Unpaid Carers

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Christian Wakeford.)

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Ghani)]

I call Wendy Chamberlain.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward this Adjournment debate, and of course for the work she did before this parliamentary Session on what is now the Carer’s Leave Act 2023. One of the reasons why I became involved in politics is that the day before I started my master’s degree, my mum was diagnosed with breast cancer. I studied my degree part-time over two years to look after her and my little sister, who was just five. Looking back, it is clear that I was filling the role of a carer, but I did not identify as one. That is a key point to note if we are to have a carers strategy. A recent Carers Trust survey found that 73% of those who provide or have provided unpaid care do not identify as unpaid carers. Does my hon. Friend agree that a national carers strategy should prioritise the identification of carers across all sectors?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Ghani)]

Order. This is an Adjournment debate and interventions must be super-short.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. It demonstrates how prevalent caring is in our society when we have Members who have direct experience of it. Identification of carers, or people identifying themselves as carers, is a key issue that any strategy should address.

The then shadow Minister was right that we need a cross-Government strategy. This is not a new idea, because we have had such strategies before; the last one was drawn up all the way back in 2008, but the problems that unpaid carers face have not gone away. Unpaid carers are significantly more likely to be in poverty than the rest of the population. The most recent data available from the Department for Work and Pensions—the 2023 family resources survey—shows that just under a third of households in receipt of carer’s allowance are food insecure, compared with 10% of households as a whole. That is a huge difference.

To assess food insecurity, the survey asks the respondent whether in the past 30 days: they have has eaten less than they felt they should because of lack of funds; they have been hungry, but not eaten due to lack of funds; or they have lost weight due to not enough money for food. It also asks whether they or someone in their household has gone without eating for an entire day because they lack money for food. Further, the survey found that 13.3% of households in receipt of carer’s allowance—that is just more than one in every eight—had used a food bank in the previous 12 months, compared with just 3% of households overall.