Childcare Bill

I was pleased to add my name to this amendment, and I add my thanks to those of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, to the Minister for meeting us last week with his colleague Maria Eagle to discuss this. It was an extremely helpful meeting. The detailed case for amending the Bill to replace age 16 with age 18 for disabled children has been excellently explained already by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, so there is no need for me to go into any great detail. The Minister will not be surprised to know that I feel that the case for change is unanswerable. Once the Government decided to put specific ages into the Bill, it became essential to include age 18 for disabled children. As the noble Lord, Lord Rix, has said, if age 16 remains in the Bill, it will have the force of law and there will be no incentive for local authorities and others to consider childcare for the parents of disabled 16 to 18 year-olds, with all the pressure that there is on the budgets of local authorities, and so on. Also, I am sure that my noble friend will want to ensure that the Bill will harmonise the provisions for disabled children and their families with other legislation designed to help parents to work that supports the parents of disabled children up to the age of 18, not 16. The Employment Relations Act 1999 means that parents of disabled children up to age 18 have the right to parental leave of up to 18 weeks, to be used flexibly throughout the child’s life from birth to 18 years. The Employment Act 2002 gives parents of disabled children up to the age of 18 the right to request flexible working hours to meet their care needs. In passing, the usual criticisms from the Government about the drafting of the amendment would certainly not apply in this case, because all that we are doing is to replace the figure of 16 with another figure, 18. So I hope that the Minister has not got that in his brief. The other extremely powerful argument against leaving the age at 16, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, touched on, is the transition—which is very difficult anyway—from child to adult services at 18. There really would be a very awkward stage between 16 and 18 if the age in the Bill remained 16. If the Bill is not amended as we suggest, I hope that the Minister will be able to give the Committee an encouraging response.