Moved by Lord Fox That the Bill be now read a second time. Lord Fox
(LD) My Lords, the Long Title of the Bill is: “A Bill to make
provision about unpaid leave for employees with caring
responsibilities”, and that is what it will do. The Bill will give
new rights to at least 2 million employees who have unpaid caring
responsibilities, supporting them to remain in work and improving
their health and well-being. It will also support
employers’...Request free trial
Moved by
That the Bill be now read a second time.
(LD)
My Lords, the Long Title of the Bill is:
“A Bill to make provision about unpaid leave for employees with
caring responsibilities”,
and that is what it will do. The Bill will give new rights to at
least 2 million employees who have unpaid caring
responsibilities, supporting them to remain in work and improving
their health and well-being. It will also support employers’
retention and recruitment and increase their productivity. I must
confess to a level of trepidation in making this speech which I
did not expect to have. I spend most of my waking hours looking
at legislation for what will not work and thinking of ways to
explain to Ministers why things should not happen. It is a very
unusual position I find myself in to be promoting the benefits
and importance of a piece of legislation, so I beg your
Lordships’ indulgence as I make this attempt.
I speak as the party’s business department lead, and I must
confess to feeling something of a carpetbagger in supporting the
Bill. The real credit for getting to this point lies on other
shoulders, and it is on those shoulders that I now clamber. In
particular, I commend the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, and
my noble friend Lady Tyler. I look forward to hearing from them
later, as I do from all other noble Lords who will speak. The
role of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, in bringing the
issues facing carers to the fore has been exceptional and extends
back decades—I did ask her, and I established that “decades” is
the right word. Her counsel on the Bill has been invaluable, as
has the counsel of my noble friend Lady Tyler. I am sure she will
mention her Private Member’s Bill, which presages this one. The
other shoulders on which I clamber belong to my honourable friend
in the other place , who is standing at
the Bar. It was thanks to Wendy that the Bill successfully passed
all stages in the House of Commons on 3 February this year with
no amendments, receiving support from the Government and MPs
across the House. I am looking forward with anticipation to
hearing the Minister—the noble Lord, Lord Johnson—and anticipate
his support. I thank his department for its help in preparing for
this debate.
As I have said, the Bill has received strong support from all
quarters: 85 MPs have explicitly stated public support for it and
it has been endorsed by over 140 organisations, including small
and large employers, trade unions, employer representative
groups, local and national carer organisations and the APPG on
Carers. Indeed, I was very pleased to meet a number of exemplar
employers, both large and small, earlier this week to hear about
their experiences of already providing carer’s leave and the
positive impact that it is having on both their workforce and
their business. They explained and brought home in human terms,
and indeed business terms, how this leave is beneficial.
I also heard from two carers, both of whom are here with us
today, who told me how invaluable it was to be able to take
carer’s leave to better juggle work and care. I thank them for
taking some time off and coming to your Lordships’ House. Again,
they reinforced the human side of what we are discussing today.
It really does matter—and it matters to an awful lot of people.
Carers UK, which helped to facilitate many of these meetings, has
been leading on this issue for years. The noble Baroness, Lady
Pitkeathley, has been very much a part of that. Its research has
uncovered that at least 2 million people—probably millions
more—in paid employment are unpaid carers, so this is a
significant issue.
The stresses and strains of having to juggle paid employment with
unpaid care has led to hundreds of thousands of carers leaving
the labour market or reducing their hours in work. This is at a
time when recruitment into all forms of business is almost at a
crisis level. More than 500,000 people—half a million—left the
workforce between 2018 and 2020 because of the lack of support,
600 people per day on average. The acute shortage of social care
support is also placing additional unsustainable pressure on
carers and making it harder for them to manage both work and
care. Caring has intensified too, with the proportion of unpaid
carers providing significant care—over 20 hours per
week—increasing by 42% since 2020, so they are having to do more
caring, often as a result of less other care being available to
their families. Many carers now report—it is no wonder—that they
are exhausted and burned out, especially those who find the
process of juggling so difficult. The Bill will help to meet some
of that huge caring challenge. Again, it does not pretend to
sweep all the issues away, but it is an important step.
I will summarise the main elements of the Bill. It will provide
powers to make regulations to create an entitlement to carer’s
leave. It does this by inserting new provisions into the
Employment Rights Act 1996. The leave will be unpaid and will be
for the purpose of caring for a dependant with a long-term care
need. All employees who meet the qualifying criteria will be
entitled to the leave, no matter how long they have worked for
their employer. It will be available to take in blocks from as
small as half a day to up to a week in total at least—depending
on future legislation—over a 12-month period.
I now go to the qualifying criteria. First, the person must be
providing care for, or arranging for the care of, a dependant
with a long-term care need. The definition of “dependant” is
broadly drawn, and we should be very pleased about that, because
it will make things a lot easier to manage and administer. The
Minister talked about simplicity, and the breadth of drawing
creates simplicity in the delivery. The Bill states that
“a person is a dependant of an employee if they … reasonably rely
on the employee to provide or arrange care”—
“reasonably rely” is an important phrase in this Bill. This is a
helpful safety net and ensures that a wide range of relationships
are in scope, wider than just immediate family members.
Secondly, the definition of long-term care need is similarly
broad. In the Bill,
“a dependant of an employee has a ‘long-term care need’ if—
(i) they have an illness or injury (whether physical or mental)
that requires, or is likely to require, care for more than three
months,
(ii) they have a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act
2010, or
(iii) they require care for a reason connected with their old
age.”
The Bill also requires that regulations set out the employee’s
rights regarding their existing terms and conditions while on
leave and have their right to return to work once they have
finished their leave. The reference to terms and conditions does
not, of course, include pay. As I have said, this is an unpaid
leave right.
I believe it is important that the right to carer’s leave should
work for both employees and employers. This is why employees will
be required to give reasonable notice to take their leave, which
enables employers to make necessary arrangements to manage their
absence. In fact, in many cases, carers are having to use
short-term sick leave or phone in sick to meet the care
responsibilities they have. This is far less easy for an employer
to manage than having advance knowledge that something is
happening, where they can know the day and the hour, so it is
actually a big advantage for employers.
