Unpaid Carers

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Richard Foord

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one other Department that might be quite interested in a cross-Government strategy is the Treasury? My constituent Amanda had a civil penalty applied on the basis that she misrepresented her earnings, which has made her frightened to go back to work or to work more hours. Does my hon. Friend agree that it is damaging to the economy if we have people not going out to work?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I agree with my hon. Friend. If the Government’s aim is to grow the economy, they must, in addition to other measures, be targeting those people who are economically inactive not because they cannot work as a result of their skills, knowledge or capacity, but because their caring responsibilities prevent them from doing so.

I am conscious of your direction, Madam Deputy Speaker, so if the House allows I intend not to take any further interventions. Otherwise, I will not get through the remarks that I want to make.

I want to mention Fife Young Carers, which supports 207 young people in North East Fife, and about 1,300 overall across Fife. Some of those carers are as young as five years old. Caring for a loved one as a child has a significant impact on their education. In the last Parliament, the all-party parliamentary group on young carers and young adult carers carried out an inquiry that found that young carers are missing on average 27 days of school each year and are 38% less likely to go to university than their peers. We know that how children do in school has a vital long-term impact on their future employment—indeed, the Education Secretary was talking about that the other day—and just about everything in their future. The position of young carers gives us a clear example of how the lack of an overarching strategy fails unpaid carers.

Earlier this year, I wanted to question the then Government over the exclusion of young carers from carer’s allowance, building on a question asked by the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi). The reason that the DWP gave me was that supposedly young carers in education can rely on educational grants for support. I therefore asked the Department for Education about support for young carers. It turns out that there is no specific support for them because they are not considered to be part of a vulnerable group. It means that the DWP can abandon financial support of young carers to the Department for Education, which seems to think that young carers can rely on their parents for income. That shows what happens and how support for arguably an incredibly vulnerable group can get lost without overall leadership.

Yet more Government Departments have a role in the health and wellbeing of unpaid carers. According to Carers UK’s 2023 state of caring report, 50% of unpaid carers are lonely and 58% of carers had to cut down on their hobbies and leisure activities. Caring for a loved one should not mean being isolated from your own support networks or having to give up the things that bring meaning and joy, but clearly it does for many, either because they cannot find the time in the day for themselves between work—if they can stay in it—and caring, or because often they simply cannot afford to participate any more. This is the moment for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to get involved, with its overarching responsibility for leisure and the services provided at local level. I am talking about respite breaks, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, support services, and access to local leisure facilities. A cross-Government strategy could also engage the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices, and ensure that similar priorities are discussed in intergovernmental meetings with the devolved nations.

There are many root causes and solutions to the problems faced by unpaid carers, and they span all Government Departments. The Minister is here as the Minister for Care, but I hope that he is also aware of the impact of all the cross-Government issues that I have set out on the health of unpaid carers. I am sure that he has learned much in recent weeks. Last year’s “State of Caring” report on health found that 82% of unpaid carers said that the impact of caring on their physical and mental health would be a challenge. It found a significant impact on mental health, with 79% saying that they were stressed or anxious and 49% saying that they were depressed. It is therefore no surprise that research carried out by Dr O’Dwyer at the University of Birmingham has found that unpaid carers are a group at high risk of suicide. That is particularly true for parent carers of children with a long-term illness or disability. Of the participants in her study, 41% of unpaid carers had thought about killing themselves.

It is clear that we need vital preventive healthcare for unpaid carers, but clearly that is not in the remit just of the Department of Health and Social Care. Again, I reiterate why we need a cross-Government strategy. I appreciate that even if a strategy were announced this evening, it would not just be in place overnight—it could not be and it should not be. Its goals need to be co-designed with unpaid carers and the organisations that represent them. It needs organisation, buy-in and leadership. For it to work and take meaningful action, it ought to be sponsored at the highest level of Government and engage all the Departments that I have mentioned. It needs ringfenced funding. It will not surprise the House that I have mentioned funding. The last strategy was supported by £255 million in funding. That may sound like a big figure when we keep being told that difficult decisions have to be made, but it is nothing compared with the economic value of unpaid care, which, as I have said, amounts to £190 billion per year.

I do not want to pre-empt the goals of the strategy—they need to be designed with unpaid carers themselves—but a first priority should be, as my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough said, the proper identification of unpaid carers. Unpaid carers may not recognise themselves as such or know what support services are available to them. Professionals and organisations play a vital role in identifying them, through GPs, hospitals, local authorities, workplaces and educational settings. A national carer’s strategy will provide leadership and strategic direction. It will put the needs of unpaid carers at the highest level of Government. Morally, practically and politically, it is the right thing for the Government to do.

I do not particularly like the title of this debate on the Order Paper. The word “potential” was inserted to keep me in line with the rules on neutrality in debate titles. It makes it sounds like the merits of the strategy are arguable, which clearly they are not. I chose to read “potential” in a different way: a national carer’s strategy has an abundance of potential to create improvements that have not yet been realised. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s remarks.

