Lord Palmer of Childs Hill (LD)

My Lords, throughout the passage of the Bill, we on these Benches have repeatedly raised concerns about the punitive measures applied to carers who receive carer’s allowance and subsequently earn small amounts through additional work, often losing their carer’s allowance entirely. Amendment 103 would prohibit the Secretary of State using recovery methods in cases of overpayment of carer’s allowance until an inquiry has concluded and recommendations from that inquiry have been implemented on carer’s allowance overpayment. We have had discussions with the Minister’s department on this, and we are hopeful that the Government will commit from the Dispatch Box to a date for publication. In those conversations we were promised a departmental briefing to me and, if necessary, to an MP of my choice. I will give advance notice of what we would expect to learn in that briefing: when do the Government expect to publish their response to the report? It has been nearly three months since they received the report. We acknowledge that there has been a change of Secretary of State, but are the Government still treating this with the high level of priority that they have given it so far? At our meeting, can the Government also set out a timetable for the publication of the report and actions they will take to deal with the issues set out in that report? What are the Minister’s reflections, if she has reflections, on the report and its findings? Will the Government meet with carers—and in particular Carers UK, with which I have been in constant touch—who have been affected? Finally—and this will probably be the nail in the coffin—are the Government considering writing off any overpayments to carers? From discussions that we have had outside this Chamber, I hope we can have a meeting with the department to deal with these matters and get some progress on them. Maybe it would not solve them completely, but it would mean that we feel we do not need to test the feelings of the House.