To mark Carers Week 2020, let’s give carers a minimum level of paid leave

One of the few positives arising from the coronavirus crisis has been the weekly ‘Clap for Carers’. Every Thursday, people up and down the country came together to show appreciation for the hard work and heroism of our carers. The initiative led to calls for a new settlement for health and care workers so that we, as a country, can properly reward them once this crisis is over.

Alongside our heroic care workers, there are millions of unpaid carers in this country. Some recent estimates suggest as many as 13.6 million – providing care to elderly people those with disabilities, or who have a long-term health condition. Sometimes their carers are family but they can also be friends and volunteers. A recent survey by Carers UK found that 70% of carers are providing even more care due to the coronavirus outbreak, and over half felt overwhelmed and on the verge of burn out. This week marks Carers Week 2020, with the theme being ‘make caring visible’. Working as they do behind closed doors, unpaid carers can often be overlooked.

I have been calling on the government for almost a year to legislate for those unpaid carers also trying to hold down a job alongside their caring responsibilities. Care charities and support groups have identified paid leave as crucial to improving the lot of working carers. The latest figures from Carers UK suggest that seven million people are currently juggling paid work and caring – that’s one in four of all workers. Between 2017 and 2019, 2.6 million carers quit their jobs because they could no longer manage the competing demands.

The government has announced that it intends to bring forward legislation to introduce a new right to five days unpaid leave for carers. Frankly, that’s too little too late. Failing to provide paid leave when carers save our country an estimated £132bn per year is just not good enough. This week, I will be presenting a petition in the House of Commons, signed by hundreds of my constituents, asking the government to introduce a statutory entitlement to paid leave for carers of five to ten days per year.

With our ageing population and an estimated 6,000 more people taking on a caring responsibility every day even before this pandemic, this is an issue that won’t go away. As we emerge from this crisis, the government must do more to support our carers. Providing a minimum level of paid leave would be a good first step.