Aaron Dryden: What does the evolving political landscape mean for carers in your workforce?

For those of us with caring responsibilities, whose work is in this field, or with caregiving friends and colleagues in mind, the general election threw up a few different positions about the importance of carers from the political parties vying for our votes.

Clearly manifestos are designed to have broad appeal, show the public what’s important to the party and ultimately win votes. However, it was somewhat disappointing that caring wasn’t a more prominent cause, given that the work of unpaid carers is valued at £162B per year – almost the cost of the entire NHS[1].

Labour Party

Prime Minister Keir Starmer has direct experience of disability with his mother, Josephine, who lived with Still’s disease, a rare type of inflammatory arthritis. The Deputy Prime Minister, Angela Rayner, started her working life as a care assistant, following a childhood impacted by her mother’s bipolar disorder. Despite this lived experience from their two leaders, during the campaigning period, the party didn’t address carers’ needs directly, instead alluding to broader improvements to welfare benefits, the NHS and creation of a National Care Service to improve the profile of social care.

Liberal Democrats

The party campaigned prolifically on the importance of supporting carers following Party Leader Ed Davey sharing his experience of being a carer for his profoundly disabled son and having cared for his mother through cancer treatment when a child. Their manifesto promises centred caring and disability in a progressive way. Hopefully, following their their increased representation in opposition, this will carry some weight in parliament. They included:

• An immediate £20/24% increase to Carers’ Allowance
• A £32/21% increase to the earnings limit for Carers’ Allowance, permitting more carers to work whilst avoiding overpayments
• The creation of a National Care Agency
• The introduction of free personal care for older or disabled people at home
• The introduction of a statutory guarantee of regular respite breaks for unpaid carers
• The introduction of paid carer’s leave for employees, building on the entitlement to unpaid leave
• Making caring a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010, requiring employers to make reasonable adjustments for employees with caring responsibilities.

Conservatives

There was a lack of detail on the issues most important to carers, and the promise of disability benefit reform was met with trepidation, given the party’s track record in this area.

Green Party

The party gained a reputation for progressive stances that go beyond their core environmental policies. Of these, the most relevant to carers were the commitment to free personal care and improvements to Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) provision.

Scottish National Party

Ceasing action on overpayments of Carers’ Allowance was the only manifesto promise of relevance.

Plaid Cymru

A pledge to consider paid carer’s leave, along with protecting the rights of family to visit care homes made up the extent of the Welsh party’s commitments.

Democratic Unionist Party

There was no mention of carers in the manifesto, although some disability reform was proposed.

Post-election

The more prominent position of the Liberal Democrats in this term of government must be a positive for carers, given their far advanced thinking on the needs of carers in their manifesto and on the campaign trail.

The King’s Speech was light on policy that would benefit carers directly, but by far and away the biggest post-election shift has been the government’s emphasis on a worse than anticipated economic position, which is something of a cloud over the start of this term of government.

After agreeing pay settlements for the public sector, to both avert strike action and avoid loss of staff that was causing operational issues, the government rhetoric has become consistent in that difficult financial decisions will need to be made. The scrapping of Winter Fuel Benefit as a universal benefit and becoming means testing – in effect reducing recipients from 12M to 2M – showed just how far-reaching this approach will be.

Looking forward 

Carers’ Allowance

Given the financial backdrop that is influencing government decision-making, significant increases to benefits are unlikely for some time. Carers’ charities are campaigning hard on the overpayments issue (when working carers earn too much – usually unknowingly and for a short period – and therefore rack up overpayments, which are debts to the Department of Work and Pensions), which would seem like a reasonable expectation for the government to resolve.

Caring becoming a protected characteristic

This would be game-changing in terms of caring. Being included in the Equality Act, and the protection that would afford would be hugely valuable to carers. It would also compel companies to monitor on Equal Opportunities forms from recruitment stage onwards the experience of carers, leading to better visibility of the approximately 25% of carers in workplaces that we know to exist. This work has solid cross-party support, although when the then Equalities Minister and current Conservative leadership hopeful Kemi Badenoch was asked about it in a Select Committee, she famously said people asked for “many things” to be protected in law such as “carers, single people, having ginger hair, being short”. Leading carers charities are campaigning hard on this issue as one with long-term potential to be transformative for carers, and importantly it could be implemented without cost to the public purse.

Paid carers leave

Carers charities have been clear that they believe the 2024 enaction of the Carers Leave Act is a stepping stone towards paid carers leave, and indeed many organisations have implemented a degree of paid leave already. Though it is a more complex legislative issue, for the government it is one that would not require public funding, with the onus being on employers to fund. Again, the Liberal Democrats had this as a manifesto promise, and took the political lead on getting the Carers Leave Act through parliament, but it would be something of a win for the current government to progress.

How employers can better support working carers

It is difficult to be too optimistic about the reform of public services and benefits, given the gloomy nature of rhetoric around public finances, however the current political profile of caring is better than it has been in years, and there are a number of ways in which employers who want to support carers can take action:

• Consider trialling paid carers leave, maybe making a small amount available as a way of seeing how many people come forward to claim it
• Ensure existing employee benefits, and any that you choose to implement, are carer-friendly. Remember this is around 25% of UK employees and many do not disclose their status, so you are likely to have many more in your workforce than you might know about
• Follow Carers UK and Carers Trust closely on socials to stay up-to-date on their campaigns
• Write to your MP outlining support that would be helpful on these issues from both an employer and employee perspective – use writetothem.com or theyworkforyou.com

[1] Value of unpaid care matches NHS budget, research finds – BBC News