Cost of Living: Pensioners

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Richard Foord

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

There are 2 million older people living in poverty—that is one in six—and another million are sitting just above the poverty line silently struggling to make ends meet. Together, a quarter of older people are in or at risk of being in poverty. In recent years, the phrase “heating or eating” has become shorthand for the cost of living crisis. It rhymes, and it is easy to say, but it is the reality facing too many of our pensioners. Age UK research found that 4.2 million people cut back on food or groceries last year, while a survey by this House’s Petitions Committee of those engaging in petitions on pension levels found that three quarters were worried about affording food.

Health statistics always worsen in the cold winter months, with mortality rising in all parts of the UK last year compared with previously. As we face an even colder winter —in my constituency we often reach minus temperatures overnight—there are real consequences when older people cannot afford to properly heat their homes. The reality is that heating or eating is not a catchphrase, but a decision about survival. It is our duty as policy makers in this place to ask why that is a reality for so many of our older people and to find solutions.

I welcomed the Government’s eventual decision to keep the triple lock this year, but the lack of clarity and uncertainty about that decision appeared to be electorally motivated, and I argue it caused a great deal of anxiety for many older constituents.

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is talking about the triple lock on pensions. I have heard it said in this House in recent months that the triple lock on pensions was a Conservative proposal, so I went to the Library to find out whether that was true. The 2010 Conservative manifesto talks about

“restoring the link between the basic state pension and average earnings”,

while the 2010 Liberal Democrat manifesto states:

“We will uprate the state pension annually by whichever is the higher of growth in earnings, growth in prices or 2.5 per cent.”

Does she agree with me that the triple lock was a Lib Dem proposal?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I regularly meet Steve Webb, the former Lib Dem Pensions Minister from the coalition, and I know how hard he worked when in government on this policy, so I entirely agree with my hon. Friend and thank him for his intervention.

The triple lock is of no use to anyone if the Government cannot get their systems working to pay people what they are due. Repeatedly last year we learned of pensioners nearing or reaching pension age trying to top up their national insurance records and seeing their money disappear without a trace. It would appear again some weeks later, but often only after chasing by an MP, an adviser or due to media coverage. That was not just in one or two cases; what became apparent were systemic problems of jammed helplines and hundreds upon hundreds of people losing track of their savings as they paid them over to the Government. Will the Minister tell us what he is doing to resource properly the Future Pension Centre?

Seaton Community Hospital

Debate between Wendy Chamberlain and Richard Foord

Monday 13th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. It is exactly right that Seaton Community Hospital was built by local people. Let me expand on that important point, because a lot of people have talked to me about this and I want to relay to the House the feelings they have spoken to me about at recent local community meetings.

The hospital was built over two storeys and updated in 1990 with an acute wing, which was funded not just 50% by the local community but 100% by local donations. The important thing to note is that the construction would not have been possible at all were it not for the contributions by local individuals. For example, the Seaton & District Hospital League of Friends had a scheme called “Be a brick: donate to Seaton Hospital”. People could make a small contribution—whatever they could afford—and get a little brick as a memento to demonstrate that they had contributed to Seaton Community Hospital. The charity is still a vocal champion of the hospital to this day. The project would not have happened had it not been for the generosity of the local people. What comes with that is a sense of ownership that I cannot really stress enough. There is a really strong feeling that the hospital does not belong to some amorphous NHS: it is their hospital. They paid for it, they were treated in it and it belongs to them.

Several weeks ago, I was contacted by the League of Friends charity after it learned from the Devon NHS that the plan is to hand over the two-storey wing from the Devon NHS to NHS Property Services. The charity was concerned that this could lead, eventually, to the selling off of the hospital wing, and even to its demolition. As soon as I heard that, alarm bells were set ringing for me. It is clear that Devon’s integrated care board is keen to wash its hands of the facility as quickly as it can. In essence, the facility is in special measures, and in a financially dire place. The wing is costing the Devon NHS about £300,000 a year, billed by NHS Property Services.

I was not all that familiar with NHS Property Services a year ago. I had heard of it, but I was under the impression that it was just another division of the NHS. I looked into it a bit further, and I found that it is responsible for the maintenance and support of most local NHS facilities. I was surprised to find that it is a Government-owned company, legally owned by one shareholder. The single shareholder for NHS Property Services is the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. As of today, the hon. Member for Louth and Horncastle can congratulate herself on taking on NHS Property Services as her new holding. How can it be the case that a hospital built with the generous support of local people is now owned directly by NHS Property Services, rather than those local people?

