I rise to speak to my amendments in this group and to support the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to which my name has been added.
I have tabled Amendments 93B, 100A and 104ZZA because I am concerned about the wording in Clauses 56 and 61, which may risk preventing the provision of services, and that the references to families and friends or others suggest a reliance on carers that is inconsistent with other provisions in the Bill and with the intention that a decision on eligible needs should be carer blind. That the provision should be carer blind is an important and welcome commitment by the Government in this part of the Bill.
My amendments seek to remove the reference to assessment of the capabilities of a child, a child carer and a young carer and the support that family members could provide to meet a child’s need for care in Clause 56, a parent’s need for support in Clause 58, and a young carer’s need for support in Clause 61. Similar amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, were debated when we discussed Clauses 9 and 10.
The references to the capabilities of a child, a child carer or a young carer and any support likely to be available to the child from friends, family and others
should be removed. There could be an undue reliance on family and friends to provide care and support, and voluntary support from family and friends will not be properly planned for or sustainable and will not be subject to checks or review. Family and friends may not be willing and able to provide support but there is a risk that they will be relied on regardless of their own wishes. There is no check in the law and there are no provisions for this in the legislation. Carers could easily be pressurised to provide care and the vital contribution that they make may not be recognised. Those of us who deal with carers all know how often they are pressurised, sometimes quite subtly. The implication is, for example, that they will have to give up their job in order to provide care for the particular person needing care.
I am also concerned, as a member of the Joint Select Committee, about Clauses 56, 58 and 61. They were not part of the consultation on the draft Bill and this is quite a substantial departure from the process set out in it and recommended by the Law Commission. The new parts which have been added to Clauses 56, 58 and 61 blur the distinction between consideration of needs and ways of meeting needs, other than through services at the stage of assessment, before any decision about whether the child, child carer or young carer have eligible needs. The assessment process should show what the needs for care and support are before consideration is given to how those needs will be met.
Carers UK—I declare an interest as its vice president—has tested the wording of these clauses on a number of front-line workers and their belief is that practice will be adversely affected. The distinction is important because if consideration of needs does not precede consideration of ways to meet those needs, there is a danger that needs will be defined with regard to whatever support is available and could result in children, young carers and parent carers finding it more difficult to access statutory care and support as a result of assumptions being made about the informal support that is available. These amendments seek to remove any risk that family and friends will be unduly and inappropriately relied on to provide care and support to the child, child carer or young carer, and to ensure that care and support needs are properly met following an assessment of needs and before considering the potential input of others.
The amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, to which I have added my name, emphasise the importance of the transition period to parent carers and disabled young adults and the vulnerability of both groups. I have little to add to his very eloquent presentation. It is sometimes remarkably difficult to focus the attention of policy-makers on the needs of parent carers. I have often been puzzled as to why that is. I think it may be about the very decided views that we all have about parental responsibility.
However, we must understand that the responsibility we gladly take for our non-disabled children is very different from what we expect from the parents of a child with special needs. These parent carers can find themselves providing care for many years and often at the very heavy end of caring—for example, someone who has severe mental and physical disabilities may
need lifting and continence care—and for 24 hours a day. Do I need to point out that keeping such people engaged in caring by giving them enough support to stop them breaking down makes very sound economic as well as moral sense? At no point is this support more important than the transition stage, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has so eloquently reminded us.