Meeting of the Parliament 18 May 2022
No—I need to crack on.
We have improved support for Scotland’s unpaid carers as a priority, using our social security powers. Our carers allowance supplement was the first payment that was made by Social Security Scotland. It increases carers allowance by over 13 per cent, with eligible carers receiving a payment every six months.
We are doing more than that. In January, we announced an additional £4 million to help organisations that work with unpaid carers to put in place expanded services this winter. On top of that, we have invested an additional £20.4 million for local carer support in 2022-23, which brings total investment this year in Carers (Scotland) Act 2016 provisions to £88.4 million. We have also earmarked additional funding for short breaks and we will introduce a new carers strategy, which we are working on with carers.
The key thing in all this is that the UK Government needs to play its part to address the cost of living crisis for all of us. It needs to implement an emergency budget now to address the costs of living for care workers, for unpaid carers and for society as a whole.
I move amendment S6M-04441.2, to leave out from “recognises” to end and insert:
“recognises the severe and ongoing impact of Brexit on the recruitment and retention of social care workers; believes that responsibility for employment law should be devolved to the Scottish Parliament so that it can embed fair work principles, including enshrining the real Living Wage for all ages; notes that the minimum hourly rate for adult social care workers in commissioned services in Scotland increased by over 10% to £10.50 per hour in the last year; supports the Scottish Government’s commitment to scrapping non-residential care charges and introducing the National Care Service; further supports that the principles of fair work and ethical commissioning will be embedded within the National Care Service; welcomes the additional £5 million for short breaks for 2022-23 to enable more families and young carers to take a break from caring; encourages local authorities to engage with social care providers and contractors to address increased fuel costs for staff, particularly through mileage rates, and calls on the UK Government to take forward an emergency budget to address the cost of living crisis and increasing fuel costs, not least its impact on unpaid carers.”
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