Around three million people in the UK are currently trying to hold down a job while caring for a relative, and it’s costing the economy an estimated £37 billion a year in reduced hours, delayed returns to work, and people leaving the workforce entirely. The government opened a consultation on new employment rights for unpaid carers during Carers Week this June, and it’s still open. Whatever comes out of it will take time to become law. A more immediate number is already affecting people juggling work and care right now, and it’s worth knowing about regardless of how the consultation goes.
What’s being consulted on
The Department for Business and Trade’s consultation, “Make Work Pay: employment rights for unpaid carers and parents of seriously ill children,” closes on 1 September 2026. It’s looking at introducing paid carer’s leave for the first time — a short period, up to five days, funded at a rate still being decided between 90% or 50% of normal pay, the flat statutory family-related rate (currently £194.32 a week), or Statutory Sick Pay. It’s also considering extending the existing right to unpaid carer’s leave from one week to somewhere between six and ten days, and introducing a “right to return” to your job after a period of intensive caring, similar to the protection that already exists after maternity leave.
A separate strand, known as Hugh’s Law, is being considered for parents of seriously ill children specifically — named after Hugh Menai-Davis, who died aged six from cancer in 2021, and campaigned for by his family alongside their charity, It’s Never You.
None of this is decided yet — the consultation is still live, not a rubber stamp on a decision already made elsewhere.
The number affecting carers today, regardless of what happens next
While the consultation plays out, Carer’s Allowance already has a rule that catches people out constantly: the earnings threshold. For 2026/27, Carer’s Allowance pays £86.45 a week, but only if your net earnings — after tax, National Insurance, and half of any pension contributions — stay at or below £204 a week. Go £1 over in a given week, and you don’t lose a slice of that week’s allowance. You lose the whole thing.
It’s a cliff edge, not a taper, and it means a lot of carers deliberately cap their hours or turn down extra shifts to stay under a threshold that hasn’t moved anywhere near as fast as wages have. For someone weighing up whether to bring in paid support so they can work a few more hours, that calculation needs to include this threshold explicitly, alongside the general cost of care.
What the proposed changes would mean in practice
If paid carer’s leave goes ahead in something like its proposed form, someone managing a sudden or worsening care situation could take up to five days away from work without losing pay entirely, rather than having to use annual leave, unpaid leave, or sick leave that isn’t really about their own health. A right to return to the same or an equivalent job after a longer stretch of intensive caring would remove one of the quieter fears carers describe: that stepping back from work to manage a crisis means not having a job to step back into afterwards.
Extending unpaid leave from one week to six to ten days matters most for people whose caring responsibilities are ongoing rather than a one-off event — the difference between one week and two matters when a care arrangement takes time to set up properly.
In the meantime
None of these proposals are likely to be in force before 2027 at the earliest, even if the consultation results in exactly what’s currently on the table. If you’re balancing a job with caring for a relative right now, that’s not a reason to wait and see. Bringing in a few hours of paid support a week — enough to cover a shift you’d otherwise have to take unpaid leave for, or enough to make caring for a relative alongside full-time work actually sustainable — is something you can arrange now, independent of what Westminster decides by September.
If you want to talk through what that could look like around your specific work pattern, get in touch.
Tebby, Staff Manager, Daisy Homecare