Draft Carer's Assistance (Carer Support Payment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023 (Consequential Modifications) Order 2023

Kit Malthouse Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 General Committees

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to appear before you, Mrs Harris.

I have some questions for the Minister on the operation of the scheme. First, however, it is worth reflecting on the fact that we are dealing with quite a complex set of regulations that arises entirely from devolution. I suppose it illustrates to the people of Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom the significant complexity that is being introduced into our legal system and benefit system by devolution. I was surprised that the Minister said he was pleased to see the order arrive because, to me, it represents an unnecessary complexity in the United Kingdom, which we could all do without.

Like the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney, and having worked at DWP, I am also concerned by the devolution of what is quite a complicated and difficult administrative task to the Scottish Government—not necessarily the SNP—who have not covered themselves in glory with the administration of various schemes and various ideas they have had over the last couple of years. Given the delay and the failure to institute a new system—it has been on the cards for some years—[Interruption.]

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

rose—

[Kit Malthouse]

What confidence does the Minister have that the Scottish Government will be able to administer benefits to the extent that they get to the people who need them and the system will not collapse, as so many other things seem to have done? I wonder whether the Minister has any sense of the deadweight cost of having a separate organisation called Social Security Scotland on the budget. Obviously, it has to maintain its own back office, its own personnel and its own administrative burden, and there must be an extra cost, which is therefore being denied to the recipients of welfare payments because it is going into the hands of unnecessary administrators.

I also had a question about age limits. I am the patron of Andover Young Carers, an organisation that supports young people who are in full-time education and who look after an adult in their family living with a disability. Although I know that carer’s allowance is constrained for those who are under 16 or in full-time education, I have never quite understood why we do not look at the particular case of a young person who might be caring for a parent with a severe disability where there is no other carer available. They do so with a burden that no other adult carer broadly shares, yet we exclude them from such schemes. I would be interested in the Minister’s comments on that.

My second point is about the operation of the scheme. On reading the statutory instrument, there seems to be an unnecessarily complicated administrative task in the case where there are effectively two people caring for one individual. Could the Minister confirm that they will have to make daily elections—the SI talks about elections in a prescribed form—as to who is to receive the carer’s allowance on that day? What form is that election to take? Is it a letter, a phone call or a text? Who will decide?

The SI then says that in the situation where both carers claim, it will effectively be for the Secretary of State to decide who gets the allowance. Will the Secretary of State be showered with thousands of competing claims for carer’s allowance on an almost daily basis? If there is an election, how long will that endure? If there is a dispute between two carers about who gets the allowance the Secretary of State is given the discretion to make a decision, but what will be the process of appeal? How will carer B make a claim over carer A? What if there is carer C, who is not referred to in the legislation? In my experience, people with significant disabilities often have multiple carers who may work together as a team to support them. How will that be dealt with?

Finally, on the effect on the border, I am sure we will have a small number of cross-border carers—those resident in England who care for those resident in Scotland and vice versa. Who will pay them and where will the care be claimed? There is no reference to that in the legislation. Someone claiming carer support payment in Scotland will have to ordinarily be resident in Scotland. If I am ordinarily resident in Northumberland but care for somebody over the border, who will support me and how will I be supported in that care?

On the same theme, what happens if I am a family unit of a carer plus a disabled individual who move from Scotland to England or vice versa? How seamless will the transition be? Will there be a gap in payment? Will I have to apply before I move to have my domicile for the carer’s payment moved, or will I have to apply when I arrive? Do I have to be ordinarily resident before I apply and if so, how long do I have to wait until that kicks in? Will it be six, 12 or nine months before I receive a payment? If I do receive a payment on moving to lovely Scotland, will it be backdated to the date of my arrival, or will England persist in paying me beyond my arrival until the Scottish Government cover the gap? None of those issues, which might only affect a small number of people but will nevertheless be critical to their welfare and survival, seem to be addressed in this SI. I should be grateful if the Minister would answer those questions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kit Malthouse]

