Chamber and committees

At present, councils across Scotland, including in the Lothians and Glasgow, are scaling back care packages and asking families to take on more support. The cabinet secretary has committed to increasing capacity in multidisciplinary teams, but the Government missed its deadline of April this year to embed multidisciplinary teams in general practices, and year-on-year cuts to local government—

—have made things perilous. With the onset of winter—

—does the cabinet secretary accept that councils and partners must straight away be provided with funding to recruit more carers?

We have moved from the recommendations in Mr Feeley’s review to what the Government has consulted on. The Feeley review gave a figure of £0.66 billion as an adequate investment for its proposals. However, we now have an expanded remit, and there has been commentary from Audit Scotland on the growing requirement for care, particularly with an ageing population. How realistic is the £0.66 billion figure, and what further work needs to be done to understand it?

Given that I named Mr Feeley, I had better let him respond first.

Professor Bell spoke about the elephant in the room, which is finance. Pay is part of that, and trade unions such as the GMB are advocating for £15 an hour for care workers. I am trying to get a sense of whether procuring better and more sustainable rates of pay is the first step, and the other aspects that we have discussed—training, qualifications and social care being a longer-term career—will follow from that. Derek, do you want to comment on that?

The discussion help us begin to think about the context of coming out of the pandemic and what will happen as we move forward. I am interested in service redesign, which has been touched on in previous answers. I am interested in what we can learn from the pandemic about doing things differently and in ways that bring savings. I am thinking about digital technology in particular. With regard to social care, the use of technology-enabled care is interesting. I want to get a sense of where the opportunities are for some of that.

No, that was helpful. I have some questions on sustainability, but we can move on to that later.

In closing for Scottish Labour, I begin, as colleagues in the chamber have done universally, by paying tribute to carers across Scotland. Throughout the debate, we have heard powerful stories about the lives of carers in every community, in a diverse range of families and in a range of caring settings. As with all our debates on the issue, it is key that we reflect carers’ voices and that they are central to our considerations. They are real people—not abstract numbers or financial calculations.

As my colleague Pam Duncan-Glancy said in her characteristically powerful opening speech, the debate is about people who take on caring roles to enable others to live their lives to the full. We have heard about the serious challenges that carers face, which I will come on to in a moment.

We in Scottish Labour agree that the payment is needed by Scotland’s carers and should be in their bank accounts before Christmas, which is why we will back the principles of the bill at decision time. However, we have concerns, as my colleagues have outlined. We share, based on evidence from carers and carer organisations, the Social Justice and Social Security Committee’s concerns about certain aspects of the bill, as set out in its stage 1 report. In that regard, I note the contribution from the committee’s convener, Neil Gray.

Martin Whitfield said that the one-off increase is

“a sticking plaster to cover a gaping wound”,

and I think that there is something in that. Those who contributed to the committee’s report concluded that it is not sufficient to lift carers out of poverty. That is because a third of carers are struggling to pay utility bills, 47 per cent have been in debt and half are struggling to make ends meet and are cutting back on food and heating as a result. Colleagues, including Maggie Chapman, spoke about those issues and the painful decisions that have to be made. We believe that the bill must increase the supplement on a permanent basis until the new benefit—carers assistance—is introduced.

As we have heard, Carers Scotland has estimated that, every single day of the Covid pandemic, unpaid carers have saved the Scottish Government £43 million through the care that they have provided. Carers feel undervalued and forgotten about in the midst of this unprecedented situation. The Scottish Government has promised to introduce carers assistance, the new benefit that will replace carers allowance, by 2025, which means that Scotland’s unpaid carers will have to wait years.

Thank you, Presiding Officer.

I thank the minister for that clarification. I am sure that carers will welcome it and will want to engage with it fully.

Overnight, 392,000 people have become carers because of the pandemic. We are now 18 months in, and unpaid carers are exhausted and overworked, and they feel underappreciated. This afternoon, we have heard a lot about people not being able to access respite services in the normal way and feeling that they do not have the right support at the right time.

Pam Duncan-Glancy and Willie Rennie stated that although the bill provides a one-off increase and includes a power to make future payments of the supplement, further increases are not guaranteed; Pam Duncan-Glancy’s intervention to the minister showed that we do not yet have confirmation of what further increases will look like. She highlighted constraints relating to the bill, including in relation to our ability to amend it, to the time that has been allowed for scrutiny and to consultation of the wider group of carers that we all want. That is why Scottish Labour will seek to lodge amendments at stage 2, as has been outlined, and will continue to engage with carers on the issues that are important to them. I welcome Willie Rennie’s support for that.

Although the measure is positive, it is temporary, so we must look at how we more widely support carers who are stressed, burned out and feel undervalued and who are—sadly, as we have heard all too often—ignored. It has been the most unimaginable 18 months for them. Many have had little or no access to respite services, many are still battling to have day services and support packages restarted, and many feel that they simply have not had a break. Some carers have even said that the only respite that they have had is when they have been hospitalised themselves. That is completely unacceptable.

As we debate measures such as the bill, and as the Government consults on the national care service, we must hear what carers tell us will make a real and meaningful difference. Carers want a plan for how services will be reinstated to pre-pandemic levels. They want assurances that, where they exist, smaller and targeted specialist services will be protected and supported, and that where such services have closed, alternatives will be provided.

As we heard from Miles Briggs and others, young carers want to know how they will be supported to return to learning, having juggled online learning and caring responsibilities, and how they will be supported financially to return to university, college or school.

In closing, I say that although the bill is a welcome step that will put more money into the pockets of carers, there is much more to do, so Scottish Labour looks forward to working with carers to get them the right support at the right time in the right place, because that is what they deserve.