Mahsa Amini

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Gillian Keegan

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady. There is, of course, much activity and we will continue to work to do all we can and to celebrate the UN International Day of the Girl Child, as I know many of us have done today.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

This is an important debate on the International Day of the Girl Child. Many women constituents have written to me, inspired by the protests in Iran and shocked at the murder of Mahsa Amini. I stand in solidarity with those women protesters. I have a 22-year-old daughter. She is able to wear what she chooses and to protest as she chooses. She would not be in fear of being beaten up and murdered in prison. Has the Minister considered expelling the Iranian diplomats—this cannot be business as usual—and what more would have to happen before she did so?

[Gillian Keegan]

Of course, as the hon. Lady will have heard in my statement, we have not continued with business as usual. As of yesterday, 10 October, we have announced new sanctions on senior security and political figures in Iran and the so-called morality police. We have sanctioned the morality police in their entirety, including their chiefs. We have taken some actions. We know that there will be other discussions with international partners, and obviously we keep things under review.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Fleur Anderson and Gillian Keegan

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important point. Clearly, these are distressing enough times without having that commute and those travel arrangements on top of that, but sometimes the services are highly specialised. We are trying to get the right blend between access to highly specialised in-patient services and making sure that we increase community efforts. We have been working very hard to ensure that there are more community efforts, but we have also invested £10 million more in capital for more beds to make sure people can get treatment closer to home.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

18. What assessment the Government have made of the adequacy of support for young carers.

[The Minister for Care and Mental Health (Gillian Keegan)]

We have introduced significant changes to support for young carers, with statutory entitlements to young carers’ assessments from April 2015. Local authorities are held to account for such assessments and support through the social care inspection framework. Further, as we set out in our adult social care White Paper, we will amend the school census at the earliest opportunity to include young carers, allowing us to establish a wealth of evidence on this cohort.

[Fleur Anderson]

I welcome more information being found out about young carers, because this is a hidden health crisis. A constituent came to see me. She is a young person now and has been a young carer for many years. The impact on her educational attainment, physical health and mental health has been devastating. There are 800,000 young carers in the UK, with 800 of them in Wandsworth where support services have been slashed. Does the Minister recognise the impact of that unpaid child labour and does she have a plan to tackle it?

[Gillian Keegan]

Very much so. Young people should be protected from inappropriate and excessive caring responsibility, and adult and children’s services need to work together better. We recognise, though, the lack of hard data and evidence on outcomes for young carers. That is where we are and that is why we have made the commitment, with the Department for Education, to amend the school census. We intend to introduce that as early as 2022-23 and each year thereafter. The data will be collected at primary school and secondary school, so we will be able to look at all kinds of outcomes for this particular cohort and take actions.