Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:

To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, whether her Department has made an assessment of the potential merits of an increase to carer’s allowance.

The proposed table of benefits / pension rates for 2021/22, including Carer’s Allowance, was published on 4 December 2020 in the House Library, following the Secretary of State’s annual review of benefit rates. Since 2010, the rate of Carer’s Allowance has increased from £53.90 to £67.25 a week, meaning around an additional £700 a year for carers. Between 2020/21 and 2025/26 real terms expenditure on Carer’s Allowance is forecast to increase by nearly a third (around £1 billion). By 2025/26, the Government is forecast to spend just over £4bn a year on Carer’s Allowance.

As of August 2020, there were 2,158 carers in the Huddersfield constituency that were claiming Carer’s Allowance, of which 1,667 were in receipt of Carer’s Allowance while 495 had an underlying entitlement to it (which can passport to carer premiums). In 2019/20 we spent approximately £5.7 million on Carer’s Allowance there.

Information on the number of people claiming Carer’s Allowance by Parliamentary constituency is published and available at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk

Guidance for users is available at:

https://stat-xplore.dwp.gov.uk/webapi/online-help/index.html

The latest information on benefit expenditure by parliamentary constituency including Carer’s Allowance is also published and available at:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/920543/benefit-expenditure-by-parliamentary-constituency-2019-20.xlsx