Lib Dems offer carer ‘holidays’
By politics.co.uk staff
Nick Clegg wants to reallocate spending contained in the personal care at home bill to provide a week’s holiday for the country’s hardest-working carers.
He is set to announce in a speech later that he would back the switching of £460 million of spending to give those caring unpaid for over 50 hours a week one week off every year.
Mr Clegg told the Today programme he wanted to help those “who are like a hidden army of heroes”.
The Liberal Democrats argue the country’s five million carers save a total of £87 billion a year because of their hard work.
“One thing we can with this money is give a week’s break to the million carers who do the most,” Mr Clegg suggested.
The scheme is larger than the £420 million proposals made by Gordon Brown two weeks ago to give half of those who receive care at home the support for free.
Conservative accusations that one option – a compulsory inheritance levy – amounted to a ‘death tax’ led to the death of cross-party talks on the issue, which remains unresolved.
Mr Clegg will call for a commission to be set up to take the politics out of the issue later.
