Supporting Carers

Iain Wright Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Iain Wright (Hartlepool) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Benton. I remember with affection the long hours we spent together on the Housing and Regeneration Bill. I know that you will keep us in order to the best of your ability. I welcome the Minister to his new role and I wish him all the best in making sure that there is a real champion for carers in Government.

I shall concentrate on some of the issues for carers in my constituency. I know that many hon. Members will disagree with this, but I am fortunate to represent Hartlepool, as it is the best place in the country. Hartlepool is a strong, close-knit community, and a sense of community and family remains an enduring part of the Hartlepool character. Despite the knocks and disappointments that we have had over the years, and the social and economic challenges we have faced, that selfless sense of wanting to help one’s neighbour down the road, or to assist one’s partner, parents or grandparents as they get older, runs strongly through the Hartlepool character.

It might often be derided in sophisticated, metropolitan circles, but in Hartlepool it is not unusual for three or four generations of the same family to live on the same street or in the same estate, all providing help and support to each other. That could be a grandmother caring for her grandchildren so that the parents can work, or a son or daughter caring for older relatives. That sense of caring is very strong in Hartlepool, where people do it almost without thinking and where it is seen simply as part of being a member of a family, or as part of the “in sickness and in health” vow.

The hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) referred to the silent army of carers—an apt phrase—in his excellent and thoughtful contribution, and he is absolutely right. The strong sense of community is obviously demonstrated by the high quality of carers in my constituency. In a town that has a high-quality third sector, a local charity, Hartlepool Carers, stands tall with its great blend of professionalism and informality. In the past 12 months, Hartlepool Carers has provided help to more than 1,200 people. Led by Tracy Jeffries, chaired by Ruby Marshall, and with 11 paid members of staff and more than 100 volunteers, the charity provides long-term support to 560 adult carers and 125 young carers. It is estimated that the charity saves taxpayers about £150 million every year by reducing pressure on NHS resources and keeping those being cared for out of care homes and the formal care system.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the overall national bill for the work done by carers. If we were to send such a bill to the Exchequer, it would be for more than £87 billion, more than four fifths of the NHS budget, which puts into perspective the invaluable contribution carers make. Carers provide not only an invaluable and personal service for their loved ones or neighbours, but a huge and often unrecognised contribution to the national finances. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude.

I think that we all agree that, as a country, we should be doing much more to assist carers. As the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) have said, carers often feel isolated and unsupported. Caring for someone can be physically demanding, and if a loved one has dementia or some form of degenerative disease such as Alzheimer’s, that can be psychologically distressing. As the hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out, that can affect a carer’s own health. They might feel a failure, or they might need a stiff upper lip to keep going.

In Hartlepool, many carers have given up employment because of their caring responsibilities. Not going out to work can be not only isolating, but result in real financial hardship. That is why the events that charities such as Hartlepool Carers provide are so vital for carers’ well-being. They provide drop-in services so that carers can take a break and have a good cup of tea and a chat. In addition, the charity provides volunteer services, which offer carers access to low-level, but vital, support services such as gardening, dog walking and collecting prescriptions. That extra help and support might not sound like much to us, but it is absolutely vital in providing a degree of respite.

I have several questions for the Minister, and my main line of questioning follows the comments on finance made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston. Frankly, I was worried by some of the comments the Minister made in what was, I thought, a decent and civilised speech, as he might have been lining us up for further cuts to the care sector. Rather than cuts, I would like to see some of the £87 billion that has been saved given back to carers. What can the Government do to encourage carers to receive what they are entitled to? Carers in Hartlepool, in keeping with the Hartlepool character to which I have referred, are far too modest and reticent to request all that they are entitled to, but it is right and proper that we should do our utmost to ensure that that happens.

