Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the report by the Children's Commissioner for England on young carers, published in December 2016; and if she will provide additional support to councils in England to help them to (a) identify and (b) improve support for young carers.

The Government has already introduced legislative changes to The Children Act 1989 (s17) to ensure that local authorities carry out an assessment, on request or on the appearance of need, of young carers’ need for support.

The Department for Education welcomed the Children’s Commissioner report and has just concluded the analysis of this, as well as recently published DfE-commissioned research. Officials are now considering the evidence and exploring various policy avenues which will help local authorities, schools and professionals to improve the identification and support of young carers and their families. This will lead to a contribution from Department for Education setting out our vision and future plans which will be part of the cross-government Carers’ Strategy led by the Department of Health and due to be published by Summer 2017.