My Lords, I begin by apologising for being such a latecomer to this Bill, over which so many of your Lordships have laboured long and hard. The reason is simply the clash of commitments that we so often have to contend with in your Lordships’ House: I was very involved with the Care Bill, and it is on the subject of the Care Bill that I now rise to speak.
Your Lordships will know that the Care Bill enshrines in legislation many more rights for carers than hitherto. Adult carers featured strongly in the Care Bill and thanks to the Government being willing to listen and amend the Bill—and to what we might call a pincer movement between the Care Bill and the Children and Families Bill—young carers have similarly been well recognised. However, in spite of much effort—much of it focused in this Bill by many noble Lords and noble Baronesses present today—the rights of parent carers remain weaker than those of other carers.
When I moved a similar amendment to the Care Bill, the Minister was kind enough to say that he recognised my concerns and would consider them. The outcome of those considerations was that the proposal would sit better in this Bill and it is for that reason I am moving it today. Briefly, as I know that many noble Lords are familiar with the issues, the purpose is to strengthen the rights of those who care for a disabled child to receive an assessment of their need for support in line with the assessment rights of adults caring for adults and of young carers.
It is vital that the rights of parent carers to assessment and support are not lost in the current legislative reform of carers’ rights and that their rights are enhanced along with those of other carers.
Like other carers, parents of disabled children already have an existing right to request a separate assessment of their own needs, which is in addition to having their needs assessed as part of their child’s assessment under the Children Act 1989. The existing rights for parents to have their needs assessed separately were introduced in three Private Members’ Bills, with which I was involved and which will be familiar to many of your Lordships. The three Acts were taken through Parliament with cross-party support, in recognition of the huge contribution that carers make and of the need to set out clearly in law their rights to receive support for their care and their right to a life outside caring.
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The purpose of a carer’s assessment is to look at the impact of the caring on the parent and on their ability to provide care for the child. It is not about putting the needs of the parent before those of the child but about ensuring that, where parents have support needs relating to their caring role for a disabled child, those needs are assessed and met. It has been recognised by successive Governments and by all sides of the House that parents caring for disabled children have different needs from other parents. They have different responsibilities and different barriers to accessing employment, for example. Your Lordships will be familiar with the fact that it is three times more costly to bring up a disabled child than a non-disabled child and that parent carers are more likely to be reliant on income-based state support, more likely to suffer relationship breakdown and divorce, and three or more times more likely to suffer ill health and health breakdown than parents of non-disabled children. A striking statistic has come into my hands today from the State of Caring survey, carried out by Carers UK, which surveys 350,000 carers. It found that a third, or 32%, of all full-time carers go without any practical support, rising to almost a half—47%—of carers who are caring for a disabled child aged under-18.
I understand that Carers UK is meeting officials from the Minister’s department shortly and that the Minister has agreed to a meeting with Paul Burstow, from another place, who is also concerned with this issue. I must emphasise that the most common reason for parents being turned down for an assessment is that children’s services are seen as being responsible for assessing the children’s needs and not those of the parent. The current law is not well understood nor is the limited existing legal right to a separate parent assessment well understood by social care practitioners. If changes are not made to bring these rights into this Bill, it will become more difficult for those working with disabled children to understand and use the law. Not only will parent carers not have their rights enhanced but they will find it harder than ever to use the existing legal rights.
I hope that the Minister will not only agree to the meetings that I have mentioned but will also act on the recommendation of the Law Commission that existing duties to assess parent carers should be amended to make them consistent with the adult social care statute. I would also like his response on how the existing rights to a separate assessment for parent carers are to
be reflected in the regulations and guidance accompanying this Bill. If nothing is done, the parents of disabled children under 18 will be left with the lesser and inconsistent right to assessment and support that will remain only in rump legislation. Front-line professionals will have to navigate complex legislation in order to assess and provide support to those caring for children. Parents of disabled children under 18 who already have difficulty in accessing support will find it even harder in the future. I urge the Minister to accept this amendment or at least to commit to looking into this situation further. I beg to move.