COMMITTEE FOR SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
OFFICIAL REPORT
(Hansard)
Carer’s Allowance Bill
7 February 2008
Members present for all or part of the proceedings:
Mr Gregory Campbell (Chairperson)
Mr David Hilditch (Deputy Chairperson)
Mr Mickey Brady
Mr Thomas Burns
Mr Fred Cobain
Mr Jonathan Craig
Mr Fra McCann
Mrs Claire McGill
Miss Michelle McIlveen
Mr Alban Maginness
Witnesses:
Mr David McNarry
The Chairperson:
Good morning, Mr McNarry; you are welcome to the Committee. I am sure that you are familiar with the briefing on mobile phones: they must be turned off because if they are on in any mode, they cause interference.
You plan to introduce a Bill that will be under the ambit of the Department for Social Development. I will hand over to you to outline the proposed Bill and the intent behind it, after which perhaps you would answer questions.
Mr McNarry:
Thank you. I am grateful to the Committee for allowing me the opportunity to explain the legislative objectives behind the Bill and, I hope, to gain the support of members.
The objective of the Bill is to amend the Social Security Administration ( Northern Ireland) Act 1992 to exclude the state retirement pension from consideration when assessing a person’s entitlement to a carer’s allowance. I hope to make the case for the fair treatment of carers because the present situation is unfair. When carers reach pensionable age, they lose their carer’s allowance. That is wrong, because people do not retire from or stop caring when they reach that age; rather it is a time of life when they need all the income assistance that they can get.
Those unsung heroes of all ages qualify for an allowance until they reach pensionable age, but they are still heroes after that. A splendid service is provided in the home by people who must meet certain conditions to qualify for an allowance; those conditions are a dead giveaway to the degree of caring involved. Carers must look after someone for at least 35 hours a week, they must not earn more than £95 a week and the person for whom they care must receive a qualifying disability benefit. Carers who meet those conditions qualify for a weekly carer’s allowance. However, when carers reach pensionable age, they can no longer receive their pension entitlement and a carer’s allowance.
I am sure that every member of the Committee knows carers, as do I, and they do not look at it that way; they do not consider looking after the people for whom they care as a job that they do for 35 hours every week. About 85% of pensioners who receive a carer’s allowance are female. The proposed Bill is not concerned with money or hours because carers do not think in such terms, and I want to think as they do.
Caring is not a job; carers do not get sacked. Most carers are on hand for much longer than 35 hours a week. However, the Government will talk to the Committee and MLAs about money. The Government already begrudge this Bill and the granting of carer’s allowance in the manner I propose. Regrettably, they will do everything in their power to stop the Bill. That makes me angry. The Department will argue that I am asking for payment for caring, which I most certainly am not. Part of the Department’s tactics is to imply that I am trying to alter the nature of the carer’s allowance, from allowance to payment. I repudiate that form of words and the introduction of payment in any form. It is highly offensive to the carers that we all know.
I also consider the Department’s attitude to the Bill highly offensive, as it gives no hint that there might be merit in what the Bill could bring to carers. The Department does not say that there are many deserving people caring for others; neither does it concede that, although the measure will cost extra, it will look hard to see how it can afford it. From the start, there has been no such engagement. All I have heard from the Department is a first salvo of heavy artillery, trying to blow the Bill out of the water at this early stage.
Let us see how we can get on. The Department wishes to focus on money and finding extra resources, although I have already said that I do not see it that way. I would turn the argument back on the Department by focusing on the savings made by carers, who most certainly refute the claim that a carer’s allowance is a payment for looking after a loved one at home. Let us turn the focus onto the unpaid support offered by carers. Last September, Careers United Kingdom reported that the value of unpaid support that carers in Northern Ireland provided had reached a staggering £3∙2 billion a year. The report also stated that in the United Kingdom as a whole, carers contributed £87 billion in unpaid work. That is more than the whole National Health Service spent in total in the previous year, which was £82 billion.
The upshot is that the average carer saves the nation £15,260 annually. The Department argues that both the carer’s allowance and the state retirement pension are designed to do the same: pay a person in lieu of a working wage. That language is unfair; that argument is crass. In deference to carers, the phrase “in lieu of a working wage” should not be used.
Every man and woman who reaches state retirement age is entitled to the state pension. It seems inequitable that a person who finds himself or herself continuing in a caring role in later life — when most people wish to take things a little easier — is deprived of the benefit that was designed to help them in their caring role simply because they reach pensionable age. I will address the problem of overlapping benefit in a moment. That denial is the result of a self-imposed departmental rule that is shared by various United Kingdom social security divisions and which is based entirely on our own social security policy division’s adopting a self-serving notion about overlapping benefits. That is most unworthy of this devolved Administration.
Moreover, carers benefit not only the person cared for but also the public purse, since the cost of providing state-financed care in a nursing home would be much greater. If the Department wants to sound so uncaring and act so uncaringly because it is unwilling to take into account the savings accruing from the activities of carers, those substantial and significant savers are better brought into the public domain throughout the journey of my Bill, which begins this morning.
