Barbara Keeley MP: Making room for carers

Labour MP, Barbara Keeley, says the failure to exempt carers from the Bedroom Tax is illogical and unfair. The Carers Bedroom Entitlement (Social Housing Sector) Bill aims to exempt unpaid family carers and those needing overnight care from the Bedroom Tax. The Bill would exempt households with one additional room if a member of the household is entitled to a carer’s allowance. The Bill would also widen the exemption to households in which a person needs overnight care. The failure to exempt carers from the Bedroom Tax shows this Government’s complete disregard for fairness. The charge places an additional financial burden on unpaid family carers. It does not take into account the fact that the health and care needs of the person cared for may make an additional bedroom essential. In many cases, the person cared-for may find it difficult to sleep due to health problems and the carer needs a separate bedroom to get enough sleep to fulfil their caring role. More than 6.5 million people across the UK are unpaid family carers, and they face a host of financial, emotional and practical challenges due to their caring. Government Ministers have caused confusion by suggesting that unpaid carers are already exempt from the Bedroom Tax, but they are not. A disabled person who needs overnight care from a paid care worker or non-resident relative is exempt from the Bedroom Tax, but where that care is provided unpaid by a partner or another carer living in the same house they are hit by the tax. That is inconsistent and unfair. Subjecting carers to the Bedroom Tax is illogical as well as unfair. One aim of the Bedroom Tax was to ‘improve work-incentives for working-age claimants’. However, figures from the Department of Work and Pensions show that the Bedroom Tax affects at least 60,000 carers who are entitled to a carer’s allowance and who are caring for 35 hours a week or more. In effect this is full-time caring. To expect these carers to move into work or to work extra hours to pay the Bedroom Tax is completely unrealistic. Many carers have had to give up well-paid jobs to care for a family member and expecting them to find the cash to pay the Bedroom Tax as well is an insult to these family carers. It also fails to recognise the contribution that carers make to our economy through their caring and their consequent inability to change their financial circumstances. This Government’s policy reflects a complete misunderstanding of the circumstances most carers find themselves in, and it fails to treat carers with the dignity and the respect that they deserve. I fully support the Labour party’s plan to abolish the bedroom tax if elected in 2015. My Bill aims to exempt carers from a financial burden which should never have been imposed on them in the first place. Moira Fraser, Interim Chief Executive of the 2014 Dods Parliamentary Communications Ltd.