Education and Inspections Bill

I shall speak to Amendment No. 142. I am not sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, and I are all that far apart. I welcome the desire to help and support children in care in the Bill. I tabled Amendment No. 142 because young carers also deserve a better deal. I have recently met many young carers and listened to their problems. I am grateful to the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and other support groups for supplying me with further information. A huge and recurring issue is that of schools not knowing that they have young carers, and having no policy or person in charge to cope with their needs. There is no need to identify them in front of their classmates, but people need to know that there is a problem, just like any other welfare problem. Some young carers are caring for a parent with a physical or mental disability, or for a sibling. In both cases, they may find themselves late for school, unable to do homework on time or, sadly, missing school. I shall briefly illustrate my points. As the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said, there are around 175,000 carers in the UK. Of these, 13,000 care for people for more than 50 hours a week. That is surely enough young people to mean that every local authority should have a young carer strategy as part of their children and young people’s plan. Young people’s health is often badly affected by caring through the night, having to lift a heavy adult and feeling isolated. These young people are often going through adolescence, and have the same emotional needs as others. Many suffer the additional trauma of bereavement, family break-up, loss of income or housing, and seeing the effects of illness or substance misuse in the family. I am focusing on educational needs, but these needs go beyond education; a good reason for children’s services which link together to support the young person. Education is a big concern when we are looking at people missing school altogether. One child said: "““I missed a lot of school because he wasn’t well. I didn’t like leaving him in case he fell over and he couldn’t reach a phone or pull the cords … I went to school twice a week, and that was it””. " The DfES guidance and advice for schools and local authorities states: "““Young carers should not be expected to carry inappropriate levels of caring which have an adverse impact on their development and life chances. However, there are children and young people who undertake caring roles … there may be up to 30 young carers in a secondary school””." The advice goes on to say that: "““Schools should consider designating a member of staff to have responsibility for young carers. They can also contribute to schemes that support them, working with local authorities and voluntary agencies””." This is not simply a problem for schools, but across many services. Only some schools identify and support young carers. There are stories of real success; for example, allowing young carers access to telephones in school so that they can contact their home in case of emergency, as well as real care on homework issues and links to other services. If we are, insistent that Every Child Matters principles go right through the Bill—I think that we are—the rights of young carers should also be supported. Every school should have a lead professional who co-ordinates young carers’ support. Links between school and family are absolutely vital. Local authorities should provide free transport for young carers, and schools should work with young carers’ services as part of the extended schools and healthy schools programmes. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to my amendment. On behalf of young carers, I do not think it is too much to ask.