Unpaid Carers

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2026 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is always a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mrs Barker. You always have a wonderful smile and you give us encouragement when we come along. That helps us to talk about subjects that are sometimes quite difficult to talk about—this is one of them. It is also a pleasure to see the Minister in his place. I look forward, as we all do, to his response to the debate.

Over my years as an elected representative—it has been a long time—I have met some young carers and unpaid carers. I have to start my contribution by paying tribute to them—those who quietly, tirelessly and selflessly dedicate their lives to looking after loved ones. What have I seen? I have seen the profound exhaustion. I have seen the absolute devotion. I have seen the immense financial and emotional toll. It is a fundamental truth that unpaid carers are filling a massive breach that the state simply cannot afford to fill. Without them, our health and social care system would collapse overnight.

I always give a Northern Ireland perspective. I wish I could say that it would not be replicated in what others will say today, but on this it is the very same. We have some 220,000 carers providing vital support to sick, elderly or disabled family members and friends. That is roughly one in eight adults. It breaks my heart to note that we also have roughly 17,500 children and young adult carers in Northern Ireland carrying a physical and emotional burden that no young shoulder should ever have to bear, but they are bearing it.

The latest research from Carers NI reveals that unpaid carers save the Northern Ireland Executive an astronomical £5.8 billion every single year. That is because if staff were doing that work, it would cost £16 million every single day, or more than £660,000 every single hour. That is equivalent to 80% of the entire day-to-day Department of Health budget.

In my Strangford constituency, in the Ards and North Down area, the local reality hits even closer to home. We have some 18,000 unpaid carers in our local communities, from the streets of Newtownards and Comber right down to the most isolated parts of the Ards peninsula. They are ordinary people doing extraordinary things. They are the partners, the parents and the children who have stepped into the breach because their love for their family overrides everything else.

How do we reward—I say “we”, but it is not us personally; it is government—that immense contribution? We reward them with poverty. We reward them with isolation and institutional neglect. The poverty rate among young carers in Northern Ireland stands at a shocking 28%. For those trying to survive on carer’s allowance, the situation is dire. The cost of living crisis has pushed them to the absolute brink, with more than half struggling to pay basic utility bills and over a third being forced to skip meals just so that they can look after their loved ones.

More than 52% of carers in Northern Ireland report that their physical health has suffered due to their responsibilities. Their days have a sense of fear and dread. Our carers in Northern Ireland do not even have the statutory baseline of protection. They are forced to reduce their hours or leave the workforce entirely, with nearly 30% of local carers having to give up their jobs to care. The impact on the carers is massive; poverty, for 28% of carers in Northern Ireland, is extreme.

This is the responsibility of the DWP, not the Minister, but every week in my office, sometimes more than once, my staff and I have to take on the case of someone who has had an overpayment. Sometimes they are a carer, and we have to intervene and help to get a repayment system that they can cope with, and it is all because of a mistake that was made. I am not talking about those who blatantly take advantage of the DWP system; I am talking about the ones who come to me—and probably to you, too, Mrs Barker—on a regular basis, who have to repay a statutory payment. It is a disgrace that we penalise those who want to work a few extra hours while managing their care duties. Does the Minister agree that it is high time that we stop treating unpaid carers as a free resource to prop up a failing social care system?

I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister says he will address this, but my goodness me, do it not just in England but in Northern Ireland. Will the Government commit to a comprehensive cross-departmental review of carer’s allowance thresholds and work closely with the Stormont Executive to deliver a ringfenced financial package and proper respite care, to ensure that those who care for our society are finally cared for themselves? That is what I want; I think it is what everybody wants.

Burnout is a real thing. Without support, we risk carers not only being unable to care for their loved ones but needing care themselves. That is what the ones I meet tell me. All we need to do is look at them. I am not better than anybody else, but when I engage with them, I can quickly understand how things are. This precarious house of cards around carers must be sheltered from the wind, and the Government must do that or pay an ultimate, unfathomable cost.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Maguire]

Absolutely. I referred to that, and the care also affects their career prospects.

The care that unpaid carers provide is worth an estimated £152 billion annually, which is equivalent to the annual NHS budget. The 2021 census also found that in England and Wales, women are more likely to provide unpaid care than men, with women accounting for 59% of unpaid carers.

The number of unpaid carers has risen by 70% in the past two decades, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, and 1.7 million of the 5.8 million unpaid carers provide 50 or more hours of care every single week. In England and Wales, women aged between 75 and 79 are most likely to provide 50 or more hours of care a week, while among men it is those aged between 85 and 89.

