Carer’s Allowance

Yasmin Qureshi Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Yasmin Qureshi (Bolton South East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull East (Karl Turner) for securing this important debate. I begin by declaring an interest. I will be speaking from a place of personal experience, as someone who is a carer. Indeed, there are 13.6 million unpaid carers in the United Kingdom supporting family members and friends. Many of their stories go untold, as do their struggles. I know that some hon. Members have spoken about the struggles of the people they have come across, and how they have tried to cope with this.

I will talk a little bit about my situation. Effectively, over the past 10 years I have been a carer. First I was a carer to my mother, who passed away in 2017—during the course of the general election—and more recently I have been a carer to my brother, who has a number of chronic conditions. Trying to balance life—to balance working, family and caring—is very difficult. However, I am lucky enough to have a decent income. I am lucky because my work is flexible and I can rearrange appointments. If I had a nine-to-five job, I would not be able to look after my family members, and I would have to leave my job, as did the teacher, a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Worsley and Eccles South (Barbara Keeley), and that is not fair. We are the fourth or fifth richest country in the world. We should not have to be in this position and people should not have to do that.

Even though I am financially stable and have flexibility, even I get tired, as do others. For example, about eight weeks ago my brother telephoned me in the middle of the night, at 3 o’clock in the morning, to say that he had a massive pain in his arm. I called an ambulance and he was taken straight to Salford hospital. He had an MRI, was found to have a clot in his arm, and was operated on immediately. That same night I was with him, but the next morning was a Monday and I had to come down to Parliament. When we stay with family members for nights on end, in the morning we can hardly keep our eyes open and we take loads of paracetamol to try to get rid of the headache that we get from not having slept at night.

I know that social services provide some carers and people do get carers coming in, but that is not enough. Their hours are limited. They are there for half an hour or 45 minutes to give someone tea or lunch, but what about the four or five-hour gap before the next carer visit? More importantly, the night-time visits have now effectively been stopped by local authorities. I remember caring for my elderly mother. Because of her physical, emotional and psychological situation, I could be up three times a night with her. As I have said, I was able to cope, but others cannot.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) has said, everyone knows about social care and the lack of financial provision for carers. We have discussed it in Parliament hundreds of times. It has been debated again and again, but no Government have grasped the issue and done anything with it. We need drastic changes in the whole care system. There are 13.6 million carers, some of whom, as other Members have said, have had to leave their jobs or stop their education, because that is the grim reality of caring for a sick member of the family.

For me it is a privilege and an honour to be able to look after my family. I feel pleased that I can be with them, but I feel sorry for all those whose families are not around them—people who are left on their own, often languishing for hours and hours without anyone to look after them. It is those people that we need to be concerned about, as well as the carers who end up looking after them.

This has already been mentioned, but the carer’s allowance is going up by only 3.5%, and inflation is already more than 7%. We know that heating bills are going up. A lot of elderly and ill people often need extra heating, and if they are with their families, that often means the bill will be paid by their families.

Transport costs can be much higher because someone might need to be accompanied or they might need taxis to go to medical appointments. According to Carers UK, 24% of carers in receipt of carer’s allowance are using food banks to make ends meet. It also states that:

“The additional costs of caring can be compounded by carers having to reduce their working hours”,

as I said, or “leave employment” altogether.

What is the Minister and her Government doing to give support to carers at this very difficult time? What are they going to do in real terms to increase the benefits and allowances that carers get? Will they consider extending the warm home discount scheme to unpaid carers, to recognise the particularly high energy costs that carers often face to keep the person they are looking after safe and warm? Believe me, most ill people need extra heating.

We need a comprehensive plan for social care to support our ageing population and to relieve the pressures on the NHS. Many unwell people spend extra time in hospital because there is no social care support package available for them, delaying them there. The average person has a 50:50 chance of caring by the age of 50 —long before they reach retirement age. Most will not be able to do that, and they cannot use private carers. The Government know that, the medical profession know it, social services know it, local authorities know it, and we all know it. There is a big problem and a sad situation. Something needs to be done now.