Carer’s Allowance

Rachel Blake Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Rachel Blake (Cities of London and Westminster) (Lab/Co-op)]

I wish to mention an interest: my husband works for an organisation that allocates funding to Carers UK.

It really is a privilege to follow such thoughtful contributions, particularly those of Members who have shared such powerful personal testimony—my hon. Friends the Members for Bexleyheath and Crayford (Daniel Francis) and for West Bromwich (Sarah Coombes). I warmly welcome the fact that the Liberal Democrats chose to provide this opportunity for us to discuss this important issue. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) for sharing his personal experience as a carer and rightly moving this issue up the political agenda.

I pay tribute to the Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), whose previous work chairing the Work and Pensions Committee did so much to highlight the injustice of the overpayment scandal. I am pleased to see him in his Government role, able to put into action all that work.

For the past 14 years, carers have been woefully let down by the Conservatives, and they have been let down today by their completely inadequate defence of the overpayment scandal. After decades of cuts, too many are on the waiting list for local authority care, and local authority services have been called upon time and again to do more with less. Carers like Shirley Islam, one of the 500 registered unpaid cares in the City of London, who met me to highlight her experience as a carer, have borne the brunt of that failure; as have carers from Westminster Rethink Mental Illness, who I also spoke with recently. I look forward to working with local residents on this issue.

Nowhere is the previous Government’s failure to administer basic services more evident than when it comes to carers. Under the previous Government, the Department for Work and Pensions saddled thousands of carers with unnecessary financial burdens at a time when they had more than enough on their plate, including the 34,000 carers who received fines of up to £20,000. So today they need to hear these words: “We are sorry for the injustice and indignities you have suffered under the previous Government. We will do everything that we can to put them right. Thank you for your work and service.”

At the election, the Prime Minister promised a politics that treads more lightly on people’s lives, so I am glad that in today’s announcement the Department has scrapped the planned replacement of cash payments to carers with vouchers. We should not be telling carers how to spend their own money.

I eagerly await the announcement of a national care service, as promised in our general election manifesto, and I know that my constituents do too. I look forward to the publication of the Government’s review and the delivery of much-needed and long-awaited justice.