Lord Fox (LD)

My Lords, I thank all speakers from your Lordships’ House for what has been an excellent debate. It is a genuine pleasure for me to participate, hopefully quite briefly. The noble Lord, Lord Brennan, gave a moving speech, which was made more moving by the knowledge that Sarah Owen is at the Bar today, and I thank both of them for their contributions, but especially Sarah. Amendment 81 has our support, not least as a catalyst to try to have the sort of debate we need and the careful consideration that the noble Baroness, Lady Coffey, also alluded to. I hope it can start to move things forward. We also support Amendment 134, which was so ably explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, and supported by the noble Lord, Lord Hogan-Howe. This again is an important issue that we want to have more conversations about following this debate. My noble friend Lord Palmer gave a very spirited and strong advocacy for kinship care, and that was supported across the House—here is another area where there is an absolutely clear and present need for carers to be officially brought into the carers’ community. The point on fostering was also well made by my noble friend, as was the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Young, about short-term fostering as something we should seek to bring into that. All these amendments are, in a sense, broadening the scope of carers and where we should be considering. For all of them, I hope the Minister will be able to stand up and say “Let’s have a debate following this particular group. Let’s talk with interested parties to see how some or all of this could start to be moved forward”. I hope your Lordships will excuse me if I focus on paid carer’s leave. I had the great honour of piloting Wendy Chamberlain’s Private Member’s Bill through your Lordships’ House with, as the noble Lord, Lord Young, pointed out, the strong support of the Conservative Government. During that time, I had a chance to meet a lot of carers and a lot of employers of carers—big companies such as Centrica, which the noble Lord mentioned, and much smaller companies. They all set out the advantages of having a proper, strong relationship with their carers and the starting point, which we established through that Private Member’s Bill, of unpaid carer’s leave.