Social Care (Local Sufficiency) and Identification of Carers Bill

Alex Cunningham Excerpts

Friday 7th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

I am delighted to speak in the debate and to follow the hon. Member for South Thanet (Laura Sandys), who made an eloquent speech, illustrated in particular by her mention that we are all affected—we all know somebody who is a carer and who probably has a tough life because of it.

The Bill is long overdue and I hope that the Government will allow it to reach the Committee stage for further discussion and development. For too long, we have taken carers for granted. We underestimate their invaluable contribution to the well-being of their families and communities—not to mention the economy. We fail to support carers, including children and young people, who often themselves suffer ill-health, and neglect the needs of carers who want to work outside their home. That is why the Bill is so important. It will go far in meeting carers’ needs, without placing huge additional financial burdens on local authorities already struggling to cope with the deep cuts they are having to implement.

I want to talk in particular about young carers—those under the age of 18 who undertake significant and, I would argue, often inappropriate caring responsibilities for their parents, grandparents or siblings. Let us be clear: they are children. Indeed, the average age of a young carer is a mere 12 years—12-year-olds whose only concerns should be enjoying their youth and playing with their friends. Instead, very often they simply lose their childhoods as they care for disabled parents, parents who may be drug dependent, and parents whom they love deeply. No one wants to get too graphic about the things children do for their parents, but among other things they feed them, get them to the toilet, help bath them and help them get dressed.

To take on that level of care for a loved one is remarkable. Carers provide constant support, comfort and companionship. As my hon. Friend the Member for Darlington (Jenny Chapman) once said, “They make the good days good and the hard days better.” We know how young carers are passionate about supporting their families. The majority of young carers want to care and few ask to stop caring altogether, but they also need to be supported. Many young carers, however, struggle through the education system without being recognised as young carers. Their needs and those of the people for whom they are caring are often identified only during a crisis.

The Bill would create a strategic duty on local authorities to ensure that schools are proactive in identifying young carers as soon as possible, with a similar duty on further and higher education bodies. The earlier young carers are identified, the more support can be made available to them and the person for whom they care. Many young carers go without being identified, and a key reason that young people drop out of university and college, as others have said, is that they are caring for someone, often a parent.

Let us not underestimate the scale of the problem. Recent surveys have pointed to a hidden army of UK young carers, with four times as many young carers in the UK as are officially recognised. The 2001 census identified only 175,000 young carers, 13,000 of whom care for more than 50 hours a week, but a survey of schoolchildren has indicated that there are about 700,000 young carers in the UK—an astounding figure. Even that does not tell the whole picture. In the UK almost 3 million children under the age of 16—equivalent to 23% of all children—live in households in which one family member is hampered in daily activities by a chronic physical or mental health problem, illness or disability, meaning that countless young people have caring responsibilities, including administering medication, washing, cooking and cleaning.

We have some great support for young carers in my constituency, and my wife Evaline is a volunteer director of the Eastern Ravens Trust, a local children’s charity that has been working for more than 50 years to support children and young people from the Stockton borough area who are experiencing social isolation. One scheme is the young carers project, which provides young carers with the opportunity to meet and socialise with other carers, letting them simply have fun and blow off steam. I love spending time with them and was delighted to see them in this very Chamber not long after I was elected.

The project has also received a grant from the Princess Royal Trust for Carers to focus on identifying those young carers in households with substance-misusing parents who need support to help them be children as well as carers. The grant has made it easier to identify and help some of the most vulnerable carers in our area. The steering group, Young Carers Aloud, also aims to raise awareness of young carers and their issues in Stockton and has devised a young carers card that it hopes can be used discreetly in schools to let teachers and staff know who young carers are, ensuring that they get the support they need. Often, those young carers do not want their peers to know about their personal situations.

