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Carers

My hon. Friend makes an extremely intelligent point. There needs to be some alignment of the change in carer's allowance with the change in the minimum wage, because 50p or 60p can have an unbelievably extraordinary impact on people. I think we all agree, whatever our other positions, that carers live their lives under pressure and can do without needless administrative hurdles. Some of the announcements in December were piecemeal reforms. The Government made the bold announcement that income support will be abolished—I pay tribute to the Minister's absolute commitment that carers will not be moved on to jobseeker's allowance, and I know the effort that he put into that—but that was immediately qualified with the statement that income support will not be abolished while claimants are receiving it. That could take 25 years. The partial move of some lone parents on to jobseeker's allowance and parking them in the progression to work group is sensible, but it is a piecemeal reform. Carers are a clearly identifiable group, and the Government are saying that they will not be in the benefits system because carer's allowance is not recognised as a benefit or a wage. Therefore, why can that group not be dealt with specifically? The problem has been around since 1948 and the establishment of the welfare state, but the original invalid care allowance was introduced only 15 or 20 years ago. Progress has been far too slow for the army of people who deserve better and to have attention focused on them. The concept of a single working age benefit is linked to simplification, for which people have been crying out for 30 or 40 years. That is an ideal, but as soon as implementation is considered, all sorts of obstacles and hurdles arise. I do not see there being a single working age benefit in my lifetime, and I hope to live to be much older than I am now. We need to consider that. Last June, the Government published their 10-year vision for carers, ““Carers at the heart of 21st-century families and communities””, which states that"““carers will be supported so that they are not forced into financial hardship by their caring role””." That is an extremely bold commitment. If we implement it tomorrow, we will make 4.5 million people very happy. As yet, however, there is no measure of how, when, where or whether that will be done. Another important issue raised in our report involves two particular groups of people. One is carers who care for more than one severely disabled person and who still receive only one carer's allowance. The second is people who are caring for two or more individuals who do not qualify for middle or higher rate disability living allowance care, although that is an equivalent care burden to having one person to care for who is getting the middle or higher rate. The carer's allowance system does not recognise a situation in which two or more disabled people do not qualify for that rate. We have a moral duty—an obligation—to the 4.5 million carers to set out a timetable for reform of carer's allowance and for milestones along the way against which whichever Government we have can be measured. This group of people has been far too patient for far too long.