My Lords, I support Amendment 267B, particularly from the perspective of carers for adults, although, of course, I also support it with reference to carers for children. A Carers UK/YouGov poll found that 22% of UK adults had seen their paid work negatively affected as a result of caring, including 2.3 million who had given up work as a result and about 3 million who had reduced their working hours to care at some point in their lives.
Research has demonstrated that the point at which caring begins to have a significant impact on carers’ ability to work is when 20 hours a week or more is provided, with some analysis indicating that the tipping point may be even lower at 10 hours. Without the right support, millions of workers are leaving work to care and the cost of this to individuals, business and the economy is huge. Recently, research by the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the LSE calculated the public expenditure costs of carers leaving paid work at a staggering £1.3 billion a year, based on the cost of carer’s allowance and lost tax revenues. Additional analysis by Age UK indicates that the economic cost rises to £5.3 billion when lost earnings are taken into account. One quarter of working carers report that they feel they receive inadequate support to enable them to combine work and care and only half think that their employer is carer-friendly. The survey of carers found that nearly two-thirds of carers in work have used annual leave to care, while nearly half have done overtime to make up for taking time off to care.
The task and finish group set up by Employers for Carers and the Department of Health states in its final report that,
“the issue of supporting carers to remain in work is not only a problem, but also an economic opportunity. Supporting carers to remain in work can bring considerable benefits to carers themselves, employers and the wider economy”.
This is partly a government publication.
7 pm
I pay tribute to Mr Christopher Jeffery, who has been campaigning for paid carer’s leave for some time. With his permission, I shall quote from a moving statement he made a couple of weeks ago to the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Carers, of which I am a member and whose co-chair is sitting behind me. Mr Jeffrey argued that if a policy of paid carer’s leave were available it would improve the health of the carer and make companies more attractive to carers wishing to return to the employment market. He said:
“In our case my wife has on several occasions been up for more than 41 hours through work and caring needs along with visiting me in a London hospital. She may I add not visited me every day due to travel costs and work pressures when I have been admitted to hospital. On one occasion last year my wife had agreed a work plan with her manager to come in early ensuring there was no loss in output for the department and then be able to leave work and pick me up from hospital. She was told to confirm this by phone when I had been taken to theatre for my operation just in case of any problem. When she did so her department deputy stated on the phone that she knew nothing about it, my wife was shirking and not pulling her weight and letting the company and her colleagues down”.
Noble Lords can imagine what she felt at that point. He goes on:
“Due to further stresses including cancer tests and ongoing urology problems and having to support me through this and ensure that her work was done prior to all hospital appointments and not getting support from her colleagues or company my wife suffered a total breakdown”.
I am not surprised. He continued:
“Through this I have felt a burden to my wife like many other disabled people do when something happens to the person they love and cares for them”.
It is awful that someone in this situation should feel a burden to the wife who is caring for him because of the inflexibility of his wife’s employers. He asks why
carers cannot be allowed five days’ paid leave—I know this is not what the amendment asks for—for emergencies and so on. He says:
“The day to day routine of caring and trying to remain in employment puts unnecessary pressure on every carer and they have to cope with this yet they are still not allowed any semblance of equality with regards to paid in times of emergency”.
I echo his question. Why indeed can carers not be allowed such leave? I believe we are at the beginning of the road of a campaign that ultimately has to be successful. Common sense, the business case and social justice are all on its side. I hope it is not too long a road.