Sir Mel Stride

Regardless of what the right hon. Gentleman may or may not have said in his opening remarks, the text of the motion cannot be disputed. On the point of whether anyone should be expected to repay, the motion says that this House “believes that carers should not be forced to face the stress, humiliation and fear caused by demands for repayments of Carer’s Allowance”. To me, that suggests everyone. The motion goes on to say that the Government should “write-off existing overpayments immediately”. It is clear and obvious that that would include any fraudulent payments. It may be that the earnings limit could be increased, but there would be a fiscal cost. Indeed, the Liberal Democrat manifesto reforms would cost about £1.5 billion, which is significant. We would have to take account of the balance between being more generous to carers and respecting the 35-hour rule, if that remains. Finally, whenever there is a cliff edge, it is suggested that tapering will solve the problem, but that neglects the fact that it introduces complexity, which is the very thing that universal credit, for example, was designed to iron out. The system was like spaghetti, and nobody could quite understand how it worked. In the tax system, for example, the personal allowance tapers away after £100,000. Many people just stop working further when they reach that level of earnings, because it is not worth their while, given the marginal tax rate. There is an interplay between universal credit and carer’s allowance, because people who earn more will end up having their carer’s allowance withdrawn. There is already a taper within carer’s allowance to make sure that work pays, so that as people earn more, their benefit is reduced but not sufficiently to make them worse off. Under the system advocated by the Liberal Democrats, there will be two tapers in two interacting benefits, which I do not think would best serve anybody, least of all carers. Madam Deputy Speaker is seeking my conclusion. I welcome this motion, and like other parties in this House, we stand four-square behind our carers, who do an extraordinary job. I wish the Government well with their review, which we will consider seriously and objectively, as we are all on the side of carers. I stand by our record in office, of which I am proud.