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12.36 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health (Dr. Stephen Ladyman): I am delighted to be able to respond to this debate on behalf of the Government. As several hon. Members have pointed out, it has been a very good debate—good humoured, with almost complete consensus and much good will on a issue of great concern to us all. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis) is right to bring it before the House in the form of this Bill.
I congratulate my hon. Friend. His support for carers comes not only from his constituency experience, but from his personal experience. He understands only too well the challenges faced by carers and appreciates their needs, because of his personal experience. If, through this Bill, we are able eventually to improve the lives of carers, it will be a special memorial for his son, Sam. I congratulate my hon. Friend on bringing Sam's Bill before the House.
There has been almost total agreement on the Bill today. I am delighted that there is such strong support for carers, and I hope that nobody doubts my own personal commitment to carers and to seeing their lives improved, as well as to legislation and measures to help them. However, it is my job as a Minister to bring some realism to many of the comments that have been made today. As I address the points that hon. Members have made and express the Government's concern about some parts of the Bill, I hope that nobody will doubt my personal commitment to carers or the Government's commitment to them.
The Bill and the debate are in the strong tradition of support for carers that has been expressed in the House previously through private Members' Bills. The House and the country should be in no doubt that the Government recognise the crucial role that carers play. We do not and must not take them for granted. Carers are vital to our communities. They enable people to stay in their own homes and remain independent for as long as they wish, and also to enjoy their lives. Carers' contributions, both to our society and to those they care for, need to be acknowledged and promoted.
When my hon. Friend introduced his Bill, he mentioned the many organisations and businesses that support it. I am delighted by that, because we will need their support to implement the Bill, if enacted. I was especially heartened when my hon. Friend mentioned some of the companies that are supporting the Bill, including British Gas and BT, both of which strongly support carers in their own work. Those companies have shown that imaginative support in the workplace can not only improve carers' lives, but improve their business opportunities.
We are rapidly approaching a period of full employment—as a result, I am delighted to say, of the Labour Government's work—which my right hon. and hon. Friends have dreamt about since becoming involved in politics. As we move into that period of full employment, competition for employees and for quality employees will become harder and harder, and companies that have imaginative and flexible work practices will be at an advantage to those that do not, and that includes those who have imaginative work practices in relation to carers.
Carers have huge talents. As several hon. Members have said, many people in the middle of their career suddenly find becoming a carer forced upon them. It is not their choice; they are obliged to become a carer due to their personal circumstances. These are people with huge talents, good qualifications and great experience, and it would be awful if they were to be lost to the work force.
Companies such as British Gas and BT can score by doing some simple things that do not cost very much but which encourage people to get back into the workplace. It can be as simple as ensuring that they have access to a private telephone line to make calls during the working day; it can be as simple as allowing flexible working hours, or allowing employees to take leave at short notice—simple things that make a huge difference.
Mr. Edwards: My hon. Friend has spoken about the contribution of companies such as British Gas, which sponsored the visit of carers whom I took to Buckingham palace some years ago, but does he feel that there is anything in the Bill that will allow companies to have flexible working hours; and if not, does he think that it might be possible to introduce such a provision in other legislation?
Dr. Ladyman: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his intervention because I was just about to cover that point. The Bill does not help companies; what it does is to ensure that when councils and the health service are taking action to support carers, they consider how they can best plan those services to ensure that people can get back to work. My hon. Friend is right to say that if the Bill does not cover the need to help companies to take on carers, Members of the House and the Government will have to look at other ways of helping businesses to do those things. My colleagues in other Departments are very interested in exploring those opportunities and I am sure that they would warmly welcome any ideas that Members of the House have. Nevertheless, the Bill is a private Member's Bill and if such Bills are to get anywhere they must be fairly finely focused and fairly narrow in their intentions, so my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon was absolutely right, when drafting and introducing the Bill, to keep it focused on a certain area of public service, instead of trying to make it too wide and thereby jeopardising its progress.
Although companies such as British Gas and BT have recognised the needs of carers and the benefits that they, as companies, can get from supporting carers, and although their support for the Bill is very welcome, they will not pick up the costs of the Bill, so the House—and the Committee if the Bill makes progress today—must ensure that we focus on those people who will have to pick up the bills, and on where the money will come
from. When we are speaking to our constituents and to people who are lobbying for changes in service, we are all sometimes guilty of thinking that all that is necessary is to pass the legislation and ask the Chancellor for the money to pay for it. I fear that is not how it works. Hon. Members should realise that if this Bill is passed, the Chancellor will come to me and say, "I hope you have the money to pay for it."
Mr. David: I hear what the Minister says about costs, but many experts in the field have lucidly argued that there would be no extra costs. Would the Minister like to suggest at this stage what the costs might be?
Dr. Ladyman: If we consider the Bill in Committee, we shall be able to explore specific costs. Several Members have mentioned the experience in Scotland as a result of implementing legislation that is similar to the clause on the duty to inform. I was delighted to learn from the Scottish Executive that their legislation has not increased costs significantly. That is the sort of information and practical experience that we must have before us if we are to allow the Bill to go forward.
Mr. Berry: I appreciate the point that my hon. Friend is making. Will he ensure that when the Bill is considered in Committee—I assume that it will be—the costs of not implementing its provisions will also be duly considered?
Dr. Ladyman: My hon. Friend is right. There must be a cost-benefit analysis. All too often we are not good at doing that. As has been said, there will be huge cost benefits in correctly implementing the Bill.
Mr. Burstow : I shall add to the point made by the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry). When, as we hope, the Committee is appointed and meets, will the Minister write to Committee members to set out the Government's estimates of both the costs and the benefits to inform our debates?
Dr. Ladyman: It will be my intention to put as much information before members of the Committee as possible so that we can have a proper, informed and constructive debate.
Mrs. Browning: When we talk about information and spreading it more widely so that carers are informed of key information, there is a danger that, with limited resources, and a requirement to spread information, a secretariat could be set up that would lead to the employment of many more people and a big advertising campaign that lasts all of five minutes, with the entire budget being spent on that. We should be looking at quite a low budget. There needs to be a little direction: who needs to know this, what is the information, where is it and how do we disseminate it. We do not need to employ umpteen new officials with offices and secretaries and all the rest of it. I could do it in a week for the Minister. It would be a little weekend job that I would do for nothing. In administrative terms, it is fairly straightforward and low budget.
Dr. Ladyman: I am sure that the hon. Lady will have many constructive suggestions for us in Committee. I
shall listen to them all with care. I would not go so far as to say that I would have great confidence that she could do the work in a week. However, I am sure that she can help us to facilitate the process so that it is done much more quickly than otherwise would be the case.I certainly agree with the hon. Lady that it is not a matter of taking on lots of managers and administrators, for example. It seems that she has missed one of the key things that it is necessary for us to do to implement the Bill. Many Members have talked about the need for implementation. I believe that the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Hywel Williams) was a social sciences teacher. We must ensure that all social workers who have to conduct carers' assessments and who will come across carers understand their duties. They must be trained so that when they encounter someone who has a care need, they automatically think, "If this person has a care need, they probably have a carer somewhere. Let's look around and find out who the carer is." We must not fall into the trap, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Mrs. Browning) and my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry), whereby carers do not recognise that they are carers. If people do not recognise that they are carers, they will not ask for the benefits that are available to carers. If carers do not recognise that they are carers, we must ensure that social workers recognise it.
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