I suspect that during my efforts to seek approval for my Bill, the Department will launch another tactic by making much of parity. Perhaps the Committee will indulge me by allowing me to make a personal remark: it seems that civil servants are still coming to terms with devolution and the right of MLAs to legislate in our own House. Perhaps, with the Committee’s support and by taking corporate ownership of this Bill and making it our Bill, we will make a difference for the deserving carers and influence the Minister for Social Development to support it.
Parity legislation is dealt with in section 87 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. However, it does not require or even suggest that absolute parity — that is, rigidly enforced consistency in the delivery of benefits — must be maintained in the designated areas of social security, child support and pensions. Section 87 requires that the relevant Ministers in Stormont and Whitehall:
“shall from time to time consult one another with a view to securing that, to the extent agreed between them, the legislation… provides single systems of social security”.
The legislative responsibility to establish suitable arrangements for parity therefore falls to Ministers, not to MLAs or Committees. In any case, the requirement placed on Ministers is not absolute and allows them to use their discretion and their political judgement of local circumstances to determine the degree to which parity is appropriate. It is entirely appropriate for MLAs and Committees to seek to modify parity arrangements in order to address local circumstances and better serve people who, through no fault of their own, find themselves having to undertake caring responsibilities.
In a Department for Social Development letter and in a ministerial response to our colleague George Savage — AQW/408/07 — the Minister restates the parity principle:
“In line with the long-standing policy of parity in social security, there are no current plans to change the policy on overlapping benefits”.
However, under devolution the regions have significantly altered aspects of the welfare state. For example, there are different regimes for student fees in Scotland and Wales, free personal care in Scotland and free prescriptions in Wales. They found a way to do it. My Bill proposes a modest reform to a particular aspect of the social security system, so it is not dissimilar to those policies adopted in Scotland and Wales. That said, the wider implications of breaching parity will cause some debate in parties and in the Assembly. Such a debate will not simply focus on that one issue — if we do our work properly, there will be many issues.
In conclusion, if money considerations override the ending of a wrong — and I am citing the present policy as a wrong — and if parity undermines the right to introduce a modest reform through our ability to legislate, a great disservice will be done not only to pensioner carers but, significantly, to what this place is all about.
The Chairperson:
Thank your for your submission. As you say, this is the first step on a journey. I will ask one question and then open the floor to members. You said that your Bill was not about money; I accept that. You also mentioned instances in Scotland and Wales where issues regarding financial arrangements were addressed, overcome and delivered. Do you accept that in both countries the Minister with responsibility for finance or the relevant Departments had to make an assessment of the costs of introducing a policy?
Mr McNarry:
Yes. I have experienced difficulty in trying to obtain accurate cost assessments. I wanted to bring one to the Committee.
The Chairperson:
I was going to ask if you had.
Mr McNarry:
Perhaps you can help me. For some reason, I am having difficulties in finding out how many people of pension age in Northern Ireland are carers and would receive carer’s allowance if my Bill were passed.
The Chairperson:
We will endeavour to find out.
Mr McNarry:
That would be helpful.
The Chairperson:
Such details should be paramount in consideration of any Bill.
Mr McNarry:
Estimates vary from 1,962 to the Department’s figure of 13,700. I treat those figures with great caution, and I ask the Committee to do likewise.
Mr Brady:
Thank you for your presentation, Mr McNarry. I am sure that you are aware of the chequered history of invalid care allowance — the forerunner to carer’s allowance. In 1985, an English lady, Mrs Drake, was involved in a landmark case in which she took the British Government to the European Court of Justice. Before that, married women were not permitted to claim invalid care allowance, although married men, single men and single women were permitted to do so. That is part of the allowance’s history.
I was working in an advice centre at the time, and we were told that invalid care allowance would not affect carer’s benefit. However, change happened immediately because the law was changed as the lady flew home.
Recently, there was a sop to carers by giving pensioners an underlying entitlement. They do not always receive more money, but they are given access to passport benefits. I deal with carers almost daily — and I did so in my previous work in an advice centre — and they are unsung heroes. It is not about money because all the carers that I have talked to say that they would do their work willingly even if they were not receiving an allowance. However, it is necessary that they get recognition and support.
It is not about money, because carers did not receive very much. When invalid care allowance was introduced a carer could earn £12, which was increased to £50. A carer could not get a proper job in the accepted sense. I accept Mr McNarry’s comments on parity, because there will be instances when an applicant’s local circumstances will have to be considered. The Department must start on that premise and realise that there has been a history of inequality in the granting of invalid care allowance, which became carer’s allowance.
The Assembly should have the right to debate those issues.
Mr McNarry:
I appreciate your remarks, Mr Brady.
The Chairperson:
No one else wishes to ask a question. Thank you, Mr McNarry. Those were your first steps on what may be a prolonged journey, but the Committee wishes you well.
Mr McNarry:
I appreciate that. We will walk that journey together, but I am sure that I will get more of a grilling next time.