Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Opposition join the noble Baroness in her ministerial capacity today in recognising the importance of the work of carers. I stood at that Dispatch Box many times and did just that, and we have not resiled from that at all. The last Government recognised that overpayments were happening and in fact increasing, and action was taken by gaining real-time information from HMRC so that carers who were in the position of beginning to overclaim could be contacted quickly and we could try to avoid it becoming a massive issue. We also helped those who found themselves in that position by either suspending their repayments until they were in a position to repay or indeed elongating the amount of time that would be given them to pay. Carers also receive an annual statement, and so they have an opportunity to make comments and representations to the DWP to talk about it. Can the noble Baroness say what we are going to continue to do to make sure that we get hold of the problem sooner rather than later, where it exists? On many occasions, I was lobbied and questioned in quite a lot of detail by people who asked whether the Government would write off these overpayments. I now take the opportunity, in the nicest spirit, to ask whether His Majesty’s Government will write off these repayments, and whether any provisions have been made in the accounts to do so.