Caring Responsibilities

Anas Sarwar Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Westminster Hall

[Sheila Gilmore]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that contribution. That is exactly the point that I was trying to make. The carers face not only health problems, but financial difficulties. Carers over retirement age do not receive a carer’s allowance even though they incur additional costs. They could use additional funds to buy some respite time that they might not otherwise get. They often become cut-off and isolated because they are not able to get out of the house to enjoy the sorts of social activities that enable people to live healthier and more fruitful lives.

Furthermore, there is an anomaly that needs to be resolved. Those on a low income who are over retirement age claim carer’s allowance, but they do not get paid it. Instead, they get access to a carer’s premium in pension credit. We have about 250,000 carers in that category. It is very confusing because they are claiming a benefit that they do not receive in order to get access to a completely different benefit. Hopefully, that is something that the current Government, with their zeal for simplifying the benefit system, will move very quickly to address.

As we debate this subject in Westminster Hall, the main Chamber is considering the Welfare Reform Bill on Report. Many colleagues who would have liked to be here are taking part in that debate. They know how important the Bill is to carers as well as to other people. The proposed changes to benefits are a big worry for carers. At present, carer’s allowance can be claimed if the person being cared for qualifies for either the middle or higher rate component of the disability living allowance. The successor benefit, the personal independence payment, will only have two bands of the daily living component, which is the equivalent of the care component. What is still not clear is how eligibility will work under the new benefit. Will it apply only if the cared-for person receives the new higher rate? How many people will lose eligibility for carer’s allowance as a result of these changes? In the Bill Committee, the Minister was unable to give us an answer to that question. However, Disability Alliance has calculated that to achieve even £1 billion of cuts to DLA—the Government’s forward projections expect there to be a £2 billion saving overall—there could be a risk to 643,000 people who currently receive the lowest rate and to a further 100,000 people on the middle or higher rate.

We are told by the Government that we cannot assume that everyone who currently gets the lower rate of DLA will lose out in the benefit changes because the new test will be very different to the old one, which leaves a question mark over an undetermined number of people. We cannot assume that all the losers in the new personal independence payment regime will be people who do not have a corresponding link to the carer’s allowance.

[Anas Sarwar (Glasgow Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this timely and important debate. There is no doubt that the proposed cuts to the employment and support allowance and the DLA will have a devastating impact on thousands of families right across the country. One such couple, Mr and Mrs McCann, wrote to me expressing their own concerns. They both had to take part-time jobs because of caring responsibilities for their daughter, resulting in a 50% reduction in their combined salaries. They do not qualify for carer’s allowance because they have an income of more than £100 a week. They rely on their top-up element for their child tax credit and the DLA that their daughter receives. Does my hon. Friend think that it is fair that this family should have to face the brunt of the cuts and even further hardship?

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry]

With respect to the hon. Gentleman, it is often difficult for statutory bodies to know where their responsibilities lie and that is particularly so in the world that we all have to live in—a world of emerging human rights legislation. I must declare an interest as a practising barrister. I have to say that the main growth area for the Bar at the moment is judicial review, including judicial review in the Supreme Court, to test the statutory responsibilities of local authorities, and I am sure that we will see more of that. Having said that, I do not think that that gets away from the Government’s responsibility to try to bring the nation’s finances back into some balance.

[Anas Sarwar]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Tony Baldry]

I am sorry, but I will not give way any more because these exchanges demonstrate why I need to read into the record for future debates the three paragraphs that I mentioned earlier. We would all love to have lots more money that we could spend, but alas that is not the case.

With regard to this particular debate, it seems to me that there is a lot more that can be done to help and support carers without necessarily spending a huge amount of extra money. The first thing that we ought to do, or at least we ought to make a much greater effort to do, is to identify which people are carers and to encourage carers to see themselves as carers. Local authorities provide considerable services for carers, but of course they can only provide those services if people identify themselves as carers.