Benefits: Reductions

Baroness Pitkeathley Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pitkeathley (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Bassam for securing this debate and I endorse his tribute to our late noble friend Baroness Hollis. I was grateful to her personally when I came into this House for her advice and for the expert tutorials that she generously provided to me. Beyond that, her support for the carers issue in opposition and in government was of great importance, both in the campaigning that we did for legislative change that supported carers and in establishing the place of carers in the social security policy agenda. The United Kingdom’s 6.5 million carers owe her a huge debt of gratitude. Noble Lords will remember that she spoke on many an occasion during her time in the House about carers’ incomes and benefits, pressing for positive change. She would not be pleased—and neither am I—about the position in which carers find themselves today.

Carers have directly seen the impact of reductions on their households. Although the carer’s allowance has continued to rise every year in line with the consumer prices index, which has been welcomed, wider household benefits have been frozen, meaning that the overall context in which carers are managing in their households is significantly worse. According to the New Policy Institute, 2.1 million carers are in poverty. Carers UK’s State of Caring survey this year found that 37% of all carers who responded were struggling to make ends meet in very challenging caring situations, 20% said that they were in debt as a direct result of caring and 45% of all respondents said that they could not meet their bills without struggling. This group said they were cutting back on food and heating to make ends meet. This could be potentially detrimental not only to their own health and well-being but to that of the person for whom they are caring.

Those most likely to be struggling financially were parents of disabled children; sandwich carers—those who were caring for both children and older parents; and those caring for someone towards the end of their life. Those hardest pressed were on benefits One said:

“My biggest worry is government changes to benefits, and not knowing what the future holds and whether everything we have now will be taken away”.


Another said:

“I spend my time terrified about benefits and benefit cuts and how we will live if things get any worse for us”.


This is in the context of the reductions in the vital care on which families rely—the social care provided to disabled children and adults. Since 2010, over £6 billion has been taken from local authority budgets, more than one-third of their spending.

Carers UK has measured the reduction in increased costs to families who can ill afford such changes. This amounted to one in seven families who have seen a cut, closure or increased costs of services. This is not a one-off. It has been a year-on-year trend where families have had little choice but to go without. It is not surprising that the rates of ill health are high: 72% of carers report having a mental health problem and 67% say they are in poor physical health. Last year, Carers UK found that 40% of carers had not had a single day off in a year. Very often, if they get a carer’s assessment—which is rare nowadays because you are assessed only if your needs are seen as critical and you are in need of respite care—the care is not available because of local authority problems with their budgets.

In opening his Budget Statement the other day, the Chancellor promised a budget for the strivers, the grafters and the carers. There are some measures that will ease the pressure on some families, and these are to be welcomed, but the Chancellor has failed to make the spending commitments to improve financial support for unpaid carers or the investment in the care services which are absolutely crucial for them and their families. The challenges that carers have faced with universal credit are similar to other groups, except that they have the challenge of caring on top of the other stresses and worries to do with the benefit.

I would like to hear the Minister’s comments on the issues with carer’s allowance when she winds up the debate. Carer’s allowance—the specific benefit for carers—is still the lowest of all benefits. In the Budget, it was announced that the national living wage will increase to £8.21—a welcome measure—but it will place low-wage workers even more out of kilter with the benefits system. Carers cannot earn sufficient to benefit from tax credits if they are then to keep below the earnings threshold of £120 a week. If you fall foul of that rule as a carer, you lose 100% of your carer’s allowance. You also lose credit towards your state pension, thus building up poverty for the future.

Baroness Hollis fought this all her life. She understood the situation well and always advocated for better pension rights, including for carers. This situation needs to be addressed.

Carers make a huge contribution to society—I never tire of telling your Lordships that it is estimated at £132 billion a year—and the least we can do is ensure that they do not make that contribution in poverty.