Have your say: UK Government consultation on employment rights for carers
The UK Government is asking for views on changing employment rights for unpaid carers, and for parents of seriously ill children.
They are looking at some possible changes:
- Giving carers more unpaid time off work
- Letting carers take a longer break from work and still have their job to come back to
- Introducing paid time off for carers
- A new type of leave and pay for parents of seriously ill children, called Hugh’s Law
This consultation covers carers in Scotland too because decisions about employment rights are made at UK level. This is a real chance to help shape what support carers can get from employers in the future.
Who is this session for?
This session is for unpaid carers. It doesn’t matter if you’re currently working, had to cut your hours because of caring, or had to give up work altogether. If you’ve struggled to balance work and caring, or if caring has made work difficult or impossible, we want to hear from you.
We also want to hear from parents and main caregivers of seriously ill children, even if you don’t think of yourself as a “carer.” Your views on Hugh’s Law will be really valuable.
You don’t need to know anything about the consultation or employment law beforehand. We’ll explain everything as we go. What matters most is your own experience.
What we will cover
We are running a 1.5 hour session via Zoom on Friday 21st August 10am – 1130am to hear directly from carers on the key questions in the consultation. We will use live polls and discussion to gather your views, which will feed into our formal response.
The key areas we will cover include:
- Awareness and access to rights – how easy carers find it to know what rights they have at work, and what stops them accessing that information
- What carer’s leave should cover – which types of caring responsibilities, and which relationships (not just close family), should qualify someone for leave
- Extending unpaid carer’s leave – whether the current 5 days should be increased, and by how much
- A statutory “right to return” – whether carers should be able to take a longer period of leave with a guarantee of returning to their job, similar to maternity leave
- Paid carer’s leave – whether a short period of paid leave should be introduced for planned caring responsibilities, and what level of pay would make it usable
- Hugh’s Law – a possible new leave and pay entitlement for parents in the days and months after a child is diagnosed with a serious illness
You can read the full consultation here.
To take part in the session, you can book your free place here
