Carer’s Allowance

Anna Dixon Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anna Dixon (Shipley) (Lab)]

I thank the Liberal Democrats for choosing this important issue for debate. I congratulate several Members on their maiden speeches, particularly the hon. Member for Torbay (Steve Darling). It is wonderful to hear from him, and I am sure that his family is incredibly proud. I also welcome the House’s honorary canine Member, Jennie.

In my maiden speech, I said that carers would be the group of people for whom I would speak up in this place. For me, it is personal: my mother spent much of her life caring for my grandmother. I hope that, in time, I will be able to take up the fantastic work of the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) as the co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on carers. I served as a chair on the Archbishops’ commission on reimagining care. During that commission on the future of social care in England, we listened to unpaid family carers, who told us that they were stretched to breaking point. They give selflessly but at a huge cost to their own wellbeing, and, as we have heard in the debate, they make financial sacrifices, as caring can affect their ability to work. They must fight every day to get care and support for their loved ones. They do so with support from fantastic organisations, such as Carers’ Resource in my constituency.

In the “Care and Support Reimagined” report, we proposed a new deal for carers to ensure that they are valued and can give out of love and not necessity. However, as we have heard, they are being punished for trying to juggle care and work. Some 2.8 million carers are trying to do that but find that they are inadvertently breaching the earnings threshold, with the result that they face the issue of overpayments. As I have written to the Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), it a scandal that the last Government knew about that—there were NAO and Select Committee reports on their desks—but did nothing, so I welcome this Government’s having seized the issue and set up the independent review, and I look forward to seeing its recommendations.

I am glad that that is part of a wider review of support for carers. It is clearly a huge building block for a national care service. As we have heard, we cannot deliver a national care service without valuing the vital role that carers play in giving love to disabled adults and older family members. I am glad that we are righting that wrong.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sam Rushworth (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

May I begin by expressing my appreciation of the family carers in the Bishop Auckland constituency? According to helpful researchers in the Commons Library, one in seven of my constituents provides at least an hour of unpaid care each week, and over half of them are eligible for carer’s allowance. Nationwide, as we have heard, our army of family carers is the equivalent of a second NHS.

I agree with the criticism made by the shadow Secretary of State that we must not risk opening the door to fraud, and it is precisely because I believe in the welfare state that I think it must always be watertight and widely perceived as fair. However, I am concerned that in a huge number of cases—I am inclined to believe that it is the majority of cases—overpaid carer’s allowance is the result of inadvertent error.

As others have said, this is a complicated benefit and when so many stressed family carers find themselves having to pay back large sums of money, there must be some onus on the Government to take responsibility. This issue is so widespread that I think every MP in this place will have been contacted by constituents facing hardship. These are decent, honest people who work hard, who serve their families and communities and who ask for little, and they feel as though they are being treated like criminals while the Government have become the nation’s biggest debt collector.

If I may, I will briefly raise a specific issue that two of my constituents have raised with me. They are being required to pay back thousands of pounds because of inadvertently earning just above the earnings threshold. However, as they have pointed out to me, carer’s allowance is counted as income in universal credit claims, so had they not claimed it, they would have received more in universal credit. I gently urge the Minister to consider this point as part of the review, as people are not only being pushed into hardship due to being made to pay back overpayments, but may actually be worse off on aggregate than if they had never claimed.

[Anna Dixon]

My hon. Friend rightly points out that this is a huge cause of stress to people. Not only that, but carers are actually leaving work, limiting their hours and not taking on additional responsibilities. Will he join me in calling on the shadow Secretary of State to apologise to the 134,800 carers who have outstanding carer’s allowance overpayments to a total value of £251 million?

[Sam Rushworth]

This sits among the many injustices that the new Government have to deal with, and I think an apology is in order.

In conclusion, I welcome this Government’s review. I think there have been some excellent contributions from all parts of the House, with some really serious issues raised such as students losing their eligibility to claim, my constituents’ point about universal credit and the points about respite care and young carers, and I do not think anyone has even mentioned kinship carers. I hope that this review will take account of all these things so that we can deliver a fairer deal for Britain’s army of unpaid carers.