I genuinely do not want to make narrow, partisan points on the matter—the remarks I am about to make do not apply to the Minister—but I am concerned that the rhetoric from the new Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions somehow suggests that all benefit claimants are not to be believed or that they are somehow scroungers. Given the enormous contribution carers make to society and the savings to the public finances that have already been outlined in the debate, what steps will the Government take to ensure that carers are able to come forward and receive what they are entitled to with confidence? In an era of tight public finances, what will the Minister do to ensure that some of those savings are handed back to carers?

In a similar vein, some of the low-level support services that Hartlepool Carers provides, which really enhance a carer’s quality of life, are very much dependent on finances from local government. There is a strong partnership between Hartlepool borough council, Hartlepool Voluntary Development Agency and Hartlepool Carers, but the local authority is expected to find £1.7 million of savings from its area base grant this year and is bracing itself for cuts of about 30% from its total budget over the next couple of years, so tensions will naturally arise between local government and the voluntary sector. What reassurance can the Minister give to carers in my constituency that those vital services will be safeguarded?

That brings me to a particular concern about young carers. Those young people have their whole lives ahead of them and should be able to fulfil their potential, but because a family member might be ill and require support, they often sacrifice their education, their free time, their friends and their future, all because they love their family and want to help. Young carers in my constituency are ably helped by Karen Gibson of Hartlepool Carers, but I would like the Government to do so much more for them. When I was a Minister in the Department for Children, Schools and Families, I looked into the life chances of young carers, which was absolutely heartbreaking. Young carers tend to underperform in educational attainment, which in turn limits their job prospects. The Government should be giving them as much help and support as possible in order to break that artificial barrier.

Again, I do not want to make narrow party political points, but I am concerned that the Government are cutting specific programmes that could be used to help young carers, such as the future jobs fund, the working neighbourhoods fund and, in Hartlepool, a quarter of the education element of the area-based grant, which was helping young carers fulfil their potential. When I had some responsibility in government for apprenticeships, I tried to prioritise young carers for places. What work will be done across the new Government to ensure that more help will be given, particularly to young carers, to help with training places and apprenticeships that will allow them to fulfil their potential so that their love for their family is not a barrier to a successful future?

My final point relates to foster carers. This week I received an e-mail from a constituent, Dawn Robinson, who demonstrates her commitment to the local community not only by being joint secretary of the Burn Valley North Residents Association, a great residents’ association where I enjoyed a fantastic pie and pea supper on Saturday night—I urge hon. Members to come along and sample the next one—but by being a foster carer and a carer to her husband. Dawn has expressed concern about the lack of flexibility for young people in foster care, as support tends to end abruptly when they reach the age of 18. She has been looking after a young person for about three and a half years, and he is fast approaching 18. She writes:

“He is autistic, diabetic and epileptic. Over the years he has grown in self confidence but still needs help regarding taking insulin etc. and constantly needs someone with him. He now goes to college and for the first time has started to make friends. His teacher at his review said he didn’t want his home life to affect his education and moving him on would be the worst thing to happen to him.”

When he is 18, he will have to leave Dawn’s home, and a carer and a warden-run placement will have to be found, which will obviously put additional pressure on hard-pressed resources. It would be reasonable to have the flexibility to allow Dawn to continue the current situation for several years beyond the age of 18, so will the Minister ensure that greater personalisation? He mentioned direct payments and personalisation in his opening comments, so what extra flexibility can be put into the system to ensure that the artificial break point at age 18, when the young person becomes an adult, does not hinder their progress?

The positive role that carers play across the country, especially in Hartlepool, is absolutely invaluable, as other hon. Members have said, and I hope that the Minister will recognise that in his closing remarks, as he did in his opening comments. I also hope that he will ensure that the appreciation of the role that carers play, which has been evident throughout the debate, is demonstrated by giving hard-working carers something back.

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[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I am grateful to you, Mr Benton, for giving me the opportunity to contribute to the debate. With Baroness Pitkeathley in another place, I co-chair the all-party group on carers. We succeeded the hon. Member for Aberavon (Dr Francis), who during the last Parliament carried out that task alone and so brilliantly that it took two of us to succeed him. I pay tribute to his work—I am sure that he will continue to be a contributing member of the group—and many of those who have contributed to the debate have joined the all-party group because we want to be a strong collective voice in the House for carers.

