Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey has called for an immediate suspension of penalties and repayment demands imposed on thousands of unpaid carers caught up in broken and discredited allowance system.
Investigation by the Guardian revealed that carers across the UK had been saddled with large debts and in some cases prosecuted for fraud after unknowingly breaching strict earnings rules linked to the £82.30-a-week benefit.
Despite a government pledge last year to fix the system, hundreds of carers are still being hit with fresh overpayment demands every week.
“Itcannot be right that the government is still hounding carers for repayments long after this scandal was exposed,”
Davey urged ministers to pause all repayments, publish the findings of an independent review completed months ago, and deliver long-promised reforms.
The inquiry, led by disability policy expert Liz Sayce, was commissioned in December, but the government has not yet released the report or issued a response.
A Liberal Democrat amendment to the government’s fraud and error bill, due before the House of Lords next week, calls for repayment action to be halted until reforms are in place.
Lib Dem peer, Lord Palmer branded the situation a national disgrace, saying carers were being punished by a system “everyone knows is failing”.
However, at least 144,000 carers are currently repaying more than £251m in overpayments, often amounting to several thousand pounds each. Under current rules, carers who exceed the weekly earnings limit even by a few pence must repay all the allowance received during that period.
Also, the crisis has been worsened by years of DWP failures to act on automated alerts that could have prevented the debts building up.
Carers UK said the delays in fixing the system were devastating for families. “With every day that goes by, unpaid carers are still being subjected to overpayment demands under a broken system,” said the organisation’s policy director, Emily Holzhausen.
In a statement, the Department for Work and Pensions said it would respond to the review “in due course”, adding that it must “balance our duty to the taxpayer” with fair administration of the benefit.
