With an ageing population the country is going to become ever more reliant on our army of care workers.
That is why today's Supreme Court ruling is such a disappointment. The judgment upheld the right of employers to deny staff doing sleep-in shifts the minimum wage.
There is a real fear that, as a result of this decision, thousands of care workers who were paid for such shifts will see their pay deducted.
The fault lies not with the court but the Government which is responsible for employment laws. Ministers should be doing everything they can to encourage people to become carers. At the moment far too many people in the sector are undervalued and underpaid.
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So it is hardly surprising that there are estimated 120,000 vacancies and 900 carers leave the profession each day. This ruling will only make this already worrying situation worse.
When he first entered Downing Street Boris Johnson said reforming social care was one of his priorities. Nearly two years later and he still hasn’t come up with a plan.
Elites thriving
The lockdown has left millions on the breadline, forced firms to close and caused the jobless total to soar.
While many of us have suffered there is one organisation that has continued to thrive and that is the Conservative Party.
An elite group of wealthy Tory donors paid almost half a million pounds to attend a virtual party with Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak.
As this gathering was private we have no idea what was discussed or if promises were made. What we do know is that money buys you access denied to the rest of us.
And we also know that successive Conservative governments have hit the pockets of the poorest rather than those of their rich mates.
