Carer’s Allowance
Debate between Shockat Adam and Alison McGovern(2 months ago)
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Alison McGovern
Obviously whistleblowing is very important. The Hillsborough law that is being introduced is not my responsibility, so the hon. Lady will understand that I cannot go over it extensively, but I will say, as someone who worked on the Hillsborough issue for many years, that it is very important to me personally.
These problems are significant, and given the scale of the challenges, we will not be able to solve all of them overnight, but we have taken important first steps, including tackling the issue of overpayments of carer’s allowance related to earnings. We have all heard the stories of some of the thousands of carers who have been affected, we have all heard and know about the stress and anxiety that it has caused them, and we all want—I hope—to establish the facts.
To address this problem, we must first truly understand what has gone wrong. That is why the DWP has announced today an independent review of overpayments of carer’s allowance that have exceeded the entitlement threshold. The review will investigate how the overpayments have occurred, what can best be done to support those who have accrued them, and how to reduce the risk of such problems occurring in future. We are delighted that Liz Sayce OBE has agreed to lead the review. My colleagues the Minister for Social Security and Disability, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), and the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Andrew Western), have already met representatives of Carers UK, along with carers themselves, to discuss their report on overpayments, and we will consider the findings of that report alongside the independent review.
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
On that point, does the Minister agree that there should be a failsafe system? If an overpayment is made and the receiver is not notified, they should be allowed not to pay back any of the money.
Alison McGovern
I thank the hon. Member for his intervention. I am sure that many Members will want to provide their views to the review, which is welcome. I will come to some of the steps we have already taken to try to address the problems in a moment.
It is vital to move quickly to understand exactly what has gone wrong, so that we can set out a plan to put things right. Right now, we want to make it as easy as possible for carers to tell us when something has changed that could affect their carer’s allowance. We will continue to look at improving communications, and we are now reviewing the results of a test of text alerts to claimants who may be at risk of building up overpayments.
In response to the point that the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) made about the need for a review, I assure him that we are not waiting for an extensive review in order to act; we have acted already. Our pilot involved texting 3,500 claimants to alert them when we were told by HMRC that they have breached the current earnings limit. Going forward, we want to make the best use of earnings data already held by HMRC in order to reduce the burdens on busy carers, which also responds to the point made earlier.