Offering carers unpaid time off isn’t just unhelpful – it’s an insult

The Carer’s Leave Act will do nothing to help people who are already struggling to make ends meet while looking after their loved ones, writes Jane Dalton, who acts as a carer for her elderly father. The government must do significantly more to support those who already do so much while being given so little in return

Carers already save the state millions of pounds in what would otherwise be massive social support costs (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Up to 35,000 people could face prosecution, fines and crippling debts because they claimed carer’s allowance – mostly inadvertently – when their part-time wages edged above the maximum threshold. In most cases, the reason they were eligible for the benefit was that caring – their very reason for claiming – precludes them from working full-time.

That they will be punished is a scandal, made all the more egregious by the fact that so many would love to be able to work full-time and not take cash from the state. Moreover, the five million of us in the UK who provide such care at home save the state £162bn a year in what would otherwise be massive social support costs, according to Carers UK and the University of Sheffield.

This is just the latest development in the decades of inequity to which unpaid carers in the UK have been subjected.