Children and Families Bill

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend and to the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, for speaking in support of this amendment at this extremely late hour. I am grateful to the Minister. I thought he made a rather compelling case for my amendment when he spoke about the importance of supporting carers. He talked about enabling them to participate and thrive, but the trouble is that the present situation does not enable them to participate and thrive. I was ultimately very disappointed by the Minister’s response because it is not about simply collecting statistics, but about having a formal, structured review of the case that other countries have now accepted. Therefore I will, of course, withdraw the amendment, but I suspect that it will not be the last amendment which tries to make this case; we will table such an amendment to any legislation that offers the opportunity to do so. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.