The detail of notice requirements will be a matter for
regulations, but the Government’s consultation response makes it
clear that the notice period requirements may be similar to those
for taking annual leave, which should keep the landscape simple
for those requesting and responding to requests for this leave. I
should remind your Lordships that there is a separate cover for
emergency issues, which does not come within the Bill.
Employees have a right to carer’s leave, so it is stronger than a
right to request, but the Bill acknowledges that there might be
situations where it will be challenging for the employer to grant
the leave requested. Therefore, an employer will be entitled to
postpone the leave, but they may not deny a request. Clearly,
this will be about the relationship between the employee and the
employer, but the employee has a right. The aim of this approach
is to ensure that employers engage with their employees so that
they can agree on a suitable date. As with other employment
rights, an employee will be able to make a complaint to an
employment tribunal where their employer has unreasonably
postponed or prevented them from taking carer’s leave.
I shall say just a few words about the general and delegated
powers, because details of how the provision will work will be
set out in secondary legislation. There are delegated powers in
this Bill, and noble Lords, including me, have often been
concerned, rightly, about the way in which delegated powers will
be used. In this instance, the delegated powers will allow the
Secretary of State to set out the extent of the leave entitlement
and when it will be taken, and employee entitlements while on
leave and on return to work. They will also allow for regulations
to cover procedural requirements around notice periods and
postponement, and the consequences of failing to follow
requirements.
This is all wholly consistent with the approach taken to family
leave rights generally. That consistency makes it clearer and
easier for employees, employers
and the legal community, and is a sensible and pragmatic
approach. I was delighted that the DPRRC yesterday expressed no
concerns with the secondary legislation in the Bill.
In conclusion, I encourage noble Lords to engage with the Bill. I
think we all want it to succeed and to pass through your
Lordships’ House as quickly and easily as possible. We have an
opportunity here to make a real difference to the lives of those
who will seek to rely on this entitlement in future, and the
people for whom they care. I hope that with the support of noble
Lords, we can take that opportunity and deliver legislation that
can make a change for the better. I beg to move.
12.52pm
(Con)
My Lords, perhaps I might be the first to congratulate the noble
Lord, , on his choice of subject and the
excellent speech he made in support of it, to which I will add a
brief footnote to demonstrate the support from my side of the
House for his Bill, but also to focus on its application to young
carers. Having spent much of the week listening to the noble Lord
making critical comments about pieces of legislation, it was a
refreshing change to hear him speak so positively about this one,
and I congratulate him on getting a clear round from the
Delegated Powers Committee.
Last month, the ONS published the second phase of data relating
to unpaid care from the 2021 census, and the Carers Trust, to
which I am grateful for its briefing, has produced an interesting
note on what those census figures mean in relation to young
carers and young adult carers. The headline was that the 2021
census figures showed a significant decrease in the number of
young carers and young adult carers identified through the
census, compared with 2011. I happen to believe that there are a
number of reasons why those figures underrepresent the number of
young carers, but there was a significant increase in the
proportion of children and young adults providing significant
levels of care, with over 140,000 young carers and young adult
carers caring for more than 20 hours a week. Astonishingly, there
are still close to 50,000 children and young adults providing
more than 50 hours of care a week—the equivalent of a full-time
job—which in many cases they have to reconcile with their
commitments to education. The data also highlighted how young
carers and young adult carers in England and Wales were more
likely to be living in areas of high deprivation compared with
their peers without caring responsibilities, and there is a
message there for the Government’s levelling-up agenda.
While many of these young carers are still at school or college,
a significant number are working and they struggle to balance
caring with paid work. In the latest survey by the Carers Trust,
45% of young carers and young adult carers said that they were
“always” or “usually” struggling to balance caring with paid
work. Fewer than half of young carers and young adult carers said
that they either “always” or “usually” get help from work to
balance caring in their life.
By providing unpaid carers with a legal right to request
additional leave because of their caring responsibilities, the
noble Lord’s Bill will help reduce
the need for carers to use annual leave or to give up work
entirely because of their caring responsibilities, such as
medical appointments or recovery from procedures.
One of the additional benefits of the noble Lord’s Bill is that
it should lead to increased awareness about the needs of unpaid
carers and should ensure that all employers have processes to
identify unpaid carers from the point of application and also
record which staff have caring responsibilities. It also has the
potential to normalise conversations in the workplace about
caring. This is something which will particularly benefit young
adult carers, who say that they find it difficult to identify
themselves as unpaid carers to their employers. I am interested
in the final section of Part 1 of the noble Lord’s Bill, which
provides a bit of a stick in that employers could be liable to
pay compensation if they ignore the obligations in the Bill.
Finally, I support the Bill. I look forward to other speeches, in
particular from the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, who has
been campaigning on this issue for as long as I have known her,
which I suspect is even longer than the noble Lord, , has. I support this
legislation.
12.56pm
(Lab)
My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord
Young, and I thank him and, indeed, the noble Lord, , for their very kind words. It
has always been a privilege to be working for carers and I have
always been fired up by being in contact with carers and being
inspired by their contribution and their need. It is a pleasure
that John and Patrick, two carers, are with us below Bar
today.
Your Lordships will know that the Bill in front of us represents
an issue that is close to my heart and that when it comes to
Private Members’ Bills I have previous form. It goes right back
to 1995, when my much-respected colleague, the late , took the first Private
Member’s Bill for carers through the House of Commons. I was not
in your Lordships’ House then, but I was chief executive of
Carers UK and doing what Carers UK continues to do: providing
support and leading the campaigning to get better recognition for
carers, as it has been doing for more than 50 years in one guise
or another.
That first Bill, the Carers (Recognition and Services) Bill, was
not all that we wanted it to be, but it was a vital milestone in
the fight—and I use the word “fight” advisedly—for recognition of
carers. We learned in that particular fight a very important
lesson: it is better to get something on the statute book and use
it subsequently to move on rather than risk the ideal being the
enemy of the good.
That lesson was further learned in two more Private Members’
Bills, by which time I was a Member of your Lordships’ House and
had the honour of seeing them through this House. It is a lesson
I have firmly in my mind today as we contemplate this Bill, so
ably introduced by the noble Lord, . Its provisions are modest—some
might say modest in the extreme—but they are of great
significance.
