Oliver Dowden is shockingly wrong about the unpaid carers scandal – and anyone who saw his performance in Deputy Prime Minister’s Questions and thought it was reasonable needs to know the facts.

For your information, Dowden was asked about the way the Department for Work and Pensions has been hammering unpaid carers – who are among the poorest-paid benefit claimants in the UK, if not actually the worst-paid – for making earnings about the legal limit.

Some of the DWP’s claims were subsequently proved to be untrue, but only after it had caused serious financial hardship to people who are already stressed enough, trying to look after sick and disabled people on what is already a tiny shoestring budget. While admitting its mistakes, the DWP has not paid back any of the money it (to be accurate) stole.

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And Dowden said this (according to the BBC):

It is right for the government to recover overpayments of benefits to unpaid carers but this must be done in a “compassionate” way.

“Appropriate discretion” should be shown in such cases.

“People up and down the country would expect the government to seek to recover overpaid sums.

“But of course we need to do that in a compassionate way and if people are struggling to make payments I know that the DWP will engage to make sure they have a sustainable and affordable way to make those repayments.”

This is simply not true. The DWP acts as though it is unaccountable to anybody. It is the bully-boy of the UK government.

And if you doubt me, watch this. It’s only a minute or so long:

Oliver Dowden is shockingly wrong about the unpaid carers scandal and George Henderson is right.

There is no “compassion”, no “discretion”.

There is no attempt to find a “sustainable and affordable” way to repay overpayments and no offer to pay back money that has been taken under false pretences – the real fraud in this story, it seems, is always committed by the DWP.

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