The sacrifice to step up and work as an unpaid carer is not without significant impact. Evidence consistently shows that unpaid carers experience worse health outcomes than non-carers. The 2021 census in England and Wales found that around one in four carers reported “not good” health, compared with fewer than one in five non-carers. The GP patient survey in 2025 found that 72% of carers said they had a physical or mental health condition or illness. An academic study that analysed the GP patient survey data found that for those providing care for 50 or more hours a week, the health impact of being a carer is equivalent to their losing 18 days of full health each year.

The economic and employment prospects of unpaid carers are also heavily impacted. Census data shows that nearly 3 million people in the UK balance unpaid care with paid employment. Polling by Carers UK suggests that the number could actually be much higher, with one in five workers, or 6.7 million people, providing unpaid care. In addition, 69% of carers who are employees report not having focused on their career as much as they would have liked to, 61% said that caring has impacted the type of employment they have taken on and 21% said that they had taken on a lower paid or more junior role that better fitted with their caring responsibilities.

This polling also found that in the past two years 1.1 million people have left employment to provide care. That is equivalent to around 1,500 people leaving the workforce every single day, which is an increase of 150% compared with polling in 2019 that showed the figure was 600 a day.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her contribution to the debate. She is focusing clearly on those in work. I was sitting there thinking about the young carers I first met, who were between 11 to 17 years old. The impact on them is clear and graphic. Their work and their education suffers. When they go home from school they have to do their homework and have to look after their mum, dad or siblings, so the impact on them is even greater than normal. Does the hon. Lady agree that for those in education, there is a big impact as well?

[Helen Maguire]

I absolutely agree.

WPI Economics research found that being out of work is the single strongest quantitative predictor of poverty for unpaid carers. Those negative impacts of caring are particularly felt among under-represented groups. Ethnic minority carers are more likely to be struggling financially and have concerns around services not meeting their needs in comparison with white British carers. Similarly, LGBT+ carers are more likely to be struggling financially and more likely to say that caring has impacted on their mental health in comparison with their heterosexual counterparts.

The Liberal Democrats have always been the party of carers. We have campaigned to ensure that they have the financial resources, training, support, rights, respite and access to services that they need to live their own lives to the fullest and look after their loved ones. We are proud of the successes that we have had so far in helping unpaid carers, including introducing the Carer’s Leave Act 2023 and securing increasing carer’s allowance in 2024.

However, much more must be done. We are happy to see that social care has moved up the agenda under the new Labour leadership, and we look forward to continuing to work constructively with the Prime Minister on this topic. However, the failure in social care is devastating family finances, forcing thousands to sell their homes, crippling the NHS with delayed discharges and unnecessary admissions and bankrupting local authorities. We will make sure that unpaid family carers are not overlooked as the whole system is reformed. They cannot continue to be seen as a never-ending source of labour that will always be there to cover the shortcomings of state support.

Our first test of Labour’s social care reforms will be whether family carers are front and centre with guaranteed rights. Those must include respite care and a full replacement of the broken carer’s allowance so that families can afford the care. Could the Minister clarify whether working-age adults will also be in scope for the national care service?

The Liberal Democrats will ensure that unpaid carers have a fair deal by increasing the carer’s allowance by £20 a week and expanding the eligibility for it; introducing a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks for unpaid carers; establishing paid carers leave and building on the entitlement to unpaid leave previously secured by the Liberal Democrats; creating a carer support service in every hospital to support carers before, during and after a loved one leaves hospital and to involve them in their discharge planning; making caring a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010; and requiring employers to make reasonable adjustments to enable employees with caring responsibilities to provide that care and launching a young carers pupil premium as part of an education guarantee for young carers. We also want to see the NHS do more to identify and support unpaid carers, including by promoting the health and wellbeing of carers as part of integrated care board plans.

We are also calling on the Government to establish a new £75 million a year national scheme that would fund guaranteed respite care in every part of the country. That would alleviate the burden on carers and prevent hospital admissions due to carers becoming too exhausted to look after their loved ones. Unpaid carers deserve the right to a break. Many are overwhelmed and at breaking point because of their caring role. Being able to take a break is often described by carers as the No. 1 way to prevent burnout and in turn reduce pressure on our health services. That is particularly important as one in three NHS workers are unpaid carers themselves, and 65% of us will become unpaid carers at some point in our lives.

I urge the Minister to reflect on all the contributions and calls made by myself and other Members here today. We cannot let this crucial opportunity to strengthen support for those who provide essential care to others and reduce the risk of burnout among the millions of unpaid carers on whom our health and care system depend pass by. We must ensure that unpaid carers and the people that they care for receive the long-overdue support that they truly deserve.