Many of us have campaigned for many years to secure additional
rights to better support people who are juggling paid work
alongside their unpaid caring responsibilities. Indeed, I
remember very well the Caring Costs campaign that Carers UK set
up nearly 30 years ago. Interestingly, it was funded by a
government grant—we must bear that in mind, perhaps. It was a
ground-breaking piece of work which looked at unpaid carers’
experiences of being out of work and what would make a difference
to them being able to return to work. That report from 1996
recommended a week’s, even two weeks’, unpaid leave for carers to
be able to combine work and care, so this Bill has been a long
time coming.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, will no doubt tell the House,
she has tried previously on several occasions to bring forward
legislation—unsuccessfully. I am therefore very pleased that this
Bill, brought forward by last year, following
the absence of an employment Bill, has made it this far.
As we have heard already, millions of people provide unpaid care
to family members and friends in communities across the United
Kingdom. While many do so gladly, willingly and with love, it
often comes at great personal cost because carers do not receive
the support and recognition they need.
A key benefit of the Bill will be to raise the profile of unpaid
carers further by helping employers and other employees better
understand what caring is. It is too often seen as a private
matter and, as we have heard, carers are reluctant to identify
themselves. The word “carer” is still not well understood and is
often muddled up with “care worker”—although nowadays,
thankfully, your computer is a little less likely to change it to
“career”, as it always used to do.
While carers face many challenges, one area that can be
particularly difficult is continuing to remain in paid employment
while providing unpaid care. All too often, the assumption is
made that you simply cannot do this—it has to be one or the
other. I have lost count of the number of carers who have said to
me, “It was a no-brainer. When my mother was going to be
discharged from hospital, they automatically assumed that I was
going to give up my job to care for her.”
The latest Family Resources Survey finds, as we have heard, that
2 million people undertake paid employment alongside their caring
responsibilities. Research from Carers UK indicates that these
numbers could be far higher, because of carers’ reluctance to
identify themselves. So it is only right that we take steps to
support carers to remain in work where they want to do so.
The stresses and strains of having to combine work and care have
led to hundreds of thousands of carers having to leave the labour
market or reduce their hours of work, as we heard from the noble
Lord, . Having to leave work has a
significant impact on carers’ finances, of course. Carers UK
found that two in five carers who have given up work or reduced
their working hours to care were around £10,000 to £20,000 per
year worse off as a direct result. It also has a negative impact
on carers’ pensions; more than half of unpaid carers are unable
to save anything for retirement. This has huge implications
for carers and the economy in the long term, with many left
penniless in later life with the resulting effects and stress on
the benefits system.
Beyond income, staying in paid work has a significant emotional
effect on carers who can manage to do it. We know that mental
well-being is higher among working carers in organisations that
provide support than among those that provide no support. As one
carer said, “I currently work two days a week and find hospital
appointments clashing with workdays very stressful. I feel guilty
about asking to swap days or take time off and guilty about not
being able to attend appointments. A policy that allowed me
unpaid leave would be good. I don’t think my employer is aware or
understands what caring is like.” That is the case with many
employers, although we must also pay tribute to the many
employers that have taken up the carers’ cause and aim to provide
support in their places of work.
However, while the Bill has significant benefits to carers
themselves—supporting them to remain in work and improving their
health and well-being—there are sound economic reasons for
ensuring that carers are able to remain in work. The UK economy
and the productivity of business and employers, including the
public and voluntary sectors, depend on retaining their skilled
and knowledgeable staff. Crucially, that increasingly includes
employees who are trying to combine work with unpaid caring
responsibilities. We know how many skills carers develop during
their caring lives—not just the obvious caring skills but
organisational and administrative skills, which can be of great
value to employers.
Certain sectors of our economy are particularly reliant on
employees who combine working and caring. For instance, the
latest NHS England staff survey found that one in three NHS staff
also provides unpaid care. It is vital that they are supported to
remain in work, especially considering the current health and
care workforce shortages, of which we are all only too well
aware.
The Bill’s provisions will also have a positive effect on
employers. Evidence shows that providing carer’s leave leads to
increased productivity for employers by improving their staff
retention rates, reducing their recruitment costs—we all know how
much it costs to recruit a new member of staff—and supporting the
health and well-being of their workforce, leading to far less
absenteeism. The Bill will also bring economic gains for the
Treasury through increased productivity, as more carers will be
able to stay in work rather than having to reduce their hours or
leave the labour market altogether, and thus pay more tax to
HMRC.
It is clear to me that all parties will benefit from this
legislation; it is a win-win situation. The Bill is well drafted
and allows for the flexibility that is necessary for it to work
in practice for both employees and employers. It is particularly
welcome that the Bill will enable employees to take carer’s leave
to care for a very wide range of people: a spouse or civil
partner, a child, a parent, a person who lives in the same
household or a person who may not be living in the same household
but who still relies on you to provide care, and of
course the definition of “dependant”, as we heard from the noble
Lord, , is widely defined, and that is
very welcome too.
The Bill also allows employees to take carer’s leave for a wide
range of reasons, such as providing personal or practical
support, helping with official or financial matters including
phoning and being on the internet, providing personal and medical
care, or making care arrangements. Anyone who has ever tried to
make such arrangements knows just how time consuming that is:
making contacts, being passed from one to another and inevitably
waiting for the call backs which do not come.
While we still need to go further in providing support for carers
to help them to continue work and care, I see this Bill as a
vital first step and as a commitment that in future we can ensure
them even more rights in their workplaces, and I will look
forward to participating in that legislation in the future.
1.06pm
(LD)
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady
Pitkeathley. Her knowledge and expertise on this subject are
unequalled in this Chamber. As she said, the Bill has been a long
time coming and it is a vital first stage—and it is indeed that.
I thank my noble friend for his detailed explanation of
the Bill and congratulate my colleague in the other place, , for piloting the
Bill to this stage. I am very pleased to support this Bill at
Second Reading and I hope your Lordships will be pleased to
support it and take it through to its next stage.
In an ideal world, I would prefer to see carer’s leave as a paid
right. Indeed, many employers would subscribe to that, and many
do it already. It is a good employment practice, the cost is
minor and the employer will be more likely to keep valuable staff
at a time when recruitment is getting harder.
The Bill has identified a clear gap in current legislation, in
that it is not about emergency help or care for children who are
ill, which are already legislated for, but it is about long-term,
day-to-day caring needs for dependants and those close to the
carer. As our population ages, this will become increasingly
important. Crucially, the administration of the scheme is reduced
to the minimum. Simplification matters because it means that
those benefiting from it can follow the necessary procedures
easily.
