Kate Garraway is campaigning to help carers being pursued for thousands

Good Morning Britain (GMB) presenter Kate Garraway has said she was ‘left in tears’ by the numbers of people who came up to her in Manchester to share their difficult stories about living as an unpaid carer. She said a number were demanding that she help to change the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) system that has seen carers pursued for thousands of pounds in overpaid Carer’s Allowance.

The GMB panel, which included former Boris Johnson adviser Guto Hari and New Labour’s Jacqui Smith, discussed the case of carer Elizabeth Tait, who told GMB previously about how she had been overpaid after taking up ad-hoc work to help support herself and her family, who she was caring for. She was made to pay the DWP back £1,623 after working too many hours while caring for her son and terminally ill husband.

Sometimes pausing to hold back her emotions, Kate said: “Yesterday I happened to be in Manchester, chairing a panel with people like Rio Ferdinand, nothing to do with care, and I couldn’t get out of the conference room, and I couldn’t get out of the conference arena, and even on the streets afterward to the point where I was actually in tears, with people coming up to me and talking about this issue.”

The DWP has pursued thousands of carers for overpayments of Carer’s Allowance, which sends out £81.90 per week into the bank accounts of people who care for someone for at least 35 hours per week. It is possible to work alongside this, but you cannot earn over £151 in a week, or you have to pay the money back.

Kate said that these people were begging her, after her experience caring for her husband, to do something about the persecution of carers for this money. She added: “[They were] talking about the fact that they are just at breaking point, talking about not wanting to complain about care, they love their son, their autistic son or physically handicapped son that they are caring for, or mum and dad that they are caring for, but they are just in so much debt that they can’t carry on.