Carer’s Leave Bill

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Friday 3rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Young, and I thank him and, indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Fox, for their very kind words. It has always been a privilege to be working for carers and I have always been fired up by being in contact with carers and being inspired by their contribution and their need. It is a pleasure that John and Patrick, two carers, are with us below Bar today.

Your Lordships will know that the Bill in front of us represents an issue that is close to my heart and that when it comes to Private Members’ Bills I have previous form. It goes right back to 1995, when my much-respected colleague, the late Malcolm Wicks, took the first Private Member’s Bill for carers through the House of Commons. I was not in your Lordships’ House then, but I was chief executive of Carers UK and doing what Carers UK continues to do: providing support and leading the campaigning to get better recognition for carers, as it has been doing for more than 50 years in one guise or another.

That first Bill, the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill, was not all that we wanted it to be, but it was a vital milestone in the fight—and I use the word “fight” advisedly—for recognition of carers. We learned in that particular fight a very important lesson: it is better to get something on the statute book and use it subsequently to move on rather than risk the ideal being the enemy of the good.

That lesson was further learned in two more Private Members’ Bills, by which time I was a Member of your Lordships’ House and had the honour of seeing them through this House. It is a lesson I have firmly in my mind today as we contemplate this Bill, so ably introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Fox. Its provisions are modest—some might say modest in the extreme—but they are of great significance.

Many of us have campaigned for many years to secure additional rights to better support people who are juggling paid work alongside their unpaid caring responsibilities. Indeed, I remember very well the Caring Costs campaign that Carers UK set up nearly 30 years ago. Interestingly, it was funded by a government grant—we must bear that in mind, perhaps. It was a ground-breaking piece of work which looked at unpaid carers’ experiences of being out of work and what would make a difference to them being able to return to work. That report from 1996 recommended a week’s, even two weeks’, unpaid leave for carers to be able to combine work and care, so this Bill has been a long time coming.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, will no doubt tell the House, she has tried previously on several occasions to bring forward legislation—unsuccessfully. I am therefore very pleased that this Bill, brought forward by Wendy Chamberlain MP last year, following the absence of an employment Bill, has made it this far.

As we have heard already, millions of people provide unpaid care to family members and friends in communities across the United Kingdom. While many do so gladly, willingly and with love, it often comes at great personal cost because carers do not receive the support and recognition they need.

A key benefit of the Bill will be to raise the profile of unpaid carers further by helping employers and other employees better understand what caring is. It is too often seen as a private matter and, as we have heard, carers are reluctant to identify themselves. The word “carer” is still not well understood and is often muddled up with “care worker”—although nowadays, thankfully, your computer is a little less likely to change it to “career”, as it always used to do.

While carers face many challenges, one area that can be particularly difficult is continuing to remain in paid employment while providing unpaid care. All too often, the assumption is made that you simply cannot do this—it has to be one or the other. I have lost count of the number of carers who have said to me, “It was a no-brainer. When my mother was going to be discharged from hospital, they automatically assumed that I was going to give up my job to care for her.”

The latest Family Resources Survey finds, as we have heard, that 2 million people undertake paid employment alongside their caring responsibilities. Research from Carers UK indicates that these numbers could be far higher, because of carers’ reluctance to identify themselves. So it is only right that we take steps to support carers to remain in work where they want to do so.

The stresses and strains of having to combine work and care have led to hundreds of thousands of carers having to leave the labour market or reduce their hours of work, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Fox. Having to leave work has a significant impact on carers’ finances, of course. Carers UK found that two in five carers who have given up work or reduced their working hours to care were around £10,000 to £20,000 per year worse off as a direct result. It also has a negative impact on carers’ pensions; more than half of unpaid carers are unable to save anything for retirement. This has huge implications for carers and the economy in the long term, with many left penniless in later life with the resulting effects and stress on the benefits system.

Beyond income, staying in paid work has a significant emotional effect on carers who can manage to do it. We know that mental well-being is higher among working carers in organisations that provide support than among those that provide no support. As one carer said, “I currently work two days a week and find hospital appointments clashing with workdays very stressful. I feel guilty about asking to swap days or take time off and guilty about not being able to attend appointments. A policy that allowed me unpaid leave would be good. I don’t think my employer is aware or understands what caring is like.” That is the case with many employers, although we must also pay tribute to the many employers that have taken up the carers’ cause and aim to provide support in their places of work.

However, while the Bill has significant benefits to carers themselves—supporting them to remain in work and improving their health and well-being—there are sound economic reasons for ensuring that carers are able to remain in work. The UK economy and the productivity of business and employers, including the public and voluntary sectors, depend on retaining their skilled and knowledgeable staff. Crucially, that increasingly includes employees who are trying to combine work with unpaid caring responsibilities. We know how many skills carers develop during their caring lives—not just the obvious caring skills but organisational and administrative skills, which can be of great value to employers.

Certain sectors of our economy are particularly reliant on employees who combine working and caring. For instance, the latest NHS England staff survey found that one in three NHS staff also provides unpaid care. It is vital that they are supported to remain in work, especially considering the current health and care workforce shortages, of which we are all only too well aware.

The Bill’s provisions will also have a positive effect on employers. Evidence shows that providing carer’s leave leads to increased productivity for employers by improving their staff retention rates, reducing their recruitment costs—we all know how much it costs to recruit a new member of staff—and supporting the health and well-being of their workforce, leading to far less absenteeism. The Bill will also bring economic gains for the Treasury through increased productivity, as more carers will be able to stay in work rather than having to reduce their hours or leave the labour market altogether, and thus pay more tax to HMRC.

It is clear to me that all parties will benefit from this legislation; it is a win-win situation. The Bill is well drafted and allows for the flexibility that is necessary for it to work in practice for both employees and employers. It is particularly welcome that the Bill will enable employees to take carer’s leave to care for a very wide range of people: a spouse or civil partner, a child, a parent, a person who lives in the same household or a person who may not be living in the same household but who still relies on you to provide care, and of course the definition of “dependant”, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, is widely defined, and that is very welcome too.

The Bill also allows employees to take carer’s leave for a wide range of reasons, such as providing personal or practical support, helping with official or financial matters including phoning and being on the internet, providing personal and medical care, or making care arrangements. Anyone who has ever tried to make such arrangements knows just how time consuming that is: making contacts, being passed from one to another and inevitably waiting for the call backs which do not come.

While we still need to go further in providing support for carers to help them to continue work and care, I see this Bill as a vital first step and as a commitment that in future we can ensure them even more rights in their workplaces, and I will look forward to participating in that legislation in the future.