A key issue will be publicity. I was very struck by the comment
of the sponsor in the House of Commons, , that
“a significant issue is simply getting carers to recognise
themselves as such”.—[Official Report, Commons, Carer’s Leave
Bill Committee, 9/11/22; col. 5.]
The more the Government can do to promote the new right to
carer’s leave, the better the outcomes will be.
More and more people are going to need extra personal support as
they grow older. Family members will mostly be providing it. We
need to encourage those helping provide care to do so without
giving up work, because the cost of care to a family would
otherwise exceed the level of their income. We need them to stay
in employment.
Seven million people are providing unpaid care when in paid work.
That is a very large number. The economy needs them to stay in
paid work, so this Bill really does matter. I welcome the Bill
having completed its passage through the House of Commons without
amendment. I hope that it will do likewise in this House and that
the regulations are passed as soon as possible.
1.10pm
The
My Lords, I am pleased to speak in wholehearted support of this
Bill. It has been a pleasure to hear other speeches and to
receive briefings on this significant area of our common life. I
look forward to hearing other speeches and thank those who have
introduced the Bill.
The Bill is an important step forward in showing carers that
although their efforts may not be waged, they are very much
valued. It might not go as far as could be hoped, as the noble
Lord, , has said, in that it provides
for unpaid rather than paid leave, but it is undoubtedly a step
in the right direction.
I see three key features of this Bill: first, the provision of
leave for anyone with caring responsibilities, not just those who
care for people in their household; secondly, guaranteeing this
leave as a day one right; and thirdly, allowing for it to be
taken flexibly. These three features show that the Bill
recognises the variety of unpaid carers on whom society depends
and the distinct challenges they face.
I draw your Lordships’ attention to the Archbishops’ Commission
on Reimagining Care. The report, Care and Support Reimagined: A
National Care Covenant for England, was published just a few
weeks ago. Paid leave for carers and the right to request
flexibility from day one of hire were among the commission’s
recommendations. That report, like the authors and champions of
this Bill, recognises the difficulties of juggling
responsibilities to one’s employers and to the people one cares
for. When that balancing act becomes unsustainable, millions of
people give up work or reduce their hours in order to care for
loved ones. If they do so, further financial pressure is added to
their load. In return for providing care worth some £132 billion
a year, more than a million unpaid carers are living in
poverty.
There are psychological and spiritual as well as financial
benefits to being able to stay in work. As one of my colleagues,
Carolyn, who cares for her son, told me, for many carers
including herself, being able to remain in work forms a vital
part of their own well-being and positive mental health. Being
able to contribute beyond their caring responsibilities is all
part of feeling that their lives have purpose, meaning and
consequence. This was echoed at a recent gathering of carers,
parents and grandparents of children with special educational
needs and disabilities which my wife and I hosted at our house.
Many spoke of the loneliness of being a carer and the need for
wider support networks, which can of course include colleagues at
work.
Having the right to a week’s leave will therefore help many
unpaid carers to continue working, with the support for their
well-being and household finances which that entails. However, it
is important to state
that we all stand to benefit from their skills, talents and
experience remaining in the workforce. The phenomenal costs of
recruitment and retention, which have already been mentioned,
point to the spiritual truth that no one is a fungible economic
unit. I and my diocese would be much poorer without people such
as Carolyn—without their compassion, empathy, sensitivity and
wisdom. She enriches us not despite her caring experience, but
because of it. This Bill should therefore be passed not as an act
of pity, but as a recognition of our collective debt and
gratitude to one another and our interdependence on one
another.
Returning briefly to the Archbishops’ Commission, its report sees
paid leave for carers as just one part of a more radical and
ambitious vision. The Christian belief is that we are all made in
the image of God, that it is not good for any of us to be alone,
and that giving and receiving care is fundamental to human
flourishing. This wider values-based vision of the commission
encourages a revolution in our attitudes to disability and
ageing, recognising that every single person is of equal value
and dignity and must be treated as such. This vision includes the
aim to make social care a universal entitlement, and that this
should be person-centred care, designed with people, not imposed
on them. At its heart is a call for a national care covenant
which sets out the distinct roles and responsibilities not just
of government but of all of us as citizens and neighbours.
I commend the archbishops’ report to your Lordships, as it
outlines both the fundamental values and the specific steps which
could bring a compassionate, inclusive and sustainable care
system into being. I invite employers to venture beyond the
letter of the Bill and enter into its spirit by giving carers
active support, recognition and affirmation, as well as respite.
For every workplace would profit immeasurably by learning from
those who give themselves fully to the well-being of others.
1.16pm
(Non-Afl)
My Lords, at the outset I take this opportunity to acknowledge
the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin, who led the earlier debate so
magnificently. The ambitions of her Bill were the fundamental
objectives of many campaigns, and of a project a number of women
set up in Tower Hamlets called the maternity services liaison
advocacy scheme. It is a joy to see that the noble Baroness was
speaking, and I am sorry I missed the debate. It is also an
honour and a personal privilege to be taking part in this debate,
and I want to humbly thank the noble Lord, , for his thorough introduction;
he need not have worried at all.
Many statistics on unpaid carers are constantly bandied about,
but the facts are glaring; indeed, we know that many more carers
are not in the public eye or paid for by the public purse. Like
many hundreds of thousands of families, we have cared for our
loving and beautiful 44 year-old son—a young man who inspires us
every day—without a shred of the public care system support which
may or may not have been in place. Very early on in our
professional and business
careers, the decision had to be made that, as parents, one of us
would need to stay at home to ensure that our son was safe and
cared for.
I can tell your Lordships that even enlightened local authorities
were less than pleasant when women, in particular, sought time
off for caring responsibilities, which in many instances counted
against their career progression. Not much appears to have
changed for substantial numbers of carers on zero-hours contracts
or for poorly paid part-time workers who are almost certainly
unlikely to gain from the proposed Bill. However, I keep hoping
that one of these days, our Government’s compassionate and caring
conservatism, levelling up and all the other “ism” ambitions will
eventually eradicate these horrible, cruel, medieval working
conditions in the world’s sixth largest economy. As a society, if
we can afford to spend billions on crap PPE and weapons of war,
we can also empower with a decent and just wage the army of
social carers and family carers who are upholding our nation.
