Three quarters of carers say they are exhausted and worn out from that caring during the pandemic. The Government’s plan in the social care White Paper for five days of unpaid leave—unpaid leave—to care is woefully insufficient. Once again in her evidence to the Lords Committee on Monday, Katy Styles said:

“I do not know any carer that has had a break. I have not had a break or one day off in eight years. Indeed, I had surgery 10 days ago for a major eye operation. I was in the theatre at 6.30 and back home caring at 9.30, because there is no support.”

Katy also highlighted how carers who are not identified as such do not get signposted or helped to access even the support that is available. She has been a full-time carer for 10 years, but has only received carer’s allowance for eight. She said:

“If you don’t identify then you’re not signposted to any support...I didn’t know that, I’ve missed out on benefits, Carer’s Allowance, for some years, I’ve missed out on carer’s assessments for years.”

In 2012, I brought in a private Member’s Bill on the identification of carers. That would have created a new duty on the NHS to identify carers and promote their health and wellbeing. The then Care Minister in the coalition Government did not support my Bill. When the carers action plan came along, it was not so ambitious; it proposed merely a system of quality markers so that GPs could demonstrate that they were good at identifying carers. Carers organisations know that proper identification of carers by the NHS would mean that we could support carers much more effectively. Carers such as Katy Styles would have been identified as carers more quickly, and signposted to benefits and support earlier, had my Bill been supported by the Government.

The carers action plan expired at the end of 2020. The Health and Social Care Committee, of which I am a member, has recommended a number of times that the Government publish a national carers strategy. An ambitious national strategy for carers backed up by funding is essential to tackle those problems of identification and support that I have talked about. I hope that the Minister will listen and understand the seriousness of the challenges facing unpaid carers, which have been outlined in this debate and will be more so by my colleagues. I hope that she will use the input and lived experience of carers, which were sent in when the Government consulted carers in 2016 to develop a national carers strategy—something they promised but never delivered.

I will finish with the words of one unpaid carer responding to a Carers UK survey this month, which highlights the situation that so many unpaid carers are in:

“It seems everything has increased in cost apart from the money we have to live on. It means that I don’t always have 3 meals a day now. We don’t always have the heating on. Why should someone who has a terminal illness not afford to have a warm home?”

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[Beth Winter (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. Other Labour Members have outlined passionately the key issue that care, as a whole, has been insufficiently provided for by this and preceding Governments. Care work, whether paid or unpaid and whether for younger people, older people or disabled people, is undervalued. Having listened to other contributions, every one of us either currently cares for someone or knows someone who has a caring responsibility. Coming to terms with somebody’s illness is difficult in any case, but to have to fight for recognition of the invaluable role that that person fulfils, and to beg for money not to have to suffer poverty, is shameful and must be addressed. After the last election, the Prime Minister stated:

“we will fix the crisis in social care once and for all”.

More than two years later, we have seen no change or improvement in support for caring.

Today in this country, accessing care is too expensive; those who work in care are underpaid, undervalued and overworked. Owners of some care businesses have been accused of being asset strippers. Those who have to conduct visits have too great expectations. The time and effort of those who care for family members is too often forgotten by this Government. As others have said, carer’s allowance at its current rate is completely unacceptable. The pathetic uplift of just over £2 is absolutely shameful. Inflation could hit 10% this year. How can people be expected to survive on that paltry amount? It is beyond me and it should be beyond this Government.

The earnings threshold is very low and blunt, as others have said. It is lower than other income replacement benefits and needs to be reviewed urgently. We need a response from the Government. For more than a decade the Work and Pensions Committee has repeated called for an increased earnings limit and the introduction of a taper. The uprating of carer’s allowance needs to be synchronised with the real living wage. Carers UK stated in response to the spring statement:

“Many carers are already dipping into savings using credit cards, and cutting back on essentials to keep the person they care for warm and to protect their health.”

People currently cannot afford to eat or heat their homes; how are they expected to survive with a real-terms cut in their benefits?

I want to focus the rest of my remarks on my country of Wales. I am proud of our support for carers and am pleased to have the opportunity to pay tribute to a dear family friend who was the MP for Aberavon until 2005, Dr Hywel Francis, who sadly passed away recently. He was responsible for introducing the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004, which aimed to ensure that carers were adequately valued and supported. The dismal financial situation in which so many currently find themselves means that that aim will not be fulfilled. It has been impossible to implement all the excellent things in that Act, which is coming up to its 20th anniversary.

