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Carers

If there is a good reason, such as simplifying the complicated assessment processes, we would be happy to consider data sharing. However, we oppose building a national database, such as that required for the identity card scheme. Perhaps the Under-Secretary will tell me how many carers it would help if we scrapped the ID card scheme, which will cost £5.7 billion. We object to that, not to sharing data for a valid purpose. Does the Under-Secretary of State for Health acknowledge that the system that was designed to help carers and disabled people has become so burdened with bureaucracy that it adds massively to their daily stress? I will now let him off the hook, unless he wants to respond to that question, and move to the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. She knows that more than half of carers are forced to give up work to undertake their caring role. To what benefits are they entitled? Carers are entitled to five different benefits: the carer’s allowance; the carer’s premium in income support; housing benefit; council tax benefit, and the community care grant. I have all the forms that carers have to complete. Can the Under-Secretary guess how many questions we ask people to answer if they want to apply for all five benefits? Does she have any idea? I shall put her out of her agony and tell her that the answer is 769 questions over 170 pages. The state is therefore saying, ““We understand and value the role you’re performing and we’d like to help you. Kindly complete the attached 769 questions over 170 pages and we’ll tell you if you’re eligible for help.”” It might be justifiable to ask a lot of questions if we needed lots of unique information, but of those 769 questions, only 148—20 per cent.—ask unique questions, with 80 per cent. repeated. No wonder Carers UK says that the application for carer’s allowance leaves carers"““confused, angry and with little faith in how the system works, with advisers caught up in complicated advice””."