For those in our social welfare system, £69 for 24/7 carer’s
allowance, which has increased by only £15 over the last decade,
is an insult. I can understand why many families such as ours
simply opt out of the system. Many families may not even be aware
of these cumbersome systems, or able to navigate them for this
miserly amount. It is therefore important that changes are
relayed through the NHS and DWP systems to ensure that these
entitlements are known to carers.
I welcome these proposals for the carer’s leave entitlement. With
hand on heart, I say that they are a long time coming. More than
four decades ago, as one of the founders and the manager of a
project, I ensured that all members of our all-women staff team
had written into their contract their entitlement to childcare
and other care responsibilities, including emergency provisions,
as the Bill aspires to do. This decision was critical to keep and
foster talented and skilled women staff members, many of whom
would otherwise have left and given up their employment. Many are
still forced to choose, even today, as powerfully advocated by
noble Lords during the Second Reading of the Protection from
Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Bill. I believe that our
practice was pioneering in the 1980s and had a transformative
impact on local services and statutory and voluntary
organisations. Local and national leadership are critical. I
believe that most employers will be supportive, given the
available statistics: almost every household will face these
dilemmas in their home sooner or later.
We are all too familiar with “A week is a long time in politics”.
Well, let me say that providing care and support for vulnerable
loved ones with special physical or emotional needs is a lifetime
of devotion. We must do all we can to prevent it becoming an
untold toil. The flexibility and wide-ranging application
proposed by the Bill are therefore welcome.
I have a generic point. Regardless of whether there are 10
million or 1 million carers, it would be more comforting if the
Government recognised—they must—that family support systems are
holding up an otherwise totally broken system of social care.
From all the facts, well rehearsed in this Chamber, we see that
we are not valuing carers and their real worth enough, in any
way. Every family such as ours is still holding up, not only
when the formal care systems are broken, to make sure that our
vulnerable loved ones live with dignity and independence.
It appears to have become customary to heroise individuals or
families as a way of illustrating the impact of our policies and
legislation on some service users. The question for me is not
about one individual experience or my personal experience, which
is painful and lifelong enough. As legislators, we are
responsible for making a difference to many more families,
communities and those in wider society who so often cannot access
benefits or services. Therefore, gender and other equality impact
assessments of the Bill are absolutely a must to realise the
aspiration behind the deliberation in this Chamber. It has
far-reaching implications that can change people’s lives.
I am thankful to the many children’s and other carers’
organisations that have written to me, and I am always beholden
to my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley who has campaigned for social
and economic justice for carers for so long and so relentlessly.
I salute her constantly, and very often in this Chamber.
I ask the Minister to write to me with details of how government
departments reach out to communities hitherto beyond the reach of
many respected national organisations, particularly communities
in inner cities and deprived areas. How do government departments
relay information on rights to families at the coalface of social
and financial isolation? Consistency in our policies should be
joined up, and not undermine access to information. For example,
government departments are now routinely cutting or shutting down
phone lines, instead directing service users to online services
on the assumption that everyone has access to a smartphone or a
computer. It is not so, and we know the facts about digital
exclusion. We also know, and heard throughout the pandemic, of
the impact of digital exclusion on the most vulnerable and needy.
When they cannot afford food or energy bills, the upkeep of
broadband or a computer device is pretty much out of the reach of
most of them. We must therefore take the utmost care to undertake
an impact analysis of all the legislative and procedural
frameworks on carers and other vulnerable groups who suffer
disproportionately.
As a community campaigner, I say that there is so much more to
discuss, including the cutbacks and desperate shortage in social
care, and the lack of respite and adequate day care facilities or
holiday provision, all of which are putting huge extra
pressures—I will not use the word “burden”—on families already
stretched beyond their capacity. We speak of civilised society,
and surely the heroic and unrelenting support that carers in
their millions provide speaks volumes about our civility and
honour. We are already saving the Government hundreds of
billions, and none of us should rest here until there is full
recognition and parity of employment rights for carers. So with
great joy I support these good, small steps.
1.27pm
(LD)
My Lords, we have had a very good debate on this important
Private Member’s Bill, and I thank my noble friend for his excellent introduction.
For me, the debate has
underlined once again why carers’ lives can be so difficult,
despite caring usually being undertaken out of love and deep
familial bonds. As we have heard, caring unpaid for a family
member, friend or neighbour is a reality for many millions of
people across the UK and is something that almost everyone will
experience at some point in their life. It can take many forms:
it can be day-to-day physical caring, washing, dressing, feeding
those who cannot care for themselves; it can be making medical
appointments, accompanying people, arranging for paid care; it
can be helping a housebound elderly neighbour.
But caring for a loved one can come at high personal costs. Many
carers find that their own relationships are negatively affected,
and they can face their own health problems as a result of their
caring role. With the huge pressures and backlogs across the NHS,
with the difficulty all too often of getting appointments with a
GP or a hospital, and the record level of demand for social care
services at a time when the social care workforce is depleted,
many carers are simply not getting the support that they
need.
That is essentially what this Bill is designed to address, albeit
that we are only at the start of what I hope is a much longer
journey. “A vital first step” is how it has been described today.
But today’s debate has amply demonstrated how carer’s leave will
make a difference to carers’ lives. We have already heard the
latest estimates showing that over 7 million people in this
country are juggling work and unpaid care, and every year more
than 1.9 million people in paid employment become unpaid carers.
This is not a sideshow; this is something affecting large
segments of the population. We have today heard very movingly the
stresses and strains of having to juggle paid work alongside
unpaid care, without the support that is so often needed, and how
it has left many carers exhausted and burned out.
Unfortunately, as we have heard, these pressures have led to
hundreds of thousands of people having to drop out of the labour
market or reduce their hours—at a time when their skills are much
needed to the wider economy. We know and have heard that having a
supportive employer and the ability to take time off work can
help mitigate those pressures. Indeed, two-thirds of working
carers who have already had access to unpaid carer’s leave
through their own employer’s enlightened employment practices
have told Carers UK that it really made their caring role easier.
I spoke recently to some carers who were juggling working and
caring, and I was very struck by what one lady said to me. She
said, “I no longer have to hide the fact that I am a carer.” I
can well remember feeling that I needed to hide my own personal
caring responsibilities when I was in a full-time job, and I
would have loved to feel that what I was trying to do was both
above board and legitimate. I hope that this legislation will
normalise and legitimise those struggling to do both.