The Minister is in a privileged position because the hon. Gentleman, the Minister and I were made parliamentary champions for carers during carers week earlier this year. It is rare to move from being a parliamentary champion to being a ministerial champion for carers within a few days. We will see how my hon. Friend delivers in his new and challenging task on behalf of carers. It is rare in Whitehall for a Minister to walk into a Department understanding part of the brief that he has been asked to cover.

[Mr Iain Wright]

That is dangerous.

[Tony Baldry]

The hon. Gentleman may say that, but I think that it provides a phenomenal opportunity for my hon. Friend to stride out and seize the agenda. I will try to keep my comments short. During carers week, I made a long speech which, for hon. Members and others who are new to Hansard and who may wish to read it, is on my website at tonybaldry.co.uk/campaigns/carers. We are all in the new technological world, and I do not want anyone to believe that only the new intake is up to date with the internet. Some of us who have been around for a bit can keep up with the new global technology.

I want to make various points to my hon. Friend the Minister. I am glad that we frequently have debates on carers, largely as a consequence of carers week and the previous Prime Minister’s intervention. Last year, we had a topical debate, and I am glad that we are having a full afternoon’s debate in Westminster Hall. One of the first issues is identifying carers. Many carers do not recognise themselves as carers, so they are not recognised in the system as carers. It would help them enormously if social services and the health service recognised and encouraged people to recognise themselves as carers. We would then have a much more accurate picture of the number of carers in the community.

GPs may have thought—I defer to my hon. Friend the Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) on this—that it would not be beneficial to identify carers because they could do little for them. The ability to recommend respite care for carers may have prompted GPs to ask themselves, “Is this person a carer; is there something I can do to help them and to support them through respite care?”

We are about to move to GP commissioning for services. I will try to ensure on my patch that I identify which partner in every GP practice in my constituency has the lead responsibility for carers. One objective of organisations such as the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and Carers UK is for them and us collectively to encourage GPs to engage with carers and to recognise and note those GP practices that are particularly helpful in supporting carers. With the best will in the world, the picture is patchy. Some practices work hard to support carers, but others, which may not be insensitive, have not taken such support fully on board in their list of priorities.

We must all recognise that the number of carers will inevitably increase with an ageing population. There is something else, which I fully appreciated only recently during carers week. At a reception in the Jubilee Room, I listened and talked to a number of carers who were looking after relatives with Parkinson’s disease. My mother was a theatre sister during the blitz in Coventry, and people either survived or died. People from earlier generations went into hospital for one acute incident from which they either recovered or died. Generally, the Greco-Roman medicine of western Europe works on the basis that people are given drugs or medicine and they get better.

The truth, however, is that an increasing number of people in our society have to care for people whom they love very much, but who are progressively getting worse and know that they will never get better. There are people who have Parkinson’s disease, dementia or Alzheimer’s disease, and in addition to the financial and other challenges that carers face, the psychological drain of knowing that, however much someone is loved and cared for, they simply are not going to get better but will progressively get worse must be enormous.

The number of people who have to care for people with age-related dementia and Alzheimer’s is increasing. When I was first elected nearly 30 years ago, each Christmas I would go round every nursing home in my constituency. Most of the residents were frail widows in their 70s who were perfectly spritely and intellectually sound. I have now given up going around nursing homes on my patch at Christmas, because almost everyone is suffering from some form of age-related dementia and they have absolutely no idea who I am at all. There is that standard joke where an MP goes in and says to a resident, “Do you know who I am?”, and they say, “No dear, but if you go and ask matron she may be able to help you.”

The pressure on staff is enormous, and if someone is old and frail, their chances of getting into a residential care home are increasingly less, so people have to be looked after at home by carers. Furthermore, the number of people who have early, pre-senile dementia and are waiting for places to get into a nursing home is increasing, and those people have to be looked after by carers. Therefore, the number of carers in our communities will increase substantially over time, and we must ensure that any carers strategy takes account of that.

