Unpaid carers are financially suffering, some are using food banks – their benefits should increase now

Across the country, unpaid carers are doing a remarkable and important job in very difficult circumstances. On Carers Rights Day we need to acknowledge that they deserve our support.

Being a carer – whether as a parent of a disabled child, a teenager of a terminally ill parent, or a close relative of an elderly family member – can be rewarding and full of love. But it’s far from glamorous, and it can be relentless and exhausting.

The coronavirus pandemic has shown how carers are all too often forgotten and ignored by those in power. Just look at Ministers’ abject failure to protect people in care homes, from the lack of tests and PPE to the lies about a “protective ring” around care homes, while people died in horrifying numbers. Look at the way hospital patients were moved into care homes to free up space, without being tested for coronavirus.

This pandemic has reminded everyone that caring for people’s health doesn’t stop at the hospital exit, or the GP’s surgery door. That we can only improve the NHS if we properly support carers.

I’ve been a carer for much of my life. First, as a teenager, nursing my mum during her long battle against bone cancer. Later for my Nanna, organising her care and trying to make her last few years as comfortable as we could. And now, as a father, as Emily and I care for our disabled son John.

I understand the challenges that millions of carers face every single day; challenges that have been made even harder by coronavirus.

A recent survey of more than 5,000 unpaid carers by Carers UK found that most are having to spend more time looking after loved ones during this pandemic. Most haven’t been able to take a single break since it started. Most are simply exhausted.

And now they are worried. Worried about their own mental health, worried about what will happen if they themselves fall ill – because there’s no one to take over – and worried about whether they can cope during this second lockdown.

On top of it all, many of them are facing extreme financial hardship. Some 900,000 full-time unpaid carers rely on Carer’s Allowance – and at just £67.25 a week, it’s just not nearly enough. It is the lowest benefit of its kind – another example of how carers are too often an afterthought for many politicians.

When the government rightly raised Universal Credit by £20 a week in April, to recognise the extra financial strain this pandemic is putting on families, it didn’t do the same for Carer’s Allowance. Yet again, carers were left feeling forgotten and ignored.

The Carers UK survey found that more than a third of those on Carer’s Allowance are now struggling to make ends meet. Many have been struggling for months, often relying on food banks to feed themselves and the people they care for. Carers UK found that “43 per cent of carers felt that a rise in Carer’s Allowance would help them, given the financial pressures they are facing.”

So Liberal Democrats are calling on the government to immediately raise Carer’s Allowance by £1,000 a year, the same as the uplift in Universal Credit.

We must do far more to support our wonderful carers. The Liberal Democrats will stand up for carers and lead the way to a more caring society as we emerge from this pandemic.

Ed Davey is the leader of the Liberal Democrats