---

Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, I have added my name to the amendment. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen, for bringing the issue before us. I also thank the Minister for copying to me his letter to the noble Baroness of 12 October, from which it is clear that the Government are moving in the right direction. I particularly welcome his point that the key measure for the Government to take is to improve the awareness of young carers’ circumstances amongst teachers and others working with youngsters in schools, with a particular focus on bullying and attendance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, these young people take on an enormous burden; it affects their education, health, well-being, happiness and ability to grow and enjoy their childhood as other children can. As she also said, and as the Minister said in his letter, these youngsters strongly dislike the stigma of being bracketed with truants or being seen as poorly motivated. They are, in fact, often extremely well motivated. I welcomed the Minister’s assurance that the department’s anti-bullying guidance Don’t Suffer in Silence is being revised and that it will pay attention to young carers. The key themes that he said were likely to be in the revised document include what the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, put in subsection (2)(a) of her amendment: to ensure that schools are better able to identify young carers. The document is likely to address a lot of other good things in relation to young carers. However, it does not include the request in subsection (2)(c) of the amendment to ensure that any pupil who is a young carer is supported by a designated teacher. The noble Baroness also asks that schools promote the educational welfare of young carers. I am sure that that part of the amendment would be covered by other parts of the Bill, but paragraphs (a) and (c) of proposed subsection (2) are very important. Subsection (3) is also important; when Ofsted inspects maintained schools, it should look at how well the school is supporting young carers and give its judgment on that in its report. Young carers make up only one of many groups of children with some sort of special need, but it is an enormous group, and a hidden one. It is vital that schools have the knowledge and the focused support to help young carers, and are held to account for how well they do.