Hansard

welcome the sentiments that the minister has expressed. I am sure that carers across Scotland will join me in regarding this as a first step in the long-overdue recognition of the role played by carers in society.

For far too long, the needs of carers and those for whom they care have been largely ignored by the Government and given a low priority in terms of local authority support and services. Scotland's half a million carers provide by far the larger share of both health and community care services and save the national health service and local authorities more than £3.4 billion every year. Of course—and perhaps most important—most people prefer to be cared for by their family and in their own home.

As things stand, 60 per cent of carers get no practical help from any of the service providers. That may be due in part to the fact that many individuals and families do not recognise themselves as carers. Many, particularly women, simply see caring for disabled or elderly members of their family as their duty.

I was a carer until very recently. Women have rightly always been regarded as the main carers for children, but for too long there has been very little recognition of the fact that, for many women, the caring role does not stop when the children leave home. That is very often just the time when they have to start caring for elderly or disabled relatives.

Many have to give up their employment; many more have to juggle a career with their role as carer. That is why I ask the minister to address in his summing up the fact that the tax and benefits system penalises working carers. For example, if a carer's earnings are more than £50 a week, even though they spend every hour outside the working day caring for their relative, they are not entitled to invalid care allowance. If they give up their work to care for somebody on a 24-hour basis, they will be better off than if they were on income support by the grand sum of £13.95.

Will the minister address the fact that invalid care allowance is not paid to people over 65? As my colleague Dorothy-Grace Elder will point out, many carers are pensioners themselves. Of course, benefits are a reserved matter, but I would find it impossible to talk about support for carers without addressing the issue of benefits. Will the minister make representations to the Labour Government at Westminster regarding that problem?

I would also ask the minister to consider a national benefits take-up campaign to ensure that Scotland's carers receive the benefits to which

they are entitled. I welcome the announcement of the diversion of £5 million for Scotland's carers, which is to be added to the £5 million that is already earmarked from local authority funding. However, I must say that I am disappointed that this is not new, additional money, but money that will have to come from cash-strapped local authority budgets.

I will put the figures into perspective. Even if all the money reaches carers, £10 million works out at 38p per carer per week. When we consider that meals on wheels cost more than £1 per day, a home help costs £8 per hour, and a week's residential respite care costs £350, it is clear that Scotland's carers will still face huge problems. That is on top of the fact that the Labour Government has cut spending on community care by 12 per cent.

Until such time as the continued underfunding of local authorities is rectified, initiatives such as the one announced today—good though it is—will have, at best, limited success. Local authorities will continue to rob Peter to pay Paul. Unfortunately, that is often achieved by dipping into the community care budget.

I will take the current situation in Glasgow as an example. There are proposals to cut £3 million from services to elderly people, resulting in the loss of 150 home helps and the denial of that service to 219 people. That puts today's announcement into perspective.

"Caring for Carers", the national strategy for carers, refers to the need to take account of the recommendations made by the Royal Commission on Long-term Care chaired by Sir Stewart Sutherland. As we all know, it is fast becoming the report that dare not speak its name. Sutherland highlights the needs of carers and makes some simple recommendations that would go a long way to improve the situation, such as the application by local authorities of carer-blind assessments so that the existence of a carer is not the reason for services being withheld or, indeed, withdrawn.

Sutherland also highlighted the fact that a three- month disregard on the value of elderly people's homes and savings would not only have an impact on the so-called bedblocking crisis, but would allow time for rehabilitation and proper assessment of needs to allow many more of our elderly people to be cared for in their own homes, after a stay in hospital.

As we have already found, the Executive's rhetoric does not quite match the reality. Despite today's announcement, the reality is that local government funding in the first three years of the Labour Government is £2.4 billion less than it was in the last three years of the Tory Administration. It is essential that the Scottish Parliament ensures that support for carers is a key part of our social policy for Scotland in the new millennium.

As I said, I welcome today's announcement as a first step and as recognition of our debt to Scotland's carers. However, until such time as the tax and benefits system reflects carers' needs and local authorities are adequately funded to provide essential services, the needs of Scotland's carers will never be truly met.

I move amendment S1M-317.1, to leave out from "to assist" to end and insert:

"and calls upon it to provide local authorities with the necessary funding to deliver the services required by Scotland's unpaid carers."