I am pleased that the Welsh Government are following Dr Francis’s caring and compassionate example. I want to refer to some positive examples of support for carers, which the UK Government must look to. Last week, Julie Morgan, the Deputy Minister for Social Services in the Welsh Labour Government, highlighted how 60% of carers in Wales had reduced their hours at work to manage their caring responsibilities and 6% had given up work altogether. In recognition of that difficulty, she confirmed that 57,000 registered unpaid carers would be awarded a one-off £500 payment in a commitment worth £29 million.

There have been positive responses from agencies in Wales. Kate Young, the chair of Wales Carers Alliance and director of the All Wales Forum of Parents and Carers, welcomed the news that many unpaid carers across Wales would now be supported by that payment. Claire Morgan, director of Carers Wales, said:

“This £500 payment is an important first step in actively recognising carers’ daily contribution to our society”.

Even though Welsh Labour in government has taken more action than its counterpart in Westminster, we know there is more to do. The Welsh Government, as well as carer support organisations, recognise the need to reform the carer’s allowance across the UK. They are keeping up the pressure on the UK Government to put that right for carers, as it is the UK Government’s responsibility.

Last month, Julie Morgan said she regretted the fact that Wales did not control the carer’s allowance. The Welsh Affairs Committee, of which I am a member, published a report less than two weeks ago, saying that there should be an assessment of the potential merits of devolving the administration of social security benefits to Wales, as has happened in Scotland. Scotland has used those powers to establish the carer’s allowance supplement.

I want to remind the House that Welsh Labour in government has also introduced a £1,000 bonus for 53,000 care workers in Wales, starting in April, which will be consolidated to ensure that the living wage is paid to social care workers. That is costing the Welsh Government £43 million. I have just come back from a Citizens UK gathering in Parliament Square with Welsh colleagues that was pushing for health and social care workers in England also to be paid the living wage. I look forward to seeing that change happen.

[Barbara Keeley]

It is worth mentioning that Salford City Council, which is represented by two of us present, is also paying the national living wage, as are a number of authorities around Greater Manchester. That is important in the debate because carers also depend on quality. Quantity of care is woeful but quality is important too, and quality improves with better pay.

[Beth Winter]

I fully agree, and that is excellent news.

To conclude, this issue is all part of building towards a national care service in Wales, which Welsh Labour’s programme for Government is committed to. In announcing the uplift to care workers’ pay, the Minister in Cardiff referred to the commitment

“to set up an expert group to support a shared ambition to create a National Care Service, free at the point of need”.

That was a commitment that I made when I stood for Parliament in 2019 under our manifesto, and I am pleased that Welsh Labour in government are delivering on that. There is another way forward: a way that recognises and rewards care work for the contribution that people make to society. Labour Members recognise that, including my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner). I hope the Government are listening, because millions throughout the country are tired of waiting.

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[Chloe Smith]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me down paths that I am afraid I am unable to go down in this debate, but I look forward very much to working with him and others to make that goal a reality.

We are spending record amounts to support unpaid carers. Real-terms expenditure on carer’s allowance is forecast to be £3.1 billion in 2021-22 and to increase by two fifths by 2026-27, when the Government are expected to spend just under £4.4 billion a year on it.

Patterns of care have changed significantly over the last few decades. People are providing vital unpaid care for relatives and friends in a whole range of circumstances. Nearly 1 million people are now receiving carer’s allowance and the weekly rate will increase to £69.70 in April. Since 2010, it will have increased from £53.90 to £69.70 a week, providing an additional £800 a year in cash for carers through the carer’s allowance. There are additional amounts for carers in universal credit and other benefits.

[Barbara Keeley]

I am astonished that the Minister can read out those notes with a straight face, given what everybody has said. Most Members here have made the point that a £2 increase is an insult given what we know about what is happening with the cost of living—even just with lateral flow tests. How can she read those figures out and not be ashamed of them?

[Chloe Smith]

I am sorry if the hon. Lady thought that that was a useful use of the minutes we have left, when I have plenty more to say. She stops me to insult me rather than letting me talk about carers; that is not particularly helpful.

Like other hon. Members, I want to talk about the rate of carer’s allowance. I will start with whether it is high enough. The Government continue to provide financial support to unpaid carers through carer’s allowance, the carer element in universal credit, and other benefits. We have chosen to focus extra support on carers who need it the most. About 360,000 carer households on universal credit can receive nearly £2,000 year through the carer element, and that amount will increase from April 2022. Universal credit is of course a key benefit—indeed, it is the key benefit—for carers on low incomes, on whom we most need to target the support. Indeed, carers in receipt of universal credit do not face the cliff edge identified by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull East in opening the debate.