The Opposition Leader: Sir Ed Davey MP

The Liberal Democrat leader on his passion for the care sector – and how to fix it

When I speak about care, I speak not just as a politician, but as someone whose life has been shaped, repeatedly and profoundly, by the experience of caring. It’s something that touches every family in one way or another—but for too long, it’s been treated as peripheral in our politics, instead of central to how we build a fairer and more resilient society.

The reality is that we have a care system that too often fails the very people it is meant to support—whether that’s elderly people, disabled children, or the unpaid family members who hold everything together behind the scenes. And yet despite endless reviews, commissions, and promises of reform, we remain stuck.

I believe we need to move from talking about care as a cost to recognising it as an investment—not just financially, but morally and socially. That means creating a new politics of care. Not a sticking plaster. A transformation.

There’s a tendency in Westminster to silo care—to see it as a health issue, or a welfare issue, or a local government issue. But it’s all of those and more. It’s about how we work, how we age, how we live. And it needs to be integrated across everything from housing to transport to digital services.

When we talk about economic growth, for instance, we rarely acknowledge that unpaid carers contribute an estimated £193 billion to the economy every year. That’s more than the entire NHS budget. Yet many carers are forced to give up paid work because they can’t get the support they need. It’s a loss not just of income, but of talent, experience, and independence.

There’s a moral case for change, but there’s also a compelling economic one. Investing in care doesn’t just support the vulnerable—it strengthens the labour market, reduces NHS pressure, and boosts productivity.

One of the most powerful things I’ve done as an MP is spend time with carers—especially those looking after someone with dementia. I remember a particular session with a group of carers who were simply exhausted. One woman said to me, “It’s not just the caring—it’s the fact that no one listens to you.” That stuck with me. Because the truth is, carers often know more about the person they’re looking after than any professional. But they’re left out of decisions. Their expertise is ignored. And they feel invisible.

That’s why we need a system that recognises family carers as partners—not as an afterthought, not as a budget line to be managed, but as central to the success of care delivery.

I’m always struck by the impact of small interventions. In one community I visited, a local dementia group had started a simple WhatsApp chat to stay in touch. No huge funding, no formal programme—just people helping each other. It made a huge difference to isolation, to mental health, to confidence. Sometimes, the solutions aren’t about more bureaucracy. They’re about better connection.

That principle should guide how we think about reform. Yes, we need resources—but we also need to rebuild a culture of empathy, where people feel seen and supported. That means investing in digital tools that work, yes—but also in community spaces, intergenerational living, and meaningful social contact.

One of the most heartbreaking conversations I’ve had was with a father who told me his daughter, a severely disabled teenager, had been moved from one temporary care setting to another. She didn’t have the stability she needed. And he didn’t have the information, or the power, to stop it. That is not how a decent society should treat people.

Care should be rooted in dignity. But too often, it’s rooted in delay, confusion, and crisis.

When care breaks down, the pressure shifts to A&E departments, to schools, to the police. And none of those services are equipped to fill the gap. So we end up spending more, not less—and getting worse outcomes along the way.

I don’t speak about care in the abstract. My own life has been profoundly shaped by it. I cared for my mother as a teenager. My wife and I now care for our disabled son. We have lived through the gaps in the system—the missed handovers, the forms that never get read, the endless follow-ups to make sure someone has done what they promised.

I’ve sat in meetings with medical professionals where my wife and I were treated as obstacles rather than partners. That mindset has to change. We don’t want special treatment. We want recognition. We want to be part of the team. We want to know that our voices count.

There’s a philosophical aspect to all this, too. The anthropologist Marcel Mauss once wrote about the idea of the gift—not just as a transaction, but as a relationship, a moral bond. That’s how I see care. It’s not something you do out of obligation, or to tick a box. It’s something that binds us as human beings.

And yet, in our politics, we’ve lost that sense of reciprocal obligation. We treat care as a commodity to be commissioned, not a relationship to be nurtured.

I want to see a society where caring for someone isn’t treated as a burden or a career-ending decision—but as something that is honoured, supported, and made sustainable.

We need to put care at the centre of our infrastructure planning. That means designing housing with accessibility in mind. It means rethinking public transport so that disabled and elderly people can travel easily and with dignity. It means providing respite for carers so that they can keep going without breaking down.

We also need to rethink education. We need schools to be places where young carers are recognised, supported, and given flexibility. We need to train health professionals to understand the reality of life for family carers.

And employers have a role to play too. We should expect flexible work policies, paid carers’ leave, and cultures that support—not penalise—those with caring responsibilities.

We’ve spent decades patching up the symptoms of a broken system instead of addressing the causes. The result is that we lurch from crisis to crisis, always reacting, rarely planning.

But prevention works. Early intervention works. Support that is proactive, not reactive, saves money and improves lives.

It’s time we built a system that doesn’t wait for someone to hit breaking point before offering help.

As leader of the Liberal Democrats, I’ve made care one of our central priorities. We’re calling for a new, comprehensive Carer’s Minimum Income—recognising that caring is work, and deserves to be supported. We want a legal right to respite for unpaid carers. We want to see a national care strategy that is properly funded and delivered with the same seriousness we give to the NHS.

We also believe in raising the Carer’s Allowance and ensuring that local authorities are funded to deliver care with decency and dignity. But more than any single policy, we need a cultural shift—a recognition that the way we treat the vulnerable, and those who care for them, is a measure of who we are as a country.

I know that some of this can sound bleak. But I remain hopeful. Because I’ve seen, again and again, the difference that care can make when it’s done right. I’ve seen communities step up, families persevere, and professionals go above and beyond. We just need our politics to catch up with the compassion of the people it serves.

It’s time to stop managing decline and start designing a better future—one where no one who gives care, or needs it, is left behind.