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Carers

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir John. I preface my remarks by saying that I feel something of an interloper at this debate, as I did not serve on the Select Committee that wrote the report. None the less, on reading it, I was impressed. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford, North (Mr. Rooney), and all those who participated in the process, on producing the report. My attention was drawn to one particular conclusion:"““Protect the interests of young carers, ensuring that in caring for family members they are not disadvantaged in accessing opportunities for education, training and employment””." I turned to the Government response to see whether I could find a specific reply to that conclusion. Reading the range of responses, I could identify some that might be relevant to it, but try as I might, I could not find anything that directly satisfied me that the Government are addressing it as a specific problem. I felt, therefore, that I would like to make some remarks based on my personal experience in my local authority of the specific problems faced by young carers on top of the better-known problems experienced by carers as a whole. A number of hon. Members referred to carers as a silent group, deprived of effective advocacy. There is a lot of truth in that. Young carers are even more silent and less able to advocate their cause than carers as a whole, for obvious reasons.