Last week, just before the stroke of midnight, I moved an – unsuccessful – amendment to the Children and Families Bill, calling for a review of the case for carers leave. Carers leave would enable those who combine paid work with caring for frail, disabled or chronically sick loved ones to take a few days paid leave a year. This could be, for example, so they could take the person being cared for to a medical appointment or look after them on their discharge from hospital.
More than 3 million people combine paid work with unpaid care and the numbers are predicted to grow as the population ages. The danger is that, without the safety valve of a right to a few days’ leave, carers will either reduce their hours or give up paid work altogether. A Carers UK survey found that a fifth of carers had given up paid work because of workplace difficulties around caring and two in five use annual leave to care. Seven in ten carers who had given up work, reduced hours or taken on lower paid work were over £10,000 a year worse off.
The Carers UK report, published this week, states that ‘one of the most frequent issues raised around work difficulties with employers was carers’ access to leave.’ Many felt they were ‘operating on the edge’ of using too much leave and risking disciplinary action. This all added to the stress of juggling paid work and care.
It doesn’t have to be like this. A growing number of countries in Europe and beyond now have provision for some form of paid care leave – examples include Japan, the Netherlands and Australia. The UK risks becoming a laggard. And as provisions for parental leave are gradually strengthened, care leave is increasingly the Cinderella leave. Common sense, the business case, social justice and plain compassion and human decency are all on its side. And so is public opinion. Nine out of ten respondents to a Carers UK/YouGov survey last year supported the idea. This is the start of a campaign that surely has to be successful eventually.
The obvious answer to deal with this catastrophe is, our government plans to remove the vulnerable, who have little or no voice at all, from the ability to claim disability and thereby take away the duty of care. By pretending they are fit for work and therefore not in need of a carer, the carers will not be acknowledged as existing. Job done.
The answer to our government officials is, if you are in a coma and you are still described by their henchmen, in their money making private agencies, as work ready the problem of the unfit no longer applies These officials must reap the brutality they serve on others.
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/01/20/disability-man-in-coma-declared-fit-to-work/
This is legalised torture by the state. Yet nothing is being done. Tax payers should unite and refuse to pay any more for benefits they are no longer entitled to. And take their case to the ECHR. Additionally, put a lien on the assets of politicians who bring in this kind of practice in order for the treasury to confiscate and use it to pay for compensation and legal costs of the victims suffering under it.
Personal responsibility is the answer to such legislators. Out of office and on the dole for them.
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2013/05/22/another-court-disaster-for-the-dwp-as-atos-assessments-ruled-unfair/
Will you lend your support to a group of Carers that are trying to make difference ? We are proposing a VIRTUAL carers strike in June , highlighting the cost and savings to the country of the care we provide. Watch out for twitter hashtag #carersvirtualstrike over coming weeks and months as we explain more.
Please do keep me informed about your virtual carers strike. I’m not on twitter so won’t pick it up that way. I do hope you are able to draw public attention to the huge amount of work done by carers with so little support.
Carers UK, a charity set up for carers, run by carers. Or, Carers UK, a lobbyist that cuts the benefits of the disabled? It is a peculiar consequence that improving the lot of carers has a financial effect on the disabled and the large number of other charities on which the disabled also depend. This may account for the £1 billion pa that is unclaimed, some £3000 per carer, as estimated by Carers UK.
It is well-known that many carers go to a place of work to get away from the home environment, a means of changing the pace, focus, and faces. It would be extremely unhelpful to antagonise small and micro-businesses with yet more ill-conceived employment legislation: they are predisposed to be more understanding about human suffering now than after diktats, and more understanding than Amazonian employers, full stop.
tizres: not sure why you think campaigning on behalf of carers means taking money away from disabled people? It is in the interests of disabled people as well as carers that carers get a decent deal and are not exhausted by not being able to take the occasional day off to support the person they are caring for when the need arises. And a growing number of employers are recognising that it’s in their interests too for carers to be able to take such leave. Given the number of countries now going down this path, I think ‘ill-conceived’ is hardly a fair description.
Baroness Lister, I am grateful for your reply, an indication that you are prepared to listen to all sides of a debate.
For some reason, there is a tendency to think of employers as blokes chomping on a cigar, guffawing over their latest tax-avoidance wheeze to fellow golfers; parliamentarians, like yourself, will be used to such ridiculous broad brush descriptions. In fact, most groups suffer from generalisations, including carers and charities, and well-informed debate will open the eyes of the willing. Hence this blog, hence your post, hence my comment.
