A document presented to politicians in 2021 detailed how carers -the majority on low incomes and spending 65 hours a week caring for loved ones - had endured financial hardship, stress and anger after being heavily penalised for falling foul of strict rules on carer's allowance eligibility.
Ministers at the Department for Work and Pensions sat on the report until this week when it was made public after repeated lobbying from campaigners and a series of Guardian reports into the carer's allowance scandal. Its release came as renewed political pressure was put on ministers to tackle longstanding problems with the benefits system.
Sir Stephen Timms, the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, said: "The government has known for years about flaws that have plagued the payments system for carer's allowance but has just allowed many unpaid carers to unwittingly rack up unmanageable levels of debt."
The committee published an eight-page letter it sent to the welfare secretary, Mel Stride, asking the DWP to introduce wholesale reforms of the allowance to ensure carers "were no longer subjected to the distress that such overpayments can cause."
The report was commissioned by the DWP in 2019 after a parliamentary inquiry heavily criticised its failure to understand the human misery and hardship inflicted on tens of thousands of unpaid carers by its management of carer's allowance.
Although the report was finished in 2021, ministers repeatedly blocked its publication.
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