Labour will stand firmly on the side of older workers

The fact that we are all living longer is something we should celebrate. Older people make a huge contribution to their families, communities and increasingly our economy too.

The proportion of people aged 65 to 74 who are economically active has doubled in the last decade alone, from 8 to 16 percent. People are working longer, and not just out of necessity. Surveys regularly show a majority of people in their 50s want to work beyond retirement age because they like working and enjoy what they do.

There are also significant economic benefits of working for longer: it has been estimated that extending working lives by one and a half years could reduce the cost of Government borrowing by 1% of GDP.

However, if we’re going to enable people to work for longer, major issues must be addressed including skills and training for older workers, tackling stereotypes and addressing health and care needs. These will be discussed at a fringe meeting at TUC Congress today on “a new deal for older workers”, organised by Unions21 – which has long been at the forefront of new thinking in this area.

As the Shadow Minister for Care and Older People, I know one of the biggest challenges facing many older employees is juggling work with their responsibilities for caring for elderly or disabled relatives.

There are more than 6 million unpaid family carers in the UK today. 60 percent are women, many of whom feel really stretched because they’re caring across the generations: looking after a frail or sick parent and helping out with caring for their grandchildren, too.

For working carers, this struggle often becomes too much. A staggering one in three family carers have to give up work or reduce their hours because they can’t get the support they need. Not only do they see their standard of living suffer, but employers lose their skills and experience, and it costs the public purse £1.3 billion a year in lost tax revenues and increased benefits.

Public policy must keep pace with changing demographics and the changes in family life. So just as the last Labour government put childcare at the top of the agenda and promoted flexible working for parents, the next Labour government will also champion better care for older and disabled people and more flexible working for family carers too.

Labour’s excellent Older Women’s Commission, led by Harriet Harman and Fiona Mactaggart, has already made a range of proposals to better support older workers including those with caring responsibilities. These include requiring public bodies like the NHS to actively identify carers, much better information for carers, and mutual caring schemes like time banks, which can support those caring for people who don’t live near them.

The Commission also calls for far more flexible working arrangements, as women take on caring responsibilities, including new ‘adjustment leave’: a short-term period of leave or flexibility to help employees deal with an immediate crisis in care and to allow time to adjust to a new caring role.

Good employers already know that flexible working reduces staff absence and turnover and increases productivity, loyalty and commitment. A future Labour Government will consult with employers, trade unions and carers organisations on how to improve flexibility for working carers, for example through measures like adjustment leave.

Labour has always been the party of work: as Ed Miliband says, the clue is in our name. The next Labour Government will stand firmly on the side of older workers, as we build a modern economy that draws on the talents of all our people and ensures everyone shares fairly in growing prosperity.

Liz Kendall is Shadow Minister for Care and Older People