Carers set to earn £45 a week more without losing entitlement to Carer's Allowance

Muttleythefrog

MouldyOldDough said:

marcia_ said:

 Good but I still believe that carers allowance payments should be higher to come in line with other income replacement benefits. 

Labours Pre-election manifesto promised a straight £20 per week raise in carers allowance

This obviously never happened !!

instead Reeves claims "Turning to carer’s allowance: She says the government is increasing the amount people can earn before they lose the benefit. It will rise to the equivalent of more than £10,000 a year, she says. She says this is “the largest increase in carers allowance since it was introduced in 1976”.

How, exactly is this a single penny increase in carers allowance ?

It simply is permission to work another job AND hence pay more in TAXES !!

My wife could not work another job even if she has permission - she is knackered from looking after me , probably 80 hours per week for just £83.29

Really? I don't recall any such pledge...and I surely would have noticed it along with others of the board, in the wider public debate etc. I don't think Labour pledged to increase any benefits (aside from annual uprating in line with inflation rates) and debate was focussed on what of the Tory plans they may implement to cut the benefits bill particularly surrounding disability and sickness.

The pledge actually was from the Lib Dems who of course were never going to win and have a leader who has championed the role of the carer.

I agree the changes hardly represent an increase as has been used in terminology and frankly it should be a lot higher... but I think we need to stick to facts and also acknowledge government has vast competing budgetary demands.

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/labour-launches-its-manifesto-promises-disability-and-accessibility

The issue of unpaid and low paid carers was absent, and there was no mention of increases to carers allowance or Disability related benefits.

MouldyOldDough

@Muttleythefrog

Sorry - it was from 2019

https://www.policyforum.labour.org.uk/news/labour-launches-its-manifesto-for-disabled-people

they promised to "Increase the Carer’s Allowance to the level of Jobseeker’s Allowance." amongst many other broken promises !!

Muttleythefrog

MouldyOldDough said:

@Muttleythefrog

Sorry - it was from 2019

https://www.policyforum.labour.org.uk/news/labour-launches-its-manifesto-for-disabled-people

they promised to "Increase the Carer’s Allowance to the level of Jobseeker’s Allowance." amongst many other broken promises !!

lol.... 2019 is some time ago.... that was the previous election which Labour lost badly (which is why the promise "obviously never happened !!" as they didn't form government) under Jeremy Corbyn.. in no way should that constitute any assurance or promise over a 2024 election manifesto and in no way is that a broken election promise - you cannot break an election manifesto pledge if you are not then in government to implement your pledges..lol. They obviously did not break any other pledges of 2019 either as they did not gain power to implement them or rather decide not to implement them. Had Labour intended to increase CA in any way above inflation I'm confident they would have advertised it in their manifesto for THIS election. The country and its finances are very different from 2019 including due to leaving EU and a pandemic not to mention questionable governance which I should not indulge so I am not surprised this time they made no promises on benefit increases with a likely pressure to reduce expenditure.

Had Labour won that election in 2019 and implemented the pledge quick checking suggests it would have increased Carer's Allowance from £66.15 to £73.10 so not a rise of £20 but more likely about £7 a week. If the policy pledge of 2019 were implemented today it would increase CA from £81.90 to £90.50 a week.

The £20 rise was a Lib Dem manifesto pledge of 2024 - that also will not be implemented and nor should it be considered a pledge of 2029 (or sooner) come another election unless repeated at that time.

The whole point of an election manifesto is to put to the people what you will do so they can take a judgement on it - in no way should any previous manifesto be considered to trump such and anyone who thinks differently is deluding themselves or playing politics! Your claim Labour have broken a promise to increase Carer's Allowance by £20 a week looks very much like the latter since it is a pledge they've never seemingly ever made and for this election no irregular changes to Carer's Allowance amount was pledged. Setting the record straight for readers I think is important whatever one's politics or affiliations. And like I said I think the terminology used in the October budget by the chancellor is misleading as the change to earning limit does not constitute as such an increase in CA although it may for some in practice.

Refer: 23/7/2024 where you yourself had checked what the Labour policy was. Whatever you think Starmer said is almost certainly created in your imagination or a case of confusion with the Lib Dem proposal... quite possibly in memory a mixture of the 2019 Corbyn pledge combined with the Lib Dem pledge of 2024.

MouldyOldDough said:

I seem to remember a promise from Starmer at Elections - something about Carers Allowance being increased ?

Yet - looking at the Manifesto now - I see nothing beneficial

beanielou

No more political chat please. Thanks. 

Please avoid political debate as per the forum rules. 

Muttleythefrog

beanielou said:

No more political chat please. Thanks. 

Please avoid political debate as per the forum rules. 

To be clear... I don't want to politically chat here but someone made a factual claim about a political manifesto of the now government that is false and needs to either be removed as it is false and acknowledged now as false or it needs to be challenged. As an ambassador of this site I would hope you'd remove or allow challenge of false information. The below quoted is completely false... never happened... ever - it was a Liberal Democrat election pledge and crucially they didn't form government thereafter to implement it. It's important people for whom Carer's Allowance is or may be relevant understand the realities of the benefit and proposed changes and not have to rely on deliberate misinformation. Carers and disabled people have plenty enough to contend with without having to deal with false information and deliberate political manipulation.

I would add that unfortunately moderators keep putting up political threads (clearly with intention to drive debate/engagement and new members hence they state "If you haven't already, join the forum to reply") and keep getting challenged (by others) about having done so. It doesn't make things easy as they encourage and prompt the very user behaviour and content they then criticise the existence of by themselves breaking the forum rules in creating political threads - this is just the latest example and it isn't even the first case from this admin on the issue of Carer's Allowance.

MouldyOldDough said:

Labours Pre-election manifesto promised a straight £20 per week raise in carers allowance

HillStreetBlues

A thread about a Budget news asking for replies but the replies can't be political!  I do wonder how much actual thought goes into these posts.

beanielou

We'd like to remind Forumites to please avoid political debate on the Forum. This is to keep it a safe and useful space for MoneySaving discussions. Threads that are - or become - political in nature may be removed in line with the Forum’s rules. Thank you for your understanding.