You are right to distinguish between campaigning from the set of ‘all facts’. Giving benefits to carers can, and does, lead to benefits being cut from the disabled; carers and disabled people may believe this to be wrong and campaigns can be fought and won, more money is allocated, job well done. Except something, somewhere currently paid for by the state either has to be cut (or taxes raised), leading to new campaigns by those who become deprived. I’m sure none of this is news to you. What doesn’t seem to be apparent to non-employers is that much of the same pattern is replicated in the private sector. If legislation dictates that employers must allow more time off for an employee then either the output is cut (taxes go down) or the employer must recruit (prices go up). However, and almost uniquely to the private sector, employers may decide to close down their business (taxes down, unemployment up), a factor rarely considered by legislators, less so by campaigners.
While medium and large-sized businesses can afford a certain amount of give in their workforce, that elasticity rapidly decreases the fewer employees a business has and, similarly, the chance of closure increases. Combining the campaign’s desire to insist that the extra leave is to be paid by the employer, and that the ‘occasional’ day off may or may not be planned, and that the campaign suggests significant increases in the number of carers, it is a simple statement of fact that more of this type of legislation will lead to less of the diverse, interesting, and convenient employment offered by local micro-businesses because they will cease to exist.
International comparisons are vaguely interesting but I do not understand their place here. Has someone suggested that carers are emigrating for better benefits elsewhere?
Perhaps we can all be happy. From your reply above, “…a growing number of employers are recognising that it’s in their interests too for carers to be able to take such leave” If it is the case, then the campaign, or market, is working, so why legislate? But that does lead one to wonder why, then, a charity is campaigning.
thanks for your further reply tizres. The reason why legislation is needed is that at present it’s only a small number of employers who provide such leave. I believe that carers should have clear rights to a modest amount of leave and I believe that will help disabled people rather than reduce the benefits available to them, as you suggest. I take your point that we would need to ensure that it didn’t create insuperable problems for small employers. The reason I mention other countries is that it shows what is possible when the will is there and part of the point of cross-national social policy analysis is to learn from what other countries have done. Finally I think it is perfectly valid for a charity to be campaigning on this issue not least as its research shows that combining paid work and caring responsibilities is one of the main problems faced by adult carers.
I don’t have a problem with your cause, Baroness Lister, I have a problem with your solution.
This government we have, but, as we all know, it and the opposition are in cahoots as one and the same. Otherwise, they would not vote to uphold the policies they do, and, once in power, keep them in place rather than change immediately or at all when an election changes leaders. So, government covers ‘all’ in these political parties, after selling the public a bill of goods in the pretense of separate ideology.
How this unmitigated attack on the vulnerable and disabled is allowed to continue in this country is an enigma of dynamic proportions. Where is the ECHR in all of this? We need Europe to take up the cause wholeheartedly. Torture is frowned upon when directed toward the enemy in battle, but is sustained against those in our society who have little or no voice. That is not a civilised society, it is a perverse society run by the inhumane.
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/4od
And here we see an out of touch politician who was placed in a so called ‘safe seat’ in order to push these policies onto the most vulnerable people here in the UK. Who is this man and how did he find his way into this position? What is his track record?
http://www.channel4.com/news/bedroom-tax-shapps-un-tory-video
Lets take a look at him who stands in our parliament against the rights of the poor. A man who ‘mistakenly’ put in a £5,000 bill for electricity to heat his stables and workers trailer home from the tax payers coffers. One wonders? Do read on. His rise from birth in Iraq to independent English school after fleeing Saddam then on to Yougov is quite astonishing. Enjoy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadhim_Zahawi
Stratford upon Avon what were you thinking?
Much of the debate on this issue is tripe and those who spout it have no idea what they are letting themselves in for.
What successive government plans to do regarding our collective right to Welfare Benefit is this:
http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/home/2013/09/work-dole-stage-welfare-reform.html
And it is being done to keep us in line with our wonderful third world friends across the Atlantic. Here is what the people in that country, after paying their taxes, have to bear.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gyd3tytdvQs
Anyone with an intelligence the level of a ten year old could fathom this con.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTm22DB2-sI
Maude Elwes: thank you for continuing to draw attention to the impact of benefits cuts on disabled people. I believe carers and disabled people share an interest in decent benefits and decent leave policies.