The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (Maggie Throup)
I hear your words loud and clear, Madam Deputy Speaker.
I am grateful to Opposition Members for providing the opportunity to debate the very important issue of children and young people’s mental health on the Floor of the House in Children’s Mental Health Week. As my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Edward Timpson) stated, this is such an important issue and I hope that we can use this debate to find common ground. I pay tribute to his work on this extremely important issue.
This year’s theme is “Growing Together” and I know that the past two years have been tough for many young people and their families. While some young people may have seen their mental wellbeing improve during lockdown, for many others, the disruption to their home lives and education has caused difficulties. We must support them to grow emotionally and find ways to help one another to grow.
We recognise that both the health and care and education sectors continue to face challenges caused by covid-related issues. I thank all staff across all sectors for their ongoing dedication to supporting children and young people in this vital period and for the support for their families, too.
Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing are a priority, as is face-to-face education, so that children and young people feel supported in their education and on track with their learning and wider development. Around 12,000 schools and colleges across the country benefited from £17 million to improve mental health and wellbeing support in schools and colleges. I want to be clear that children and young people are not alone on this journey and that the onus is not on them to catch up; it is something that the whole school and whole education system is looking to achieve together, and it is our priority to support them to do so.
The Government are delivering record levels of investment in mental health services, but that was not always the case. Through the 2016 “The Five Year Forward View for Mental Health”, we now have a solid foundation on which we can build the necessary levels of care and support, but we know that we need to be more ambitious. That is why we published the Green Paper on transforming children and young people’s mental health provision in 2017 and the NHS long-term plan in 2019. Together, they set out a clear vision for ensuring that children and young people who need mental health support can get it when they need it.
The NHS long-term plan is backed by an additional £2.3 billion a year for mental health services by 2023-24. That will mean that an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access support.
Maggie Throup
I will make progress because we are short of time and I want to give plenty of time for Back Benchers to contribute.
More than 420,000 children and young people were treated through NHS-commissioned mental health community services in 2020-21, which was almost 100,000 more than three years ago. The NHS children and young people’s mental health workforce has seen growth of 40% from 11,000 whole-time equivalents in 2019 to 15,486 whole-time equivalents in 2021.
Early intervention and mental wellbeing support in schools and colleges can prevent poor mental wellbeing from developing into mental illness. We remain committed to the proposals set out in the Green Paper to roll out mental health support teams based in schools and colleges and staffed by mental health professionals. There are now more than 280 teams set up or in training, with 183 of those teams operational and ready to support young people in around 3,000 schools and colleges. I am really pleased that we have been able to accelerate that programme to meet our original target a year early and then reach around 35% of pupils through 399 mental health support teams by 2023.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
A number of parents in my constituency have contacted me with worries about their children and how best they can support them. We know that parental support in the family can lead to great improvements in children’s mental health. What information is the Minister making available to parents on how best they can support their children when they are having difficulties with their health?
Maggie Throup
My hon. Friend makes a really good point, and I know that she has lots of experience on this issue from a clinician’s point of view. She is right to say that families play a very important role. In her absence, may I offer my hon. Friend a meeting with the Minister for Care and Mental Health, because she will be able to go into much more detail than I can at the Dispatch Box?
Janet Daby
One thing that I hear from parents in my constituency is about the situation when a young person or children have witnessed somebody die due to knife crime. Will the Minister say what type of support those young people should expect to receive in the community or at school?
Maggie Throup
I do not think that any of us can imagine what seeing such a trauma can cause to young people, and indeed to people of any age. I know that great community work is being carried out by the voluntary sector. For example, a voluntary group goes into the hospitals near my constituency and works with young people who have been victims of knife crime or of something related to that. I am sure that sort of work has been extended across the country and to many other places. There are many different ways that support can be brought forward, and that is just one example.
Several hon. Members rose—
Maggie Throup