In 2016, the Government transferred that facility over to NHS Property Services and implemented a consolidated charging policy to levy charges for rent, maintenance and service charges. Some of those charges are extortionate. We are talking about £300,000 a year, which is £247 a square metre. On paper, it might seem prudent to organise the NHS with some commercial expertise in charge of some of these facilities. However, we have to bear it in mind that the people running NHS Property Services are not necessarily thinking about it through the lens of health and social care; they are thinking about how they can maximise the utility of space and make savings to put money back into budgets.

That is worrying, because what I am hearing is that the offer being made to NHS Devon is, “If you wash your hands of this facility, you will receive 50% of the proceeds of the sale”—that will be to the NHS Devon integrated care board—“and 50% of the proceeds will go back into central coffers, back to Whitehall and back into the very large pot that is the NHS.” The House can imagine what that is like for an individual constituent in my part of east Devon, who has contributed perhaps tens or hundreds of pounds—as much as they could afford—in decades gone by, perhaps through a direct debit or regular payment, to maintain the facility. To hear that those decades of investment will be put back into a big pool in London, a long way away, is pretty sickening.

There has been an understandable backlash from people right across my corner of Devon. I have been to a couple of public meetings in recent weeks since the news broke. At Colyford Memorial Hall a couple of weeks ago, there were more than 200 people. It is a cliché to say there was standing room only, but there was no standing room—there was a long queue of people outside in the rain wanting to get into the meeting. People had one overriding feeling that they wanted to convey to me, and that they wanted me to convey to the Minister and to others gathered here this evening: they created this hospital and they are deeply offended by the idea that it might be taken away. What put salt into those wounds was the idea that that should happen with zero public consultation.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a passionate speech on behalf of his community. What strikes me is that when the community came forward and made those contributions or bought those bricks, they did not do so to save the hospital at that point. I am pretty sure, like the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that they made that contribution to maintain the hospital for future generations. I am not surprised that it feels like a betrayal to my hon. Friend’s constituents.

[Richard Foord]

I very much thank my hon. Friend for her contribution. She is exactly right. I point to two specific conversations I have had with constituents recently. The first was with someone who lives in Seaton, who was close enough to the hospital that she could walk there. Her husband died in the hospital and she was able to go and see him in his final days. She welled up—more than that, tears rolled down her cheeks—as she told me about her husband, who she was able to see in his final days.

Now we have moved to a situation in which patients are cared for at home. Of course, that means that some of the staff previously based out of the community hospital are driving to people’s driveways and providing that care in their homes. That works for some individuals, but the other day I had a lady in my surgery who was almost shaking with nervousness because her husband, whom she loved dearly, had just been discharged from the acute hospital in Exeter and she was charged with looking after him but did not feel able to look after his needs, as he was overcoming his operation towards the end of his life. We are putting some of our constituents in a really difficult situation that they do not feel equipped for.

The reason for the beds being removed from the hospital in 2017 related to so-called workforce issues. There was a substantial consultation of local people in 2017 when beds were removed from local hospitals, but I fear that following that consultation, which showed the outrage and indignation of local people, the NHS does not want to get involved such a consultation exercise again, hence the desire for the ICB to get shot of the building as soon as possible.

The ICB was talking about getting shot of it by the end of this calendar year, although that has gone to Devon County Council’s health scrutiny committee, so it may be pushed into next year. What we need tonight is an intervention from the Minister in relation to NHS Property Services, which is charging a clinical rate for a space that has not been used for acute medicine—it has not had clinical beds in it—since 2017. Organisations are coming forward with a desire to use it not for clinical use but as a care hub to provide other services.

I want to make hon. Members aware of how those clinical beds got removed in the first place. In 2017, there was deep concern that the removal of the beds was an arbitrary decision made following a last-minute intervention by the then right hon. Member for East Devon, Hugo, now Lord Swire. In fact, it is revealed in a book by his wife, Sasha, that Seaton Hospital was to be kept open, with its beds maintained, but, because of that last-minute intervention by Hugo Swire, the bed closures moved to Seaton and the Sidmouth Hospital beds remained.

As a result of that decision, there was no additional funding to set up extra services at Seaton. Instead, the ICB began charging this exceedingly high rent for an empty space. What we really need to do is reduce that rental fee from its clinical rate to one that acknowledges that there are community alternatives. The palliative care nursing team can operate out of this space, and organisations such as Restore and hospice at home carers can work out of it, too. The friends of Seaton and District Hospital are coming up with a strong business plan, but they do need more time to develop it and a concessionary rate—not the clinical rate—to operate from it. If no solution is found, the ward is most likely to be either sold off or demolished. Again—I cannot stress this enough—we need to do this for the people who feel that they paid for the hospital.

There is a precedent for it, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for St Ives (Derek Thomas) for letting me know that the hospital in Cornwall was saved from the jaws of NHS Property Services. However, there is a big difference between what I am proposing for Seaton and what happened at St Ives. St Ives hospital was paid for by a single philanthropist. As we have heard, Seaton Hospital was paid for with contributions—or subscriptions —from thousands of people.