It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I start by thanking the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) and the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this debate on such an important topic. The right hon. Member spoke powerfully of his own first-hand experience of care, first as a child and now as an adult caring for his disabled child. I am also truly grateful for all the work he does to champion the voice of carers. Other Members have also spoken powerfully. There are at least 6.5 million unpaid carers in the UK, with about 5.4 million in England; around one adult in 10 provides care, and about 23% of carers have high-intensity caring responsibilities, providing more than 50 hours of care a week. Carers do an amazing thing, demonstrating compassion and fortitude often in difficult circumstances. The last sixteen months have been incredibly challenging for carers who kept going throughout the pandemic: they kept caring and doing what was needed for the person close to them. During the pandemic, the Government focused on supporting carers, including exemptions from some regulations and added flexibility to help carers; we listened to carers' concerns about access to testing, and made them a priority group alongside other essential workers. A huge collective effort went into identifying carers during the vaccination programme, with hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers receiving their vaccine—an important step in protecting them and the people they care for from coronavirus. We provided extra funding to charities, including £500,000 to the Carers Trust and over £150,000 to Carers UK. During the national lockdown, schools and colleges remained open for children of critical workers and vulnerable children, including young carers; I am determined to ensure that some of the £3 billion education recovery package can be used to support young carers who have missed out on school. We provided nearly £1.5 billion to social care during the pandemic through the infection control fund, supporting the reopening of day services. I urge local authorities to prioritise this issue and make sure that carer's needs assessment happens; it is a crucial way of identifying what support a carer may need for themselves and their wellbeing, including respite care. We are committed to bringing forward proposals this year for reform of the adult social care system where we will consider unpaid carers. The Health and Care Bill places new duties on integrated care boards and NHS England to involve carers.