Social Security Regulations

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-president of Carers UK. I want first to commend the progress that we have made with involving users and carers in consultation and all forms of policy development. I am long enough in the tooth to remember when it was very different and people looked askance at the idea of having service users and carers involved in policy development. Now it is absolutely up there; the progress that we have made is simply phenomenal and how we do it is the envy of the world. The orders before us today are further evidence of enabling carers and service users to participate in those consultation processes. I echo the noble Baroness’s "hurrah" for that. Part of the problem that we face today, and which the noble Baroness has so eloquently set out for us, is precisely because of the progress that we have made. It is so much, as it were, in the rubrics of our policy and law now that we—including Ministers occasionally, and officials sometimes—forget how precise wording must be to cover all bases and ensure that service users and carers are not disadvantaged and excluded from claiming appropriate benefits and expenses; or, indeed, excluded from consultation itself. If we do not get these things right, they will vote with their feet and not participate at all. I must endorse how important it is that we cover all organisations and do not rely just on the law. We have been here before. I remind noble Lords about the Health and Social Care Act, which originally referred only to service users and the public being consulted. We managed to get that changed here in the House of Lords. I am very proud of what we did. We got a very good amendment agreed and an absolute commitment from the Government to including carers in those consultations. However, the regulations before us today now partly contradict this by further limiting the ability of carers to participate. The very clear definition in the Health and Social Care Act is that "service users" means people who use health or social care services, and "carers" means people who care for service users as relatives or friends. Yet with this clear definition on the statute book, the DWP seems to be using a different definition, which is now referred to as "service user groups". I understand that the department has said that it intends that "service user groups" includes carers and, therefore, the regulations do not need amending. It has also said that the guidance for Jobcentre Plus would reflect that carers were supposed to be included in that term, but it does not yet do so. In any case, the guidance is insufficient. It is guidance only for Jobcentre Plus, which makes the decisions about whether to cut somebody’s benefit. I believe that carers will not get that far in some circumstances, unless the regulations make clear that they are included. Local authorities and the other bodies to which the noble Baroness on the Front Bench has referred will look at the legislation and say, "We only pay service users, not carers". There needs to be better guidance on this. The only way of ensuring that all organisations considering involving carers know that they can compensate them is by writing the regulations properly and including charities, research organisations and organisations such as non-departmental public bodies. We have come so far; let us be sure that we continue the admirable progress. I am sure that the Minister will be able to accommodate us in some way.