Caritas Diocese of Salford, along with St Antony’s Centre for Church and Industry, Caritas Social Action Network (CSAN – the national Caritas body) and Z2K (a charity supporting vulnerable debtors), is supporting the amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill that is being debated in the House of Lords at the time of writing this article. The next amendment would maintain the legislative protection against government departments or Local Authorities reclaiming erroneous overpayments in cases where claimants could not reasonably be expected to realise that they were being overpaid.  In its current form, the Bill proposes that claimants will still have to pay back any money owed, specifically affecting people who were overpaid through their benefits such as Job Seekers’ Allowance, child tax credit, employment allowance, child benefit and housing credit. This may leave people struggling to make ends meet, in particular single parents, families and people with disabilities.

 A further concern is that under the Bill there is no means-tested framework to judge who is able to afford the repayments. Government has indicated that it will rely on “common sense” as the method for determining the amount of the repayments and who will be asked to repay. This will clearly have a detrimental affect on benefits recipients as there are no guidelines set out to ensure that they are treated fairly both by their Local Authority and in comparison with other Local Authorities.

 “The grass roots endorsement from Caritas Diocese of Salford gives a big boost to our campaign when they come up for debate in the coming weeks.”                                                                                                                                                                               Liam Allmark, Public Policy and Public Affairs Officer, Caritas Social Action Network

We as well as our partners, St Antony’s Centre, CSAN and Z2K, call for the protection of claimants who did not realise they were being overpaid. We also call for the Government to establish a means-tested framework for those who are eligible to repay benefits to ensure that vulnerable people are not forced into unnecessary financial hardship as a result of the Bill.

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