Families should be responsible for older relatives

Thursday, 04 February 2010

A senior peer has said that it is the duty of families to look after grandparents in their latter years.

Baroness Deach an eminent family lawyer in the UK, and who is chair of the Bar Standards Board which regulates barristers, said that it was only right for younger family members to support elderly relatives.

She cited the Elizabethan Poor Law which applied until 1948 until it was repealed by Labour and which compelled families to care for those who had raised them.

Speaking in a lecture, 66-year-old Baroness Deach said: "In return for all that grandparents do, should there not be an obligation to keep them, and to keep parents, and reciprocate the care that was given by them to children and grandchildren in their youth?"

The baroness pointed out that a quarter of grandparents were making financial contributions towards their grandchildren's upbringing. Every year millions are set aside in trust funds for grandchildren by their grandparents.

Grandparents also save parents about £50 billion each year by undertaking unpaid babysitting, often around 16 hours a week.

Nevertheless, the numbers of older people consigned to care homes is rising.

The baroness observed that many working women at the Bar relied on their parents to care for their children and this placed a burden on grandparents, often preventing them from working themselves.

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