We must ensure that new policy initiatives, such as GP commissioning, help carers and do not work against them. There are also other initiatives. For example, local authorities are, quite rightly, being enjoined to ensure that they get value for money in all services, including carer services.

In Oxfordshire, as in the constituencies of other hon. Members I am sure, carer services are going to be tendered. However, in Oxfordshire, we already have three good carers centres that are manned—or womaned—by volunteers. There is the Princess Royal Trust for Carers and other carers centres that have grown up over a period of time. The North and West Carers Centre in Banbury won the Queen’s award for unsung volunteers. Those people are not going to go away; they are committed to supporting carers.

However, there is a risk of an inevitable momentum, and that the county council social services department might feel that it has an obligation under some EU or Government directive to put services out to tender. It might feel obliged to contract out carers services to some completely different provider in some other part of the country. That does not seem to go with the grain of what I understand when I hear colleagues from all sides of the coalition talk about the big society. If the big society—as opposed to the big state—means something, it means building on the work of those volunteers and on the community spirit within one’s own community. It means building on civic pride and local roots, not undermining those things. I hope that ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health and other Departments will understand that although we should ensure that every Department gets value for money, that should not undermine the volunteers who have the competencies that are needed.

That brings me on to how we train carers, and I make this point simply so that my hon. Friend the Minister can respond to it should he wish. There has been some concern about the Department’s contract with Caring with Confidence, which is an organisation that has trained carers at carers centres. The Department has felt it appropriate to cancel that contract, possibly because it felt that sufficient carers were not being trained. However, there is an issue about how one ensures that carers and people who, often late in life, find themselves as carers can acquire the skills and competencies that will help them.

I make my final point so that we can have some clarity on this issue, either now or at some stage in the future when the carers strategy is published. Hon. Members from all parties have drawn attention to the carer’s allowance. At present, the only assistance that a working carer receives is the carer’s allowance, but those who are retired—many carers are above retirement age—get no further recognition in the system because Treasury rules state that people cannot claim two benefits. That is not new; it is a long-standing rule. If someone draws a state retirement pension, they can draw only that and cannot get anything more for being a carer.

During the previous Parliament, a couple of Select Committee reports were published on this subject, and that work should not be lost. The new Government must respond to those reports, and either make it clear that they cannot afford any further financial support for carers, or give some indication that they may be willing to consider recalibrating the benefit and financial system in support of carers.

In 2008, the Work and Pensions Committee recommended an overhaul of the benefits system. A report entitled, “Valuing and supporting carers”, which was the fourth report of the 2007-08 Session, recommended a new two-tier support system with a carer support allowance paid at the same rate as jobseeker’s allowance and a caring cost payment that would be available to all carers in intensive caring roles, similar to child benefit and set at between £25 and £50. That element would be available to some carers who were unable to claim the first element, including those carers in receipt of a state pension. The Committee also recommended that the Department for Work and Pensions commission an urgent examination into introducing a taper to the carer’s allowance earnings limit and lifting the 21-hour study rule.

Like so many Select Committee reports in the last Parliament, that report got lost in a review—I do not wish to criticise; it is just a fact, a process. The then Government said that they were introducing the carers strategy and would take the report on board and think about it, but I cannot recall anything coming out at the other end on what they thought about the Committee’s recommendations.

Last year, the Public Accounts Committee published a report on “Supporting Carers to Care”, which criticised the confusing and complex processes and poor communication involved in the support that carers received from the Department for Work and Pensions, including benefits and employment support—that point was made tellingly in a good contribution by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard). The Committee found that one fifth of carers who received benefits struggled with the application process, which is not surprising if no one helps them to fill in the forms. It found that the complexity of the system discouraged applications, and that Jobcentre Plus advisers were not given enough incentive to help carers to find part-time work. I am not sure that we ever had a response from the last Government to the Public Accounts Committee’s report.