The Bill will enable such work to be performed all over the country. Young carers I meet tell me that they often feel isolated at school, and that they are a frequent target for bullies, as other Members have said. They have difficulties concentrating in lessons, worrying about their parents or family member—“Are they at home?”, “Are they okay?”, “Have they had an accident?”, “Have they lost their memory today?” Young carers are often unable to complete their homework as they simply do not have enough time due to their caring responsibilities. As a result, such young people, because no one knows about their situation, are often punished—they might be given a detention after school, which means that they cannot be present for family members who rely on them.

Examples of young carers in my constituency include someone whom I will call Susan. She is only 12 years old, yet she is the primary carer of her disabled mum. She used to be quiet and shy, but since accessing support at the Eastern Ravens Trust she has blossomed into a confident, lovely girl. Another carer is Peter—again, not his real name—who, despite being only 14, has been supported by the Eastern Ravens Trust for over four years. Peter himself suffers from learning difficulties and epilepsy, and yet he is the primary carer for his disabled mum, who also has mental health issues.

Schools in my constituency try to help young people whom they know to be carers, but throughout the country there is a tremendous lack of support for young carers, who can feel stigmatised by teachers and peers lacking understanding of their situation and leave school or college prematurely, without completing qualifications.

[Diana Johnson]

I am interested in what my hon. Friend says about detentions. Was he as disappointed as I was when the Government introduced measures in the Education Act 2011 that removed the requirement that 24 hours’ notice be given when a child is given a detention? A number of representations were made about how that could affect young carers who had to return home speedily to look after the person they were caring for. Does that not show that other Departments are not as aware as they should be of issues affecting young carers?

[Alex Cunningham]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. I have tremendous concerns, because a child who faces a detention might not turn up for it and end up getting deeper and deeper into trouble because of a lack of understanding among their teachers. That is all the more reason why we need the provisions in the Bill to ensure that young carers are identified and that responsibility is placed on schools to provide them with the necessary support.

[Mr Nuttall]

When that point about detentions was raised, did the schools Minister not make it clear that the detention would continue to have to be reasonable, that consideration would have to be given to all the circumstances and that teachers were well placed to understand the needs of an individual pupil?

[Alex Cunningham]

The then Minister did indeed say that a detention had to be reasonable, but a teacher who does not know that the young person is a carer cannot take that into consideration. That is all the more reason why we need such provision. It is also interesting to note that young carers aged between 16 and 18 years are twice as likely as their peers to not be in education, employment or training—a so-called NEET.

We are a long way from being perfect in the borough of Stockton-on-Tees—although we are very close to it on many issues—but I am proud to say that the borough council is very much leading the way on issues associated with young carers. The council has a young carers strategy, which has been in place since 2009. The aim is to ensure that services work together and share information to identify and support families to avoid young people becoming established in inappropriate caring roles, and to ensure that schools have in place procedures and policies that offer flexible and additional support to young carers, such as provision for personal tutors and access to the local young carers project. Stockton borough council and NHS Stockton-on-Tees are also developing a joint carers and young carers strategy, which will enable carers to be involved in planning care packages and designing local care services, and to fulfil their educational and employment potential.

Many other councils and health authorities are also doing innovative and exciting things to identify and support young carers—and carers generally—but many are not. They need the guidance in the Bill to fulfil the needs of one of the most vulnerable groups of young people in our society. We are all well aware of the immense challenges facing young carers, but we cannot help them if we cannot identify them. Again, that is why the Bill is so important to enable and ensure that support is provided.

As I set out at the start of my speech, the Government can send a signal to local authorities today—demonstrating that they believe that there has to be proper identification of young carers, universal protection for them and the right to quality services—by allowing the Bill to progress to Committee for further discussion and development. Even though the Government are developing their own legislation on carers, including young carers, in different Bills, they will disappoint a large community of people, along with their supporters, if they do not do so. Young carers give up a lot to be carers. They miss out on comforts and freedoms that the rest of us take for granted. They often give up their time and their social lives; indeed, they give up their childhoods. Their focus is on the loved ones they care for. That is why we have to remember to focus on them and move the Bill forward today.