Care Workers: Professional Register

Lord Jones Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

As my noble friend will appreciate and probably anticipate, there will be debate on the Health and Care Bill for the next few weeks. I am sure that that is one of the issues that will come up.

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister tell us how many care workers there are at work on a given day? Does he agree that it would be a good idea to have a considered, perpetual publicity campaign persuading those in the care service of the importance of gaining qualifications?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

To ensure that the profession is attractive, we want to focus not only on making sure that social care staff are paid a decent wage but that they are recognised. The idea behind the skills passport is, first, that we want to understand all the different qualifications that there are with regard to the social care sector; and, secondly, we want to make sure that they can transport that when they move from one employer to another. That is the important thing that we want to look at.