Support for Carers

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Thursday 22nd July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) on securing the debate. His speaking about his personal experiences over many years was powerful; the House is often at its best when people share such experiences. I am sure many carers across the country will have heard what he said and been grateful to him for raising those points.

My main argument is that transforming support for families who care for elderly and disabled relatives must be at the heart of any plan for social care reform. This will be a critical test of whether the Prime Minister finally delivers on his promise to

“fix the crisis in social care”,

which he made two years ago on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street. That is vital for the 11.5 million unpaid family carers in England, who provide the vast majority of care and support in this country, but who are all too often relegated to the bottom of the list when it comes to attention, investment or reform.

This is vital, too, for the taxpayer, because if unpaid carers’ own physical and mental health suffer, or they can no longer provide support for the people they love, which means more people end up using more expensive NHS services, the cost to the public purse will be far greater. It is vital for our wider economy. If millions of people struggle to balance their work and caring responsibilities and end up having to give work up or reduce their hours because they cannot get the support they need, they will lose their income, employers will lose those people’s skills and the Treasury will lose taxes. We have never been able to afford that, let alone now, as we begin to emerge from the horrors of covid-19.

In this century of ageing, we cannot build a better future for our country without transforming social care, and unpaid family carers must be at the heart of our plans. Even before covid-19 struck, millions of family carers were struggling to look after the people they love most following a decade of cuts to local authority budgets. I will talk briefly about what I think are the two most important issues that have been raised with me in talking to carers across the country. I also want to thank Carers UK for organising so many events both before and during the pandemic, as well as in my constituency of Leicester West.

The first thing that many families say is what a battle it is to try to find your way around the system of the NHS and social care. My constituent David Towers is a self-employed carpenter. When his parents fell ill, he rang me to say, “Am I going wrong here, Liz? I don’t understand. I have to organise everything and tell my story time and again. I don’t know what my rights are. I don’t know any information. Is this how it is supposed to be?” I answered, no, that is not how it is supposed to be, but we do not have the changes in the system to pull things together.

The second issue is that of breaks. Even before the pandemic struck, almost half of family carers had not had a proper break from their caring for five years. The stress and the strain that that puts on people are huge. I vividly remember speaking to an unpaid family carer called Della during an event organised by Carers UK. Della was looking after her husband who had been very poorly. She told me she used to go for a half-hour swim in the mornings. That was all she wanted. It was her dream to have just half an hour. She was not asking for much—just that space and time for herself. Surely, in the 21st century, in one of the richest countries in the world, that is something we can deliver.

We know that the situation has got worse since the pandemic struck. People who were already family carers are doing even more hours, and an extra 4.5 million people have taken on new caring responsibilities. At one of my recent surgeries, an unpaid family carer said, “Liz, I am done. You cannot pour from an empty cup. I have nothing left to give.” She was looking after her mum, so she had no choice. For new carers, the pandemic has been hugely stressful. People have been very frightened of infecting the person they care about, and they have not known what support is out there. They get even fewer breaks, money is running out and they were almost completely absent from all the focus during the pandemic.

In Leicester, we have been working hard to address the problem. Over the past nine months, I have brought together our local hospital, ambulance service, primary care, the city council, mental health community services, voluntary groups such as CLASP—the Carers Centre and Age UK, and unpaid family carers. We have talked about how to improve the system. We are working together better to identify family carers, because most people do not consider themselves carers. They are a son, a daughter, a husband or a wife trying to look after the person they love. We want to make simple information more widely available and to have much better co-ordination of services.

We have a long way to go to make the system work, but I am very pleased that services such as East Midlands Ambulance Service have agreed to involve families in training paramedics so that paramedics can better identify carers, and that the city council has completely changed its language so that it does not talk about “carers”, because most people do not think they are a carer. However, services, voluntary organisations and families need a Government who back their efforts.

This Saturday, it will be two years since the Prime Minister stood on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street promising to

“fix the crisis in social care once and for all with a clear plan we have prepared to give every older person the dignity and security they deserve.”

Yet the plan is still nowhere to be seen. The papers are full of briefings that an announcement is imminent, but in reality—and as with so much else with the Government—all we get is chaos, confusion and broken promises.

First, we see that there will be a levy to fix the crisis in social care, then the levy is for the NHS backlog and to fix the crisis in social care. Now it is for the NHS backlog, social care and the NHS pay rise, and we hear from the papers that it is to be funded through an increase in national insurance contributions, which the former Chancellor, who is now Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, explicitly promised not to raise under a majority Conservative Government. The people who use care, the staff who deliver it and the unpaid family carers who rely on it deserve better, especially following the horrors of covid-19.

Will the Minister say when we are finally to see the Government’s plan? Are the Government considering raising NICs, in direct contradiction of the explicit promise they made before the last general election? Is the rise in NICs how they plan to pay for the NHS backlog and the NHS pay rise, leaving virtually nothing for social care? Does the Minister understand that while a cap on care costs is vital, that alone will not fix the crisis in social care? That is because it will do nothing for the third of social care users and half the social care budget represented by working-age adults with disabilities. It will do nothing for the 1.5 million elderly people who need help with getting up, getting washed and getting fed who cannot get that help. It will do nothing for the paid care workforce, and it will do nothing for unpaid family carers, who are the subject of today’s debate.

After a decade failing to transform social care, nothing less than a full plan will do. That is the test the Government will face when they finally come up with their plan, and that is the test of whether the Prime Minister fulfils the promise he made on the steps of No. 10 Downing Street. I look forward to the Minister’s response.