BRIEFING PAPER Number 00846, 9 January 2020 By Steven Kennedy Carer's Allowance Manjit Gheera Inside: 1. Introduction 2. Conditions of entitlement 3. Issues 4. Carers and Universal Credit 5. Carers and the Benefit Cap 6. Overpayments of Carer’s Allowance 7. Reform proposals 8. Further Scottish devolution and Carer’s Allowance www.parliament.uk/commons-library | intranet.parliament.uk/commons-library |
[email protected] | @commonslibrary Number 00846, 9 January 2020 2 Contents Summary 3 1. Introduction 4 2. Conditions of entitlement 6 2.1 Changes announced in October 2002 6 2.2 Introduction of Personal Independence Payment 7 3. Issues 9 3.1 Overlapping benefits rule 9 3.2 Amount of benefit 10 3.3 Carer’s Allowance and paid work 15 3.4 Studying and claiming Carer’s Allowance 18 4. Carers and Universal Credit 20 5. Carers and the Benefit Cap 21 6. Overpayments of Carer’s Allowance 22 7. Reform proposals 25 7.1 Recent Work and Pensions Committee reports 28 Support for carers 28 Overpayments of Carer’s Allowance 31 7.2 Demos report 33 7.3 The Carer’s Action Plan 34 8. Further Scottish devolution and Carer’s Allowance 36 8.1 Carers UK campaign 37 Cover page image copyright: Nurse Holding Elderly Patient's Hand by PortaldelSur ES. Licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 /image cropped 3 Carer's Allowance Summary Carer’s Allowance – formerly Invalid Care Allowance – is a non-contributory, non-means- tested benefit paid to people who care full-time for someone who is severely disabled. To be entitled to Carer’s Allowance, a person must be providing at least 35 hours of care a week for someone in receipt of a qualifying disability benefit, not be in full-time education, and, if in paid work, have earnings after certain deductions of no more than £123 a week.