Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, what recent assessment she has made of the potential merits of pausing the creation of new Carer’s Allowance overpayment debts until the conclusion of the independent review.

Overpayments have caused significant anxiety for some people. It is important to take the time to review what happened independently, to establish what exactly what went wrong and assess how to put things right. We will await the findings of the independent review being conducted by Liz Sayce. The review is not a substitute for legal proceedings and the existence of the review does not prejudice any business-as-usual activity by DWP.

We carefully balance our duty to the taxpayer to recover overpayments with safeguards in place to manage repayments fairly. Carers have a responsibility to ensure they are entitled to benefits and to inform the DWP of any changes in their circumstances that could impact their award. Support remains in place with DWP’s Debt Management Service available to speak to anyone who has had an overpayment about the terms of their repayment.