The government has launched a consultation on sweeping new workplace rights for unpaid carers, including paid carer’s leave and a protected right to return to employment after intensive caring periods.

Government Consults On Paid Carer’s Leave As Workforce Cost Hits £37 Billion A Year

There are around three million people in the UK who go to work, and then go home to care for someone. They are not care workers in the professional sense, no registration number, no supervision, no pay. 

They are spouses, adult children, parents of sick children, and friends who have stepped into the breach because someone they love needs them. Many manage this alongside full-time employment. But a significant number struggle.

The gap between that reality and what employment law currently provides is the target of a consultation launched by the Minister for Employment Rights, Kate Dearden. The proposals under consideration are the most substantial review of carer workplace rights in recent years.

What The Consultation Actually Proposes

The document sets out three main areas for reform. The first and most financially significant is the introduction of paid carer’s leave currently absent from UK employment law. Employees can already request up to five days of unpaid carer’s leave under the Carer’s Leave Act 2023, but the absence of pay has blunted its practical utility, particularly for lower-income workers who cannot afford to absorb the income loss.

The second proposal is a right to return to work following a period of intensive caring, a protection modelled on maternity leave frameworks, which allow employees to step away and return to the same or equivalent role. 

The third strand involves updated guidance to help workers and employers better understand existing protections, addressing what campaigners describe as a widespread lack of awareness on both sides of the employment relationship.

Hugh’s Law And The Specific Case Of Parents

The consultation also covers what has become known as Hugh’s Law named in memory of Hugh Menai-Davis, who died from cancer in 2021 at the age of six. His family, together with their charity It’s Never You, have campaigned for paid leave and dedicated financial support for parents facing a child’s serious diagnosis, arguing that the current framework offers inadequate protection at one of the most devastating junctures a family can experience.

The Economic Case

The headline figure £37 billion a year in estimated costs attributable to carers leaving or reducing employment is the kind of number that focuses Treasury attention in ways that purely welfare arguments sometimes do not. Carers UK, which participated in the launch event at TSB’s London offices alongside Ministers, has long argued that workforce retention and carer support are inseparable policy problems. Helen Walker, the charity’s Chief Executive, described the consultation as a significant moment in Carers UK’s campaign, noting that 2.8 million unpaid carers are already balancing paid work with caring responsibilities.

TSB, which hosted the event, cited its own internal experience with paid carers’ leave as evidence of the policy’s practical value; the bank offers employees an additional 70 hours of paid leave per year for caring purposes, a level of provision far ahead of current statutory minimums.

What This Means For Social Care

For the social care sector specifically, the implications are layered. Professional care providers whether domiciliary, residential, or supported living are already navigating a workforce crisis shaped by low pay, high turnover, and insufficient training investment, as Skills for Care’s annual workforce data consistently documents. 

The unpaid carer population, estimated by Carers UK at over ten million people across all circumstances, acts as a critical buffer in that system. When unpaid carers exit the labour market, they frequently become reliant on formal care services, compressing demand at a time when local authority commissioning budgets remain under severe pressure.

Any policy that supports unpaid carers in maintaining employment therefore has a downstream effect on formal care demand. The direction of reform matters not just to individual carers and their employers, but to the ICBs and local authorities trying to plan services against an ageing population curve.