It was a pleasure to speak at East Midlands Labour Party’s International Women’s Day event yesterday evening. Throughout the coronavirus pandemic, women have been more likely to be made redundant, see their pay packets cut, and bear the burden of unpaid work in the home.

We’ve seen these gender inequalities play out in social care. 83% of the social care workforce are women, and 58% of unpaid carers are women. And in order to meet the growing demand for social care, we need 520,000 more frontline care workers. That’s before we even begin to meet the needs of those who are currently not eligible for social care support.

Our carers have borne the brunt of this pandemic. As we begin our recovery, we must make the economic argument as well as the moral argument for investing in social care, and fix our system once and for all.