It would be helpful if, early in the life of the present Government, we had an indication of how Ministers collectively see the opportunities for supporting carers financially. Of course, everyone recognises that that is set against a background of very difficult financial constraints and circumstances. That is a given. It should not be necessary, every time that one makes a speech now, to explain that we are the country with the largest amount of debt in the world, due to circumstances. However, it would be helpful, with a view to taking forward policy on carers, if we had an understanding of how the Government see the ability to give carers further support. I am referring to support that is valuable not only in financial terms, but because it makes carers feel that they are being recognised by the wider community for the work that they do and the role that they play.

My hon. Friend the Member for Totnes rightly raised the issue of young carers and my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys raised the issue of young carers being bullied. I am always at a loss to understand why, in the 21st century, schools, the education system and all the people involved are not capable of being more supportive of young carers. That goes back to the point about identifying carers. Young carers deserve to be identified just as much as any other carer. One would hope that the education system and schools were capable of recognising young carers, that social services, GPs and others would try to ensure that schools knew who the young carers were and that schools would give young carers support. Often, they deserve double the support for the tasks that they are undertaking.

Many hon. Members, at different times in their lives as constituency MPs, come across families that include young carers and find out that the stress is incredible because they are often asked to take on adult responsibilities. Another difficulty is that the parent for whom they have taken on responsibility is sometimes able to look after themselves and be a parent, and sometimes is unable to look after themselves and is being cared for. For a child, having to cope with a parent who sometimes acts as a parent and an adult and sometimes is not capable of looking after themselves must be incredibly difficult, because they never know when they go home whether their mother will be poorly, drunk or whatever and whether they will be the carer or the child.

Schools and the system therefore need to give young carers particular support. I do not understand why every year when carers week comes round, we continue, a bit like groundhog day, to have the same debate about young carers. This area does not require huge amounts of extra money; it just requires the system and the community—society—to work out how we give younger carers greater support.

It is clear from the debate and I can tell the Minister that it is clear simply from the number of hon. Members who have joined the all-party carers group—I am sure that many more Members of both Houses have not yet got around to joining it but are equally interested—that there is considerable interest in and support for carers in Parliament. Those Members will be anxious and keen, in the course of the Parliament, to see what further work we can do in support of carers. Particularly for Government Members, if what my right hon. Friends in the coalition Government are saying about the big society and about engaging the community is to have any meaning at all, a very good test of that will be how we deliver enhanced and better lives for those who are caring in our society.

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[Mr Burstow]

The hon. Gentleman has been a Member for some time, so he will know that there are regulatory systems in place that would deal with local authorities that were performing in the way that he describes. I am not aware that the authority’s activity has been reported in such a way. However, I stand by the offer that I have made, and I will be happy to receive further representations about the impact of tendering arrangements.

I want to pick up on the references that were made to the operating framework because the hon. Member for Worsley and Eccles South was right to point out that, in the operating framework that the Government issued just last week, we identified a requirement in the local priorities for the publication of dementia strategies. We think that that is an important signal. It was a signal to local PCTs that we wanted them to be more public facing and accountable to their local communities, and that they should account for why they have chosen not to spend money on dementia strategies. The signal was not specifically about dementia, but that we expected more of that sort of transparency in general. People should not need freedom of information requests to get information from PCTs about how public money is being spent, and I hope that that message will be understood by our local organisations that deliver such services.

The hon. Lady also talked about ring-fencing more broadly. The Government are determined to ensure that there is as much flexibility as possible for local authorities to make choices about how they prioritise their resources to deliver what is necessary to meet the needs of their local communities. We have made it clear that because we see the social care transformation grant as such a priority for investment in changes to services, so that they are genuinely personalised in the future, the budget for the final year in which it is available to local authorities will continue to be ring-fenced. We wanted to send the signal that we considered that grant to be important, and we want to ensure that local authorities deliver that grant during the course of this year.

