Young Carers Support

Debate between John Howell and Paul Blomfield

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Paul Blomfield]

It is brilliant that that award was allocated in that way. That sort of recognition is certainly something we should all be looking to, and maybe we can all seek out opportunities in our own areas to help to secure it.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

Taking the hon. Gentleman back to the schools situation, does he think that the power that Ofsted is given to look at what the school is doing on this is very weak, and that strengthening Ofsted’s power in that respect would be a great help in identifying those young carers and ensuring that they are looked after?

[Paul Blomfield]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates my very next point. We will never see consistently good practice across schools until they are measured and assessed on it, and Ofsted’s role in that is crucial. I ask the Minister, in his winding-up speech, to say whether we can look forward to the Government’s requiring schools to have a young carers lead and requiring Ofsted to include the issue in its inspections.

Returning to some of the other points that our young carers from Sheffield made, there were two recommendations for the national health service, which have begun to be addressed in the NHS long-term plan and the commitment to carers, for which I am grateful. I have shared their recommendations and my questions with the Minister, so I hope he will also be able to confirm that the commitment in paragraph 2.33 of the long-term plan, which says:

“We will continue to identify and support carers”,

will include young carers and recognise the special nature of their needs. Will he say whether general practitioners will be required by the Care Quality Commission to hold a register of young carers in their practices and be inspected on it?

I welcome paragraph 2.35 of the commitment, which says:

“The NHS will roll out ‘top tips’ for general practice which have been developed by Young Carers, which include access to preventive health and social prescribing, and timely referral to local support services.”

It goes on to say:

“Up to 20,000 Young Carers will benefit from this more proactive approach by 23/24”,

but does the Minister recognise that that number falls well short of the estimated 700,000 young carers across the country?

European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between John Howell and Paul Blomfield

3rd reading: House of Commons & Committee: 3rd sitting: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 8th February 2017 Commons Chamber

[Paul Blomfield]

I absolutely do. I was not at that meeting yesterday, but I was at a meeting of medical research charities and other stakeholders in the field of medical research on Monday, at which they made precisely that point. Indeed, they mentioned that we needed to ensure that we had the right relationship, starting, ideally, with membership of the European Medicines Agency.

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I thank the shadow Minister for so generously giving way. He probably knows that the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy is in my constituency. People there told me how concerned they were about this issue, but they decided that the amendments to the Bill were not helpful. They said that it was much better to deal with Ministers directly, and to put pressure on the Treasury to achieve their objectives.

[Paul Blomfield]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his point. A very effective way of applying pressure to save that Joint European Torus centre, which is a hugely important facility, is by agreeing to new clause 192.