In a recent Westminster Hall debate on support for unpaid carers, I told parliament about two boys from the Sussex area who had been caring for their mother. She had multiple health conditions and was regularly admitted to hospital. Medical staff were repeatedly told that her sons looked after her at home, yet neither child was identified as a young carer. In February 2025, one of them found his mother dead following a medical incident and had to call emergency services.
We cannot know whether recognising those boys earlier would have changed what happened to their mother. But they should never have been left without recognition and support. When children are providing care at home, that must prompt questions about what help they need, not an assumption that the family will manage.
Their story is an especially painful example of a much wider problem. We depend on unpaid carers, but too often our services behave as though that care comes at no cost.
Across the UK, 5.8 million people care for relatives, partners, friends or neighbours without pay. Some 1.7 million provide at least 50 hours of care every week. The value of their contribution has been estimated at £184 billion a year. Without them, our health and social care system simply could not function.
Yet Carers UK estimates that 1.2 million unpaid carers live in poverty, including 400,000 in deep poverty. Behind the figures are people who have left jobs, spent their savings, missed medical appointments or gone years without a proper break. Caring for someone you love should not mean losing your own financial security or health.
In preparation for the debate, hundreds of carers from across the country responded to a petitions committee survey. One was a former human rights lawyer who had given up her career to care. She wrote a poem about the deep love she felt for her child and the exhaustion and anxiety that came with her responsibilities. Her words have stayed with me.
Politicians are good at telling unpaid carers how extraordinary they are. We have been much less successful at ensuring they have the support to carry on.
There are welcome signs of progress. The government has published a carers action plan, announced a champion for unpaid carers and begun work on employment rights and Carer’s Allowance reform. And at PMQs last week, the prime minister agreed to consider making suicide prevention training mandatory for social care workers, following a call from my Liberal Democrat colleague Manuela Perteghella.
I welcome those commitments. But a plan does not provide a respite break, and an announcement does not give somebody back the income they have lost.
Consider the Carer’s Allowance overpayments scandal. The Department for Work and Pensions is reviewing decisions potentially affected by faulty guidance on irregular earnings. By September, it had reviewed and cleared only 2,400 cases, while 230,900 were still awaiting review or clearance. At this rate, it would take approximately 40 years to clear the backlog, despite the government’s target of March 2029. People facing uncertainty about debts and repayments deserve a faster process, with a clear explanation of how that timetable will be improved.
We must also do far more to identify young carers. Hospitals and GP services should recognise when children are taking on significant caring responsibilities and work with schools and local authorities to offer support. As the new chair of the all-party parliamentary group for young carers and young adult carers, I will keep pressing for that.
And we should make practical support a right, not a postcode lottery. The Liberal Democrats are calling for total reform of the carers allowance, guaranteed regular respite breaks, paid carers’ leave and dedicated support for carers in hospitals. During last week’s debate, the minister himself acknowledged how uneven access to respite care remains. The question now is what the government will do to change it.
As the Casey commission considers the future of social care, carers must have a genuine say in what they are willing and able to provide. Families cannot be treated as an unlimited resource, expected to fill every gap in the system.
I want ministers to set out what carers can expect to see improve in the next 12 months, how progress will be measured and when Parliament can scrutinise the results.
Unpaid carers deserve our recognition and thanks. But neither pays the bills, secures a break or ensures a young carer gets the help they need. A country that depends so heavily on unpaid care cannot keep treating carers’ own needs as optional.
