Carer’s Allowance: Overpayments Review

Lord Laming Excerpts

Tuesday 18th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

The issue is long-standing. The real difference is that carer’s allowance, unlike universal credit, for example, is not actually means-tested. It is a benefit which is there to recognise that somebody may not be able to work, or not as much, because they are caring. The requirements are that you must be providing care for 35 hours a week to someone in receipt of a relevant DWP benefit. You must also not be in gainful employment, which we class as being 16 hours a week at the national living wage, and you must not be a full-time student. It is an individual benefit. For example, a woman in a household with no independent income of her own but with income in the household can still claim carer’s allowance.

Having said all of that, we would like to look at the way this works. Unlike universal credit, which was built with a taper in mind and automatic earnings from HMRC, carer’s allowance had none of that, either in the systems, the IT or anything else. Therefore, we have begun to look at other ways to automate certain kinds of earnings coming over from HMRC and what it would take to do a taper, but I do not want to raise expectations too quickly. This is a significant piece of work to modernise the system, which will take some years—but we are looking at it.

[Lord Laming (CB)]

My Lords, in the preparation of this report, could the opportunity be taken to pay a very warm and well-deserved tribute to carers for what they do? As a society, we should always indicate how indebted we are to the people who care for other people with very special needs.