Oral Answers to Questions

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Monday 16th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Western]

My hon. Friend is correct to highlight not just the importance and benefits of shared parental leave, but the disparity between those who make use of it. I will, of course, maintain dialogue with the Department for Business and Trade as we go through that review, but I would also welcome a discussion with my hon. Friend about his ambitions and ideas for how we could take that forward.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

11. What assessment she has made of the adequacy of the rates of universal credit.

[The Minister for Social Security and Disability (Sir Stephen Timms)]

No assessment along the lines that the hon. Gentleman asks about has been made. Benefit rates are reviewed each year, increasing by 6.7% last April and by 1.7% from next April, in line with inflation.

[Bobby Dean]

I thank the Minister for his answer, but I would like to focus on the age differential in the rates. He will be aware that people under 25 receive a different rate of universal credit. The Government announced that they will try to abolish the age differential for the national living wage. If it could also be abolished for universal credit, that would be really good for young care leavers. Will the Minister look at potentially phasing out the age differential in universal credit?

[Sir Stephen Timms]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting suggestion. That is not something I am considering at the moment, but as he will have heard me say earlier, we will be reviewing universal credit over the course of the next year or so. We certainly want to support young care leavers—he will know of the recent announcement that we made about changes to carer’s allowance—and we are keeping all those matters under review.

“Get Britain Working” White Paper

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Liz Kendall]

Sanctioning people because they use the NHS to make themselves as fit and healthy as possible is completely the wrong approach. I understand why disabled people are worried when they hear talk about helping people into work or reforms of sickness and disability benefits—they are worried because of what has happened over the past 14 years—but we are determined to break down those barriers to work. I think that many disabled people, given the right help and support and the right flexibility to work, could work and would want to work. That is what we are focusing on, and that is what we are determined to deliver.

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

A fantastic local social enterprise in my constituency has been helping adults with disabilities back into work. It recently set up a café that is run entirely by adults with learning disabilities. How does the Department plan to take evidence from innovative organisations of that kind, and will the Secretary of State meet members of this organisation to find out about the work it has been doing?

[Liz Kendall]

The reason I am so passionate about devolving responsibility and accountability to local areas is that it is intended to engage precisely the kind of organisation that the hon. Gentleman has mentioned. For instance, I know the various organisations in Leicester but I do not know those in his constituency, so I believe that we need a much more localised system. If he will write to me with the details, I shall be very keen to look at them.

Carer’s Allowance

Bobby Dean Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bobby Dean (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD)]

Colleagues have outlined the scale of the crisis, so I shall focus on a story of one of my constituents in Carshalton and Wallington. She was told that she had to repay more than £2,300 in carer’s allowance over- payments. This constituent already makes huge sacrifices to keep her family afloat, while caring for her disabled son. She gave up her full-time job to take on caring responsibilities and has limited her part-time hours to ensure that she remains qualified for carer’s allowance. It made me so angry to hear how meticulously she tried to manage her pay cheques each month, only to have it thrown in her face. She turned down pay rises, turned down overtime and turned down Christmas bonuses to ensure that she stayed under the limit. Her employers agreed to keep her on an advance rota to help her plan her earnings. Despite her diligence, she received no notice, no warnings and no forgiveness when one day the payments stopped and the bill came in for over two grand.

Here is the bit that really gets me. The repayment demand that she received is for the entire entitlement for each occasion when she earned too much. That means that the smallest indiscretions come with the heaviest of consequences. In one month, it was because she earned £28 too much. In another, it was £20. It gets worse: one November, she was £8 over the limit—not even an hour’s work in London. Finally, and most depressingly, she once dared to earn £2 too much. She owes the whole of the allowance back for each of those periods, and then a £50 fine to boot from the Department for Work and Pensions. This is nothing short of a national scandal, and the DWP should be ashamed of itself.

Today, the Liberal Democrats are calling on the Government to right this wrong, to stop pursuing hard-working carers for these innocent overpayments, and then to fix the system that let this scandal emerge in the first place. We need to taper the allowance, raise the earning limits and treat carers with the compassion they deserve.

I am conscious of time, so finally, I welcome and am encouraged by the Minister’s comments about the review. However, for it to be successful, carers need to play a big part and have full input. We also need to make sure that carers now in debt distress get some immediate reassurances and support and do not have to wait until the end of the review.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call Dan Aldridge to make his maiden speech.