Contribution
My Lords, I am afraid that we must oppose Amendments 103 and 113 set out by the noble Lord, Lord Palmer of Childs Hill, for the same reasons that we gave in Committee.
The independent review to which I believe the noble Lord refers has a clear and limited purpose. As set out in the Government’s own guidance, it is designed to establish three things: first, how overpayments of carer’s allowance linked to earnings have occurred; secondly, what can best be done to support those who have accrued them; and, thirdly, how to reduce the risk of such problems arising in the future.
Nowhere in that remit does it question whether the overpayments were made. That point is already settled. The individuals in question have received government funds—taxpayer funds—to which they were not entitled. To put this in context, since 2019 over £357 million has been overpaid to carers for various reasons, such as where claimants breached the earnings limit, where claimants ceased to provide care, and where the claimant was also in receipt of an overlapping benefit. Often, I have to say, there have been innocent reasons.
The review will rightly examine how the system can be improved and how claimants can be better supported, but it will not, and cannot, rewrite the fact that money was misallocated and must therefore be returned. We think it would make no sense to halt all recovery activity pending the outcome of a review that does not address the underlying question of entitlement. The amendment would effectively suspend the recovery of public money that we already know has been wrongly paid out. We believe this cannot be justified, whether fiscally or morally.
I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, who is in her place, set out to us outside the Chamber her concerns about a cliff edge. I welcome that input—her doing that and saying that—and the Government may want to comment on that. But it is also worth remembering that, even according to charities in support of those who have caring responsibilities, overpayments have been made to people who have not correctly reported that their caring responsibilities have ceased, that the person they are caring for has died, or that they are in receipt of an overlapping benefit. The person in question has a duty to report these changes, and it is clearly wrong that the person has not fulfilled their obligation to the taxpayer to report when these events happen.
Moreover, this amendment goes even further by requiring the Government not only to await the completion of the review and the laying of its report before Parliament but to implement its recommendations in full—I must emphasise that—before recovery can resume. We believe that this is quite extraordinary. We have no idea what those recommendations will be, and it would be deeply irresponsible to commit the Government in advance to implementing them wholesale without the ability to assess, modify or reject them as appropriate.
Public funds must be safeguarded and the Government must retain the flexibility to act responsibly in response to the review’s findings. This amendment would tie their hands and delay indefinitely the recovery of money that should never have been paid in the first place. In his summing up, the noble Lord might suggest how long the wait would be; the noble Baroness might also hazard a guess. Will it be many months, if not possibly a year or two? We really do not know, but I am sure it will be many months. It will become increasingly difficult to recover the money when so much time has gone by. Individuals may have experienced substantial changes in their lives or gone abroad. At worst, the individuals may, very sadly, have died.
For whatever reason, and bearing in mind people’s circumstances or vulnerabilities, we believe in principle that overpayments—a reminder that this is taxpayers’ money—are just that. They have been made to individuals in error—please note that—and should be repaid as soon as possible. I have an iota of sympathy with the noble Lord, Lord Palmer, on the principle behind the amendment—namely, ensuring fairness and learning lessons from what has gone wrong—but its practical effect would be short-sighted, costly and contrary to the basic duty of government to protect the public purse. For those reasons, we cannot and will not support it.