Carer’s Allowance

Andrew Western Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Andrew Western)]

I am pleased to be able to respond to this vital debate, which in both tone and importance has been one of the best I have heard in my two years in this place. I also add my thanks to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) for bringing forward the Opposition day motion today, because this issue is clearly of concern to many Members, and they are right to be concerned.

The right hon. Member is one of many right hon. and hon. Members to have made important contributions and spoken with great passion on this crucial issue. The hon. Members for Salford (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean), my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Josh Dean), the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins), my hon. Friends the Members for Wirral West (Matthew Patrick), for Harlow (Chris Vince) and for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Johanna Baxter), the hon. Members for Stratford-on-Avon (Manuela Perteghella) and for Maidenhead (Mr Reynolds) and others rightly spoke about the important role that millions of family carers play in providing support for disabled or elderly relatives who need care at home. I echo those comments and add my own tribute to all family carers. Much of their tireless work goes unseen and unrecognised.

Like other Members, I am privileged to witness glimpses of carers’ dedication through my correspondence and through events I attend in my constituency. Running through today’s debate was an underlying and understandable anger at the position we inherited from the last Government, whereby family carers trying to do the right thing have been left with staggering overpayments, often running into thousands of pounds. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Alison McGovern) set out earlier, we are making sure that we understand precisely what has gone wrong so that we can put the system right for the long term. Our family carers deserve no less.

Many Members, including the hon. Members for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) and for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), my hon. Friends the Members for Shipley (Anna Dixon) and for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) and the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone), and of course my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy) and the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton, spoke about their own experiences as carers or the work they do locally to support organisations helping family carers. I grew up watching my grandmother care for my grandad, struggling with Parkinson’s disease, before later seeing my mum, one of the many hidden carers up and down the land, care for her mother—my nana—in her final years battling Alzheimer’s disease.

None of us in this House is blind to the work that carers do. They are fortunate to have some wonderful advocates. Those include their MPs, as we have seen today, but also organisations such as Carers UK, the Carers Trust and the Learning and Work Institute, to name but three. The Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and I have already met a delegation of carers and Carers UK, and he will be doing so again shortly. He will also meet separately with the Carers Trust and the Learning and Work Institute, because we are determined to ensure that the voices of family carers and the organisations supporting them are at the heart of everything we do.

I also want to pay tribute to the hundreds of DWP staff, largely based in the north-west, who provide financial support to a million family carers through carer’s allowance, day in, day out. The Government will spend record amounts to support unpaid carers. Real-terms expenditure on carer’s allowance is forecast to rise from £4.2 billion in 2024-25 to just over £4.7 billion a year by 2028-29.

I turn to some of the other points raised during the debate, with apologies that time will permit me to address only some of them. Let me take the opportunity to congratulate and pay tribute to my hon. Friends the Members for Clwyd North (Gill German) and for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) and the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling) on their excellent maiden speeches. They painted vivid pictures of their constituencies and I feel certain that they will go on to make significant contributions in this place.

On the wider points, I will begin with the question of the adequacy of carer’s allowance, set as it is at £151 per week. Carer’s allowance will be increased in April 2025 by the consumer prices index to help ensure that it maintains its value. As well as carer’s allowance, carers in low-income households can claim income-related benefits such as universal credit and pension credit. Those can be paid to carers at a higher rate than to those without caring responsibilities through the carer element and the additional amount for carers respectively. For example, over 750,000 carer households on universal credit can already receive an additional £2,400 a year through the carer element. That said, the House should be aware that issues beyond the scope of the independent review announced today are not being ignored; this is merely a first step towards progress. The Government are also looking at the broader question of how to provide the best possible support for family carers, although I do not want to pre-empt that work today.

Let me turn to the question of a taper, which was raised by a number of right hon. and hon. Members. At the moment, introducing a taper in carer’s allowance would significantly complicate the benefit, with awards having to be adjusted manually on a weekly basis for some of those declaring earnings. That would add to administrative costs and could mean more fraud and error. Those also receiving universal credit would need to have that adjusted if their payment of carer’s allowance changed because of an earnings taper rate. A taper could be introduced only following significant changes to the IT system that supports payment of carer’s allowance. For the moment, therefore, it is not possible.

On the potential writing off of overpayments, which was at the heart of many of the excellent contributions that we heard, an overpayment can occur through fraud, or through claimant or official error. The Secretary of State has an obligation to protect public funds and ensure that, wherever possible, overpayments are recovered, but determining what best we can do to support those who have accrued overpayments is within the scope of the independent review, as is how such overpayments occurred and what we can do to ensure that we take all the steps we can to reduce the risk of such incidents happening again.

Let me turn briefly to the comments of the shadow Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride). He listed the many interventions that the last Government supposedly made to improve the lot of carers—seemingly including the private Member’s Bill of the hon. Member for North East Fife—but after 14 years of Conservative government, we see carers who find themselves in heartbreaking situations having racked up huge overpayments. However, the right hon. Gentleman correctly set out the incredibly complex nature of the carer’s allowance system, with allowances for legitimate expenses, pension contributions and so on, and why resolving this matter is therefore not straightforward. That is why the independent review is the correct mechanism and next step to fully understand what went wrong and why, and how we can put things right. I welcome his support for the review.

Many colleagues referred to the role that family carers play in easing pressure on the social care system, and indeed in supporting our economy, and they were entirely right to do so. I acknowledge everything that carers do. They are heroes. We appreciate how much society relies on unpaid carers, we recognise the challenges they face and we understand the need for change. Supporting carers is both a moral and an economic imperative, so we will help carers stay in paid work, we are spending record amounts on carer’s allowance and we will sort out the overpayments scandal we inherited. That is why we have announced the independent review today: so that, together, we can rebuild the trust that has been lost and ensure that those who offer comfort, dignity and support to the ones they love are given all the help they need in return. I hope right hon. and hon. Members will acknowledge that work today by supporting the Government amendment.

Question put (Standing Order No. 31(2)), That the original words stand part of the Question.