Unpaid Carers
We have this debate on a regular basis; on average we come back to it every six months. We have had a breakthrough with the action plan—I welcome that. For the first time we have a number of Departments working together coherently, and I think it will improve lives overall. There is a sense of urgency now. I have chaired an unpaid carers group for about three years—I am losing track of time. They are a representative group of young and old. They are mainly parents looking after their children, but some are siblings looking after one another and some of them are young as well. Exactly as the survey said, every one of them reflects the condition they are living in; it is poverty and hardship, sometimes in the extreme. Most of them find it difficult to work. They want to work; often they have given up their jobs as a result of their caring responsibilities and some of them have given up professional careers. Those carers also lack respite, and the common theme that comes through is the lack of a break. Another issue is that, where respite is offered, there are not the staff with the skills to cope with the individual they are caring for. Non-verbal individuals are very difficult to care for and staff need specialist training, but that is almost non-existent in many areas. I point to the report produced for the House by Siobhan O’Dwyer from the University of Birmingham, which we used in the debate about a year ago. That shocking survey—I do not like to raise this, but I have to—found that 40% of carers had thought about suicide as a result of the stress they are under. I welcome the action plan, but there is a sense of urgency. We cannot get away from the fact that the carer’s allowance is so low. Many of the carers I work with say, “We want a wage. We’re doing a job.” No one is doing 35 hours; they are all doing 40 or 50 hours, if not longer in some instances. They want a wage to lift them out of poverty, but also to reflect our respect for the work that they are undertaking. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) said, we do not expect miracles overnight, but we want to see some progression to a form of living wage for carers. We also need a system through which the issue can be properly evaluated over a longer period. I am really pleased by the Prime Minister’s commitment to social care. We have known about it for over a decade, from when he was in Parliament previously. It is a pity that there was not cross-party support to implement it at that time. I am also involved in a campaign in honour of one of our colleagues, Iain Coleman, who was the Member of Parliament for Hammersmith and Fulham. When he was leader of Hammersmith and Fulham council, he introduced free personal care—free home care—at the local level, and it has proved incredibly successful. Some councils have tried to emulate it, but with the cuts to local government over the past 14 years, it has proved very difficult. The first step towards a national care service could be the introduction of personal care. We should not wait until after the next general election in 2029; we should work towards it over the next year. Local authorities can undertake that work; it just needs to be resourced. I hope the social care action plan group brings forward a proposal that takes into account what Casey says next year—I am glad that has been brought forward—and sets out a step-by-step approach to introducing home care. When my group met last week, most of the people on it had not heard of the care plan. They have now, and we are going to take people through it. What came back from them was very practical. The objectives of the care plan were set out clearly in July; we now want to see steps towards implementing the objectives, which must be costed and timetabled. Within that, we want a debate about carer’s allowance and home care.