I was also very pleased recently, along with my noble friend
, to meet some leading employers
in this field, large and small, to hear at first hand about their
experiences of already providing carer’s leave and the positive
impacts that doing so had on their businesses, particularly in
terms of staff retention. For this to really work, it must have
real benefits to
employers and employees. That is the beauty of this Bill, which,
by creating a new entitlement for employees to take up to a week
of unpaid leave a year, will really help. Yes, it is modest—we
all understand that—but it will provide increased flexibility to
unpaid carers who are balancing paid employment with their caring
responsibilities. I hope above all that, for many more of them,
it will mean not having to make that invidious choice between
caring and working.
In addition, the Bill will support carers with their finances,
particularly in the longer term, and help with pensions. The
noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, reminded us of the number of
carers who, because they have to give up their job altogether or
reduce their working hours, become significantly worse off. This
fall in income is often accompanied by a sharp increase in
household costs as a result of the additional costs of ill health
and disability. In the middle of a cost of living crisis, that is
enough to tip many people over the edge.
Of course, everything comes with a cost, and we need to be up
front about that. But I was struck last week when reading some
research that suggested that UK companies can save up to £4.8
billion a year in unplanned absences and a further £3.4 billion
in improved retention by adopting working practices to support
employees with caring responsibilities. It might not be a strict
comparison, but it is interesting to note that the impact
assessment for the Bill says that the direct costs will be very
small—only £4.7 million for one-off familiarisation costs for
this new legislation, plus the recurring familiarisation costs. I
call that quite a return.
I want to draw attention, as I have in the past, to the impact of
unpaid caring on women and those caring for children with
long-term disabilities. The Bill would particularly support women
to stay in work, as they are more likely to be juggling work and
care and more likely to be in part-time than full-time work.
Carers UK research has shown that, while the average person has a
50:50 chance of caring by the age of 50, on average women can
expect to take on caring responsibilities more than a decade
earlier than men. Likewise, the Family Resources Survey shows
that women aged 45 to 64 are most likely to be carers and more
likely than men to provide informal care across all age groups,
except for those aged 85 and over. It is welcome that the impact
assessment produced for the Bill recognises:
“In the context of the gender pay gap, the fact that women are
more likely to provide care means that they are more likely to
face adverse employment effects associated with caring i.e.,
lower earnings and leaving the labour market.”
It is welcome that the Bill also provides much-needed support for
those who are juggling work with caring for a child with a
long-term disability. People in this situation often face extreme
pressures and challenges, and it is right that they should be
able to take advantage of the provisions in this Bill, building
on the rights that they already have under unpaid parental
leave.
Finally, it is instructive to see how other countries provide
support to employees trying to juggle work and care. In preparing
for this debate, I did a bit of research. The fact is that the UK
currently lags behind other countries when it comes to workplace
rights for carers. Many already have some form of carer’s
leave
in place—of course, it differs—including Japan, Canada, the USA,
Germany, Ireland, France, Belgium and Sweden. So I think it is
right that we are looking to close this gap. Indeed, there are
some interesting and innovative approaches to family leave and
carer’s leave adopted in other countries that we would do well to
study—a point I know the Minister made in the previous
debate.
To conclude, I am delighted that after many years of trying, we
finally have an opportunity to ensure that carers are better
supported to remain in work by providing them with additional
rights at work to make their lives more flexible and manageable.
It is a cause that I, like so many others in this Chamber, have
long championed. I do not pretend to have anything like the
pedigree of the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, to whom we all
owe a huge debt of gratitude. However, as she mentioned, I have
tried several times—most recently in 2016—to introduce a carer’s
leave entitlement Bill. Sadly, as is the way of these things, it
never received a Second Reading. So one of my messages today is
to never give up hope. An opportunity may well come along,
sometimes when you least expect it. I give huge thanks to my
honourable friend Wendy Chamberlain, and of course to Carers UK
for everything it has done. I very much hope that this time we
can get these vital employment rights for carers on to the
statute book, which is why I am giving my noble friend’s Bill my
full support.
1.36pm
(Lab)
I start by thanking the noble Lord, , for sponsoring the Bill before
us today on this important matter, and indeed his colleague
in the other place
for initially sponsoring it. I note the cross-party support in
the other place, as has been mentioned today, and I hope we can
move forward in the same spirit. I also add my thanks for all the
different briefing papers we have received—from Carers UK, for
example, and the MS Society.
I particularly pick up on the reference the right reverend
Prelate the made to the
Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care. I, too, recommend it
to those who have not had a chance to look at its
recommendations. It was my great privilege to work closely with
in her former role at the
Centre for Ageing Better when I was the leader of Leeds City
Council. So many of the pieces of work we did there have informed
my views on how we need to move forward on this issue.
I also pay tribute to the other speakers in the debate for their
passion and obvious long-term commitment to this agenda and for
standing up for the most deserving in our society—all those
unsung heroes who do so much to support their loved ones. Indeed,
as we have heard today, many noble Lords have personal, as well
as professional, experience of these matters; I note the comments
made by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin. These are incredibly
important insights that we need to use to inform our discussions
and policies as we take them forward. I pay particular tribute to
my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley and thank her for her
inspirational speech, and I acknowledge her wealth of experience
in these matters.
We fully support the Bill, although we believe that carer’s leave
should be paid. We have to ask why it has taken the Government so
long to introduce legislation, therefore necessitating its
introduction by Private Member’s Bill. We remain disappointed
that the promised employment Bill has not materialised. However,
we acknowledge that this is a significant moment to take a step
in the right direction, and we believe we should seize the
moment. It is also worth noting that, under the proposals set out
in Labour’s New Deal for Working People, the next Labour
Government will legislate to ensure that working people can
respond to family emergencies as and when they arise, without
being left out of pocket.
As so many have said, unpaid carers are among the many
unrecognised stars of the health and care sector. They step in to
support friends and family with care so that those people can
retain some of their independence and dignity. We need to
emphasise, particularly with International Women’s Day
approaching next week, how important it is to point out that,
tragically, the highest proportion of unpaid carers are women.
The highest proportion fall in the 50 to 59 age group, where a
staggering one in five women are estimated to be carers. Since
the Covid-19 pandemic, there are 350,000 more people over 50 who
are economically inactive, with health cited as the largest
single reason but caring and family responsibilities coming
second.
