Business of the House

Baroness Keeley Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. As the House will know, I almost invariably call everyone at business questions, and I would like to do so again today, but it is a day of Backbench Business Committee debates, which are well subscribed, so we are under heavy time pressure. I therefore appeal to colleagues to ask single short questions, and to Leader of the House to give pithy replies.

[Barbara Keeley (Worsley and Eccles South) (Lab)]

Unpaid carers provide vital care to frail, ill and disabled people, but thousands of them are being hit by the benefits cap and the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill. Many will also be hit by the bedroom tax and the loss of council tax benefit, and we now find from the updated impact assessment for personal independence payments that 10,000 carers will lose their carers allowance and 5,000 fewer will qualify. May we have a debate on why this Government are hitting unpaid carers with their reforms, rather than exempting them?

[Mr Lansley]

The hon. Lady has to recognise, for example, that we specifically excluded carers from the constraint on the uprating of welfare benefit—recognising their role. The draft Care and Support Bill puts into statute for the first time specific support for carers, not least in respect of supporting their health.