My Lords, I wish to support the noble Baroness, Lady Pitkeathley, in this amendment. The Minister is right in saying that
the framework is there in the present legislation or, at least, it should be there. The difficulty is that, because the focus among those who make assessments is split between adults and children and we do not have holistic family assessments, often the parents are lost. A family whom I met recently had just, after many years, been given a period of respite care, but the parent carers had not realised that that would make the difference in their being able to continue to care for their son, an extremely difficult young man. A series of workers had never suggested to them that their needs might be met in order to meet the needs of their child. That is the important message that front-line workers need to understand. This amendment would help them to understand that, unless you meet the needs of parents, you do not meet the needs of children.
I, too, had this query when I heard that it had been commented that to assess parents would undermine the rights of children. Assessing parents enhances the rights of children. Many of us who have worked in this field and continue to work with and meet families see it regularly. We also see when people fail to notice that parent carers are beginning to fail, simply because of their exhaustion and the fact that they have had no relief and no assessment for any kind of services, sometimes quite small ones that would make all the difference to their being able to continue.
I support this because we should have a family approach whereby children with disabilities will be maintained in their own homes rather than having to go into caring facilities because their parents are unable to look after them. I am losing my power of speech, like most of us at this time of night, so I leave it there. My only other point is that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, made a passionate speech about integration, which I think we all feel should happen.