Carers: Back Pay Liability

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Wednesday 16th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

The noble Baroness makes an important point about the attention my right honourable friend the Secretary of State is giving this. We are taking this issue seriously, and she is quite right about the number of organisations that are affected. As I said, a scheme already exists which allows providers to defer any payments, and we are investigating whether any further interventions are necessary during that period when they can defer them.

[Lord Wigley (PC)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests as a vice-president of Mencap. Is there not a taste of retrospective legislation or at least retrospective interpretation of legislation in this, something we always try to avoid? When one hears figures, as we have, of some £400 million of liability for organisations undertaking such excellent work, does this not justify the Government intervening to ensure that no such organisations suffer unduly as a result of these changes?

[Lord O'Shaughnessy]

I agree with the noble Lord that there is a retrospective element to this, but it is around the clarification of the law. The Government have put a support scheme in place through HMRC to provide that support to resist, for example, enforcement notices on workers who ought to be paid in arrears. That is up and running and it has been open since September 2017. But clearly, as that continues we are also looking at whether other interventions might be necessary.