Hospital Parking Charges (Exemption for Carers) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 2:01 pm on 30 October 2015.

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Photo of Alistair Burt Alistair Burt The Minister of State, Department of Health 2:01, 30 October 2015

It is a pleasure to respond to the debate. I want to make some general comments before I go into the details of the Bill and before time beats us, but let me first congratulate Julie Cooper on her success in the ballot, and on using it to present this Bill. I am very grateful to her for discussing it with me in advance—we have met twice—and for prompting others to take an interest in it.

I think I have made it clear to the hon. Lady from the outset that the Government cannot support the Bill, for reasons that have been mentioned by my hon. Friends in connection with the discretion that we need to give to hospitals. I shall say more about that shortly. I think that I also made it clear to the hon. Lady—and she was very generous in remarking on this—that we were willing to change our guidance principles, which I shall read out later in order to show where the changes have been made. Those changes are amendments, and as far as I am concerned, they are the “Julie Cooper amendments”, because if the hon. Lady had not presented them to us, we would not have had them. Although I cannot support a change in the legislation, a material change will be made, and I hope that trusts and hospital authorities will take advantage of it when they feel that that is in their interests and also the right thing to do.

Let me now say a few words about carers. Barbara Keeley knows a great deal about the subject, having spent considerable time dealing with carers’ issues over the years in her previous role as consultant to the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and on the local council. She understands the carer’s world very well, and I pay tribute to her for that.

Although I will say a little bit about carers, I do want to say something about the car parking aspects of the Bill as well. There is no dispute between anyone in this House about the value associated with carers. I felt it was reasonable for me to mention the support I believed carers had from the Government at present. I did that not only because of what we say about valuing what carers do but because of our recognition that the system could not exist without them. However, the system could not exist if it had to compensate carers for every particular cost; that just cannot be done.

The 2011 census identified 5.4 million carers in England. To put that in context, the state spends £16 billion each year on adult social care. The total market is estimated to be worth £22 billion. The Office for National Statistics has valued informal care at about £61.7 billion. Whatever the actual figure may be, it is immense and this could not be done without the voluntary contribution of carers.