Welfare Reform (Disabled People and Carers)

Meg Hillier Excerpts

Tuesday 18th December 2012 Westminster Hall

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

At a recent AGM of Hackney carers association, carers raised concerns with me about many things. One was the carers allowance, which is only £55.50 a week. I want to ask the Minister to comment on the proposal by some bodies that that should be increased. Many carers in my constituency have been on low incomes for long periods of their lives already. It is not as if they have reserves to fall back on.

I wanted to touch on the general issue of disabled households typically being poorer, often because disability has meant being able to work less over time. Many carers have had to give up jobs to care. I am a former working carer, and I cared for two disabled adults. Annie, who sadly died in October, went to live with her sister, who was also a working carer. The Minister needs to understand that the pressure on carers is immense. As many hon. Members have mentioned, the cumulative impact of many changes can be very complicated.

When I cared for two disabled adults, at one point I dealt with 13 different agencies just to get the basics of care, support and medical support in place. Happily for me, at that time we were not dealing with many changes in the benefit system. I am not saying it was all perfect, but it was at least a stable system. All the changes coming hard on the heels of one another add stress to carers who must navigate through the system in addition to all the other challenges of being a carer. We live in a world now where people should be able to work and care, but we make it more difficult for them to do it. When I was a working carer my husband’s cousin was a carer for her sister. We worked because we had to—to pay bills and pay for our families. There was no option for us. Many people have taken the option of not working, and that has considerably reduced their household income.

I want to touch briefly on the work done by Contact a Family in my constituency, and ask the Minister to comment on the disability addition under universal credit, which seems to cut the weekly tax credit for families with a disabled child from £57 to £28. The issues for families with children are immense. If we do not get this right now, it says bad things about what our society wants to do for disabled people. Those families want to ensure that their children have the best start in life to increase their chances of independent living later on. Without proper support in the early stages, families can break down under the immense pressure. As we know, many marriages struggle under the strain of coping with a disabled child. I urge the Minister to comment on that point and to look more widely at the work of organisations such as Contact a Family, which, by the way, is quite supportive of some of the Government changes, but has some particular points that I urge the Minister to consider.