Labour plans review of carer’s allowance after thousands forced to repay

Thousands of carers have run up huge debts, been given criminal records and been forced to sell their homes when chased by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over “honest mistakes” that officials could have spotted years earlier.

Alison McGovern, the acting shadow work and pensions secretary, on Tuesday said her party would seek to reform the UK-wide policy if it won power.

The DWP is under growing pressure over the way it penalises people who care for seriously ill, disabled or elderly loved ones for often minor breaches of its strict earnings rules.

Three former work and pensions secretaries have urged the government to pause its investigations into unpaid carers as its approach was called a “ scandalous miscarriage of justice ”.

Tens of thousands of carers have unwittingly fallen foul of this rule and have not been alerted by the DWP until years later, even though the government has real-time technology that means it can stop these infractions much sooner.

Karina Moon, an unpaid carer to her 22-year-old disabled daughter, is being forced to pay back £11,000 after an earnings breach that amounted to about £3 a week, after the DWP deemed that travelling to work was not an allowable expense.