Contribution
My Lords, I have added my name to Amendment 64, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, and shall speak briefly in support. I have not contributed to this Bill before, but I have sat through many of the debates. Without sounding pompous, it struck me that this was our House at its best, dealing with a complicated Bill in a sensitive and non-partisan way and drawing on the unique expertise we have in our House.
As I listened to the earlier debates on detention and community treatment orders, I asked myself how the children in the families concerned would be informed and what the impact on them would be. We have just heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, the impact on Aidan when his mother was sectioned. By definition, the people covered by the Bill are vulnerable people; many of them will have carers, and many of those carers will be young carers. As the noble Baroness has just said, this amendment simply helps improve the earlier identification of children of parents being detained under the Act and to ensure that they have access to support, if they need it, and are safeguarded where necessary.
The 2021 census showed that there are 50,000 young carers caring for over 50 hours a week. An astonishing number—3,000 of them—are aged between five and nine. The Carers Trust has shown that those young carers at school are at risk of a poorer attendance record, lower academic achievement and more liable to social isolation and, sadly, bullying, if they are not identified early. As the noble Baroness, Lady Keeley, just said, having a parent with a mental health problem is actually one of the biggest risk factors for depression in children and adolescents. But it is not inevitable: research suggests that intervention can reduce that risk and change the way that children cope.
As a vice-chairman of the APPG on Young Carers, I know that we took evidence last year from young carers, and we heard that on average it takes three years for a young carer to be identified, with some of them taking over 10 years before being identified. Improving early identification is one of the top priorities of the all-party group, so that they can access support and not be negatively affected by their caring situation.
This amendment will help to tackle the issue, which is reported by young carer services, that many potential young carers are not identified by adult mental health services. For example, one young carers service, the Young Carers Alliance, reported that 20% of the young carers it supports are supporting a parent with a mental illness, yet they did not receive a single referral from the adult mental health services in the space of an entire year.
In our inquiry, we also heard from the charity Our Time how, when it comes to identifying young carers by mental health professionals, we are way behind countries such as the Netherlands and Norway. Both those countries have introduced requirements for health professionals to consider whether adults with mental health problems have children. This referral may not be a one-way process; if the child is a carer, he or she may have an insight into the events that trigger an episode in the parent and may actually help the professionals to identify an appropriate treatment pathway.
A final benefit of this amendment is that it would help adult mental health in-patient units ensure that they are complying with the duty under Section 91 of the Health and Care Act 2022 to consult with any carers, including young carers, before discharging an adult from hospital. Again, last year, we heard of patients being discharged without the young carer being informed, often where they were the principal carer. For these reasons, I hope that the Government can support this amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s reply.