The hon. Lady made a number of very useful points about good practice and the way in which GPs, schools and others play a part in delivering early identification of carers, whether those carers are young, old or otherwise. That should certainly inform the thinking of any Government when it comes to delivering a good carers strategy.

The hallmark of this important debate has been the great consensus about what needs to be done and the value that Members from all parties place on carers. I shall now try to address some of the other points that have been made.

The hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) talked about financial issues and benefit changes, and such concerns were echoed by others. The carers cross-government programme board, which is charged with providing cohesion around the carers strategy, will look at those issues and hold cross-government discussions about them to ensure that the way in which we go about simplifying the benefit system actually delivers the right results at the end of the day.

The hon. Lady also expressed concern about the impact of public service cuts, which was also referred to by several hon. Members. Again, it is important to remember that some of the measures that are already in place were not initiated by this Government. Nevertheless, we have to be mindful about the impact of any budget decisions that we make through the spending review process. That will certainly be at the forefront of Ministers’ thinking in the coming weeks and months as we consider all the options that will have to be considered as part of the review.

The hon. Lady also talked about the difficulties faced by carers coming back into the workplace—the cliff edge, as she described it. The coalition Government’s programme sets out very clearly a desire to improve this country’s tax system significantly so that we raise the amount at which someone starts to pay income tax to £10,000. We believe that as we move towards implementing that change, we will begin to smooth out some of that cliff edge and start to have a significant impact on easing people’s return to work.

The hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) made a very good speech in which he set out a number of the challenges that we face. In particular, he rightly discussed the current complexity in the benefit system and the way in which it can be an obstacle to take-up of benefits.

The hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr Wright) made a very good speech. He set out a range of issues relating to young carers in particular, but he also raised other points. He made a very important point about the Hartlepool carers centre, which he mentioned a lot in his speech, and it clearly provides an important service in his area. He also cited the £150 million a year that it saves taxpayers by reducing pressures on NHS resources. We need to ensure that such examples of social enterprises playing a part in easing pressure on public services and helping carers are considered. Such mutual operations can really make a difference.

The hon. Gentleman, like several hon. Members, talked about the role of GPs. He also made some comments about benefits. I refer him to what I have said about how we intend to move forward on benefits.

The hon. Gentleman also asked specifically about young carers. The key point I would make is that the Department of Health is piloting personal health budgets. In my written ministerial statement on Monday, I announced how we intend to evaluate those schemes. The schemes should give us yet another way of smoothing and removing some of the cliff edge that we have heard about by providing access to resources for care and health in a way that allows people to exercise real control over them and therefore much more control over their lives. That is particularly important for managing and smoothing the transition from childhood into adulthood, and we all want to ensure that that transition is made smoother.

The hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) spoke about the key issue of the identification of carers. She said that only 5% of carers in her area had been identified by the local carers centre. A large number of people are hidden at the moment and do not necessarily identify themselves as carers. The identification of carers is a key challenge as part of the process of refreshing the carers strategy.

We have heard about the importance of flexible support for carers. Again, that is why personalisation will remain an absolutely central part of how the Government take forward the development of services. Such services should be tailored to fit around people’s lives, rather than requiring people constantly to navigate around them, often for the convenience of the service provider rather than the convenience of the person or family themselves. We want to accelerate towards achieving that vital aim, and we also need increased use of more user-led organisations that are much closer to the circumstances of the family, meaning that they can play an important part in advocacy, brokerage and helping families to navigate around the system.

I think that I have already addressed the main point made by the hon. Member for Hammersmith, who clearly put on record a number of powerful testimonies from his constituents about the value that they place on the centre to which he referred. However, as I have said, I will not attempt to micro-manage the decisions of local government colleagues of any particular party persuasion, as it is for them to account to their electorate for the way in which they spend public money.

The hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston) discussed young carers and talked about the devastating impact that alcohol can have on people’s lives. She offered advice about some of the ways in which the Government might tackle that issue, such as a pricing policy, and cited advice that the NICE has given. I can tell her that we will be publishing a White Paper on public health later this year setting out the Government’s approach on such challenging issues. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health will say more about that White Paper in the not-too-distant future.

The hon. Lady also talked about safeguarding, and we have announced a review of the vetting and barring system. I am one of the Health Ministers with responsibility for safeguarding, so I will receive the recommendations from that review. We need to ensure that the system is proportionate to the risk and that it delivers the appropriate safeguards, but it must not be so bureaucratic and difficult that it actually becomes a barrier to people participating as volunteers, so that is one of the tests that we will apply to the system.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) talked about the USDAW campaign, as well as the importance that she attaches to the role of carers in her constituency, some of whom she has already visited. She also discussed the plight of working carers, their interaction with the benefits system and the need for an examination of tapering as a way in which people could retain an element of carer’s allowance. All I can say at this stage is that the Government are committed to reviewing the system with a view to simplifying it.

The hon. Lady also asked how we could ensure that there is greater awareness of the right to seek flexible working. Again, that is not just a challenge for the Department of Health. We will need a cross-government approach on the issue involving my colleagues in the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills and the Department for Work and Pensions. Together, we have a part to play in ensuring that people are genuinely aware of that right.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys (Paul Maynard) spoke very effectively. I was in the House when he made his maiden speech and it was one of the most impressive that I have heard. I know that his speech was excellent compared with mine 13 years ago.

[Mr Wright]

Hear, hear.

[Mr Burstow]

I wish that I had not put it that way, but there we go. That is the trouble with putting things on record.

We heard about the National Audit Office report on Jobcentre Plus, and it is important that the Government pay close attention to the work of the NAO. I was a member of the Public Accounts Committee during the last Parliament, and when the NAO identifies opportunities to obtain value for money and get more out of existing resources, it is important that we take them. If the report is not already required reading for DWP Ministers and officials, it should be.

The hon. Member for Blackpool North and Cleveleys also discussed the care to share forum that was set up to consider respite. We see peer support as a powerful part of what the big society is all about. It enables people to step up and support each other, rather than seeing local authority services as the solution to everything. The right to respite has been discussed a lot in this debate. It is often not the case that a carer wants a week off; a matter of hours can make a huge difference. When I was visiting some services in Newham recently, I met the people who run a telecare project and several carers who had benefited from it. It was clear that what was important to them was the knowledge that the person for whom they cared was safe so they could have a cup of coffee with a friend, a chat and a bit of real life, as that refreshed them. We need more such opportunities for many others.

The hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) discussed how we can ensure that carers can both stay in work and return to work. She also mentioned Alzheimer’s and dementia, and research into those diseases. I am sure that she will know that, in the coalition programme for government, we indicated a clear commitment to prioritise dementia research. I am the Minister who chairs the board with responsibility for considering the issue, and we will be making announcements about how we will take it forward in due course.

The hon. Member for Banbury said some kind things, as a result of which I now feel immense pressure—thank you very much! He also made a good point about carers week that I read in this way: carers week is not an annual event; it is every week. We need to find ways to make that not just a platitude but a reality for carers throughout our country. He spoke a lot about the role of GPs as commissioners and the difference that they can make. They are one of the universal services and they see many carers. We must ensure that all GPs understand that when someone comes to see them because of a sickness or disability, the person with them is often the carer, who needs to be identified and offered the signposting and support that will make a difference for them.

The hon. Member for Banbury mentioned the caring with confidence programme, as did several other hon. Members. I purposely included it in my opening remarks because I wanted to be up front about what I had decided to do. My view, having considered the evidence about the programme, was not that the training materials were not excellent—they are well regarded by the carers who have been through the programme—but simply that we were not getting value for money from the delivery. Not enough carers had been through the programme, and there was no evidence that delivery would accelerate significantly. Now the money will be reinvested into delivering more training—including GP training, which has been mentioned—and more support for carers. We will make further announcements in due course.