Nesil Caliskan

I thank the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) for securing this important debate. I have almost 10,000 constituents in Barking who are unpaid carers, providing a vital and caring backbone for the community. My constituency has one of the highest numbers of carers in the country, and we know that if those individuals stopped caring and delivering their vital role, our overstretched care system would crumble and the economy grind to a halt. Perhaps most importantly, the most vulnerable people in our communities would stop receiving the care and compassion that they get from their relatives and friends. But carers do not stop, because they care about their friend or family member who needs that support. Whether it is a young carer looking after a parent, or a daughter or son looking after their elderly parent, such care is vital in our community. Instead of a system that provides them with a safety net to help with the additional costs that come with caring for someone, the system the Government have inherited is a real mess. We are in a situation where our constituents face bills from the DWP landing on their doorstep. The current carer’s allowance system is cruel, with a punitive cliff edge that forces unpaid carers to choose between earning a basic income or caring for their loved one. It means that if a carer goes over the earnings allowance by £1, or indeed by 1p as we have heard in a number of speeches, they are forced to pay back the full amount that they received, which could be a figure in the thousands. Instead of a system that understands the need for flexibility, given the nature of being a carer and the realities of trying to fit paid work around that, often with zero-hours contracts and earnings that change from week to week, the system penalises carers and threatens them with criminal prosecution. It is just another broken system left by the previous Government that this Government have to sort out, and another part of the foundations of our country that we will fix to rebuild Britain. As I stand to speak on this important topic, I think of the 10,000 carers in my constituency. Vital work will now progress, and hopefully it will be concluded swiftly by the Government, so that carers never have to choose between earning a proper income and caring for a loved one.