Carers UK has stated that granting unpaid carers the right to
carer’s leave would improve the finances of carers who would no
longer have to reduce their working hours or give up work
altogether. I think we all took on board the points outlined by
my noble friend Lady Pitkeathley about the impact on mental
health and, as the right reverend Prelate mentioned, the impact
of loneliness.
The scale of the issue is huge. We have heard many figures today.
Carers UK estimates that there are 7 million people in paid work
who also provide unpaid care. Every year an estimated 1.9 million
people in work become carers, and there is evidence of many using
up their holiday entitlement to provide cover as needed. An
estimated one in seven juggle work and care, with the Joseph
Rowntree Foundation stating that over 1 million carers are living
in poverty, feeling “abandoned by society”.
In the 2017 to 2019 parliamentary Session, the House of Commons
Work and Pensions Committee held an inquiry on employment support
for carers. Its May 2018 report, Employment Support for
Carers,stated:
“Balancing care with paid employment is a tricky juggling
act”—
I think that is putting it mildly—which, as we have heard, causes
many carers to either give up work or reduce their hours. It said
that this was costly to the individual, who can lose financial
security and may need to recruit a replacement. In addition, it
found that there was an economic cost as
“productivity, and ultimately tax revenues, suffer from people
who want to work, or work more, being avoidably unable to do
so”.
Putting my business and trade hat on, I will say, like the noble
Lord, , that the impact on the economy
is profound and needs to be taken into
account by the Government, particularly by the Treasury. I will
not repeat the figures that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler,
quoted, but they are stark and significant. Indeed, our Adult
Social Care Committee estimated in its excellent report a loss to
the Exchequer of £2.9 billion in carer’s benefits and lost tax
revenues.
We welcome the broad definition of reasons for needing carer’s
leave and the fact that the definition of “dependant” is also
broadly drawn. These definitions are often misunderstood, and
further clarity is indeed welcome.
I particularly welcome the reference to young carers made by the
noble Lord, Lord Young. He raised the links to deprivation and
that awful tendency of those in this category to suffer in
silence and not to come forward and claim any support that might
be available to them. Given the important role that unpaid carers
play and the fact that so many of them find themselves in
precarious financial positions, especially with the soaring cost
of living crisis, the situation is simply unacceptable. Through
this process, the ability to raise the profile of the issues is
very important.
I feel that it is impossible to talk in this debate without
referencing the urgent need to tackle the crisis of social care
in this country—across all age groups, those caring for both
children and adults with disabilities, respite need and home
care, as well as in the residential sector. It would be very
helpful in this debate to have an update on progress in this
area.
I very much look forward to the Minister’s response. I hope that,
in line with other contributors’ support today, we will hear that
the Government support this important Bill’s passage so that we
can start to move forward on the journey to give carers support
and to continue to increase awareness for those who so
desperately need, and richly deserve, our support.
1.46pm
The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade ( of Lainston) (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, , for introducing this debate. It
was a highly eloquent, extremely thoughtful, very technical and,
frankly, quite moving introduction to what I think we all agree
is a most essential Bill. I also thank Wendy Chamberlain for
initiating this process in the other place and the noble
Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, who clearly has been an inspiration
to many in this House. She is an inspiration to me and has helped
drive this agenda for many years. I hope that the noble Baroness
feels a sense of satisfaction as she sits here participating in
this debate, where we can now as a group “do something about it”,
as they say. I personally appreciate the enormous support the
noble Baroness has given to this process.
I would like to cover three specific areas in terms of why the
Government are so keen to support the Bill. First, this is good
for business. I believe that the noble Baroness, Lady Blake,
covered this from her expertise in her trade and economy role.
Many other noble Lords also focused on this important point. We
cannot afford for so many individuals to leave the workforce if
we can possibly avoid it. I will talk about the moral case for
that in a moment, but purely commercially, it does not make
sense. It is an economic disaster that
people are forced to leave employment in order to care. The
figure quoted, of £2.9 billion, seems to me to understate the
cost to the economy of this situation. Coming at this from a
relatively dry economic standpoint, as someone who is not a
proponent, fundamentally, of excessive regulation or additional
burdens on businesses, I believe this is absolutely the opposite.
It is an essential lubrication to the opportunity for businesses
to prosper and for more people to come back into the workforce.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, wisely said, it will
allow us to raise the profile of carers. It will allow people to
better understand the business case for being able to combine
work and caring. It will also help businesses understand the
importance of retaining their staff and engendering good
relations with their employees. I am absolutely convinced, as are
the Government, that the business case for this Bill is paramount
and incontrovertible.
Secondly, the Bill reflects the relevant role that carers play in
our society. I was appalled to hear of some of the costs that the
noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, mentioned, of between £10,000
and £20,000, the well-established losses to pension
contributions, and the poverty levels in which many carers find
themselves on account of having to give up work to do the right
thing.
The right reverend Prelate the raised a number of
issues which have confluence with these points. I have not read
the report of the Archbishops’ Commission on Reimagining Care. I
would be grateful if he would be kind enough to make a copy
available to me, and I will certainly invest some time in it.
Other noble Lords raised the issue of the economic cost to
carers, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Blake and Lady
Tyler. The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, had to hide her caring
responsibilities from her employer. My noble friend Lord Young
asked whether employers are obliged to keep a register of carers
in their companies. They will be obliged to record people who say
they are carers—clearly the process to obtain the unpaid leave
will necessitate that type of information—but they are not
obliged to undertake a survey of their staff. I do not believe it
is a requirement for registration when you join a firm. I think
this initial stage is probably satisfactory, but it is certainly
something that should be kept under review.
We hope this legislation will start to change the attitudes of
businesses and individuals so that we can be proud to be carers,
and businesses can be proud to have carers in their businesses
and to support them in an appropriate way, as they would those in
other occupations, such as the Territorial Army or whatever it
may be, who have important work to do and whom they want to
retain. This is a very relevant incentive—not that I am comparing
those two roles, but I hope noble Lords understand what I am
trying to imply.
The noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, made important points that I
would like to address relating to making sure that the profile
and value of carers is appropriately raised. Their importance to
society must not be understated. For me, this Government and, I
am sure, all of us in this House, it is better that we have an
effective voluntary care system for dependants from
loved ones, friends, neighbours and relations as a principle in
how we structure our society and community. We believe firmly in
that, so any measures that enable this type of society—a society
of people bound together through love—is more powerful than any
state support that could be provided to an individual, so I
emphasise to the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, my support for her
remarks.
I am also very aware of the noble Baroness’s comments around
signposting entitlements to carers. It is important that we have
a variety of different signpost mechanisms. They are, on the
whole, the traditional mechanisms of websites, through ACAS and
the tribunal system and similar government information portals,
but I am not unaware of the need to raise the profile of this
principle. I hope that debates such as this and the work of noble
Lords will ensure we can continue to do this.
I am also aware of the issue around minority information portals.
The Government are very committed to ensuring that all language
communities are fully covered, but if there is anything that I
can do personally to magnify this situation to any specific
community, I would be keen to hear. This is ongoing work. I am
sure all input will be well received. I believe the noble
Baroness, Lady Uddin, asked me to write to her with specific
details. I will be delighted to do so, and that may instigate
further debate.
I hope I have covered everyone’s specific points. I express my
gratitude to all sides of the House for the moving and powerful
way that we have come together to very clearly put all our
support behind something that is very straightforward, easy to
administer, essential for our economy, right for the moral fibre
of our nation in terms of keeping carers in work, and will
benefit society fundamentally in the long term as well as raising
the profile of this issue so that we can be proud to be carers
and workers.
I turn now to some of the specifics that it would be useful to
have on record. The Bill will create a highly flexible new leave
right with low administration requirements. It will be available
from the first day of employment, so people will be able to take
their one-week entitlement in blocks as small as half a day or,
indeed, for the full week. Both “dependant” and “long-term care
need” are defined in the Bill, as has been raised. This is
important, and these definitions are very broad, as has been
welcomed. This ensures that leave is available for the widest
possible range of long-term caring scenarios.
The Bill also keeps the administration process as light as
possible. It is our intention that the associated regulations
will state that an employer cannot demand that an employee
present documentation in support of a leave request. I think we
all agree that that is a relevant point. It is not for people to
justify their actions; that raises even higher hurdles and
barriers around the situation we are discussing. This helps the
employee, who may not wish to divulge details of the health and
well-being of their relative or friend. It also helps the
employer, frankly, as it will relieve them of the responsibility
of storing and managing that data effectively.
In conclusion, the Government are pleased to support this Private
Member’s Bill and deliver our manifesto commitment. I thank again
the noble Lord, ,
for bringing the Bill before us today, and the noble Baroness,
Lady Pitkeathley, for her endeavour and her journey to where we
stand now. I thank all noble Lords who have participated in the
debate. Many have spoken passionately about their personal
experience of caring for loved ones. I hope that in future, for
many unpaid carers, this new leave right will make it that little
bit easier to balance their work and caring commitments, and that
their lives will be a little bit better for that. This is why I
want to see the Bill succeed. We have an opportunity here today
to make a real difference to the lives of those who seek to rely
upon carer’s leave in the future.
1.57pm
(LD)
My Lords, I join the Minister in thanking noble Lords for their
contributions today. When I saw the speakers’ list, I suspected
that we would have a good debate, but it has exceeded those
expectations. I think it has been a wonderful debate and I
understand that even the Deputy Speaker refused to leave the
Woolsack in order to be able to hear the end of it. I start by
specifically thanking the Minister: the care and the detail with
which he replied to the debate is a very good sign, and I am
really delighted by that. I am afraid I will have to pull him up
on one thing. He suggested that the noble Baroness, Lady
Pitkeathley, might be satisfied: I can warn him, from what little
I know of the noble Baroness, that she will be at his door
tomorrow with the next requirement.
I would like to pick a few of the bones out of this debate,
because it has brought together a wide variety of issues. I thank
the noble Lord, Lord Young, for bringing up the issue of young
carers and young adult carers, because I failed to bring it
forward, and I am delighted that he was able to do it. He also
talked about workplaces being aware of how many carers they have.
My noble friend pointed out that there are an
awful lot of hidden carers within the workforce. Even those
businesses that have very well-defined carer systems, carer
passports and whatever else do not unearth all the carers they
have, so there is an awful lot of work to do, both at a
governmental and societal level and at a granular level in
businesses, particularly in small and medium businesses where
they do not have the HR processes and the systems or the people
to do this work.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said a lot of interesting
things, but I will pick out her point about trying to remove the
guilt from this process—the guilt
of the employee having to go and ask, cap in hand, for time to do
a very important task for the person for whom they care. By
putting that into a process, we start removing that guilt. My
noble friend mentioned the ageing
population, and this is crucial. The demographic, as it goes
forward, is going to drive the need for care, year on year, to an
even higher level than we see today.
I thank the right reverend Prelate the for his contribution.
He talked about valuing carers, and so many carers in the current
situation do not feel valued by people around them. He talked
about dignity, and I think part of what we are trying to do is
create an element of dignity. The right reverend Prelate also
talked about interdependence, with so many, as the noble
Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, said, feeling lonely. These are key
issues. This was picked up by the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, who
talked about her own personal experience, which was quite moving,
as well as the wider issue about how this is a real challenge in
the harder-to-reach communities in our society, and I thank her
for her delivery. My noble friend Lady Tyler talked about not
having to make the choice between caring and working, not having
to walk out of your work because you cannot manage the process of
day-to-day life.
I am now going to do what most Ministers seem to do, which is
shuffle a few pieces of paper. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady
Blake, and everybody else for their support, but I did have some
trepidation that one of your Lordships was going to come up, not
necessarily with an excoriating review of what we had here but
with a whole catalogue full of massive improvements. We all know
there is more to be done, and I am sure, as I have just said,
there will be lots of people wanting to suggest what that should
be. But the sense I got from the Chamber is that there are not
going to be lots of amendments coming forward, because the way we
get this Bill through quickly, or indeed get it through at all,
is without amendments—by accepting what we have and moving on. I
thank the noble Baroness, Lady Blake, for her, I think, cry of:
“Forwards. Let us seize the moment”. I ask your Lordships to join
with us, with the Minister and me, to seize that moment, and I
invite noble Lords to support a Second Reading of the Bill.
Bill read a second time and committed to a Committee of the Whole
House.
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