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.