On a point of order, Mrs Harris. This is legislation being presented to the UK Parliament. We are Members of Parliament; our job is to scrutinise and ask questions of the legislation. I understand that it is common practice in Delegated Legislation Committees for people not to bother to read the legislation before coming into the room, but I happen to think that it is my duty, if I am presented with something that I am approving, to examine and ask what I believe are perfectly reasonable and relevant questions. If there is an answer, fine, but the fact that I am an English, not a Scottish, MP should have no bearing on the matter. This is UK legislation to enable the Scottish Government to do something.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr Malthouse. Your opinion has been heard.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Lamont]

I will start with an apology: I should have said at the start of my contribution what a great privilege it is to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Harris.

I thank Members for their various remarks and welcome the support of Labour and SNP Members. On the various points raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire, the broader point is that we have to recognise that this Parliament legislated for additional welfare powers to be delivered to the Scottish Government, which I and the current Government fully support. Others have said that a consequence of that will be differing types of system, including social security, being delivered on either side of the border. That is something which I also support and which we have to recognise is in the nature of devolution. That is how devolution in these islands works. The key for us is making sure that it works well.

As other Members have said, there have been delays in terms of the Scottish Government’s capacity to take up these additional welfare powers. We have worked with them to delay, transfer, or ensure that their delivery has been done in a practical way to make sure that the people in need of those benefits are receiving them in a timely and straightforward manner. I do not necessarily agree with the thrust of some of the remarks by the hon. Member for Glasgow East. As I said at the start, it is important for us to recognise that devolution results in these variations, and this Government have to ensure that we work with the Scottish Government to deliver these benefits effectively.

My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire raised a number of points and questions, which I will try to answer. For example, what will happen if the claimant is a recipient of the UK Government’s carer’s benefit and then moves from England to Scotland? There will be a case transfer process from carer’s allowance to the carer support payment. When a carer who is getting an equivalent benefit in England moves to Scotland, the reward will transfer automatically—there is no need to apply, and the DWP will continue to pay that for 13 weeks from the date of their move. Following the completion of that case transfer, alternative arrangements will be made to minimise the risk of claimants who are continuing to provide care experiencing a break in payments when they move.

My right hon. Friend asked a number of other questions. We will write to him on those, if that is okay, rather than go into some of the granular detail. However, at the interministerial level, the interministerial group on welfare, on which I sit, deals with many of those points and has dealt with many of them in readiness for this order. That includes work on the sharing of data and ensuring that both the new social security system in Scotland and the DWP are working in partnership to ensure that the types of points that my right hon. Friend raised are addressed properly. That will ensure that nobody is left without the benefits that they are entitled to or the support that they need, and that people are not claiming wrongly when they should not be.

I am confident that the working relationships that we have, at both the official and ministerial levels, will deal with those concerns and questions raised by my right hon. Friend. However, I do undertake to write to him on the detail.

[Kit Malthouse]

I wonder how much the Minister is willing to wager that he will not be back at some point in the future to correct anomalies in this legislation. If, as he is saying, the approach is, “Well, we’ll try it and see, and we’ll talk about the problems that may emerge and try and tease them out,” is he saying that the legislation is likely to change, and therefore is not comprehensive for some of the anomalies that may occur?

I know that I raised a number of questions about the operation of the scheme, but could the Minister just answer the question about cross-border carers? There will be a number of cross-border carers who, as we speak, will be wondering where they sit and would be grateful to have some clarity on that pretty quickly.

[John Lamont]

I am not a betting man, so I will not enter into a wager with my right hon. Friend. However, as I alluded to earlier, there will be differences between how the social security system works in Scotland and in the rest of the UK. That is simply a reflection of the devolution settlement. I do not doubt that there will be anomalies that will have to be fixed and addressed, regarding both social security and other devolved policy areas. Again, that is just the nature of the constitutional settlement that we live with, and that is something that I just think we have to accept will be a reality, moving forward.