Skills for Care Report

Baroness Wheeler Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wheeler (Lab)]

My Lords, the Health Foundation has described the Skills for Care report as yet another signal of a social care system on its knees, with care providers struggling to compete with other employers and, in many cases, unable even to pay the national minimum wage to essential care staff. As we have heard, the figures are that one in five residential care workers in the UK was living in poverty, and that was before the cost of living crisis, compared with one in eight of all workers, which is a shocking figure in itself. When will the Government commit specifically to addressing the appalling low pay and poor working conditions throughout the social care sector?

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My understanding is that the pay of carers is always at least the national living wage. I will look into that, but that is my understanding. That is not to say that where they deserve, and should be paid, more that this should not be the case, but the national living wage is set, as the noble Baroness will be aware, exactly as it says: a national living wage. In terms of the cost of living pressures, the energy price cap is of course about focusing on those people who need it most, so there are a number of measures that we are putting in place to ensure that this happens. Most of all, it is about ensuring that this is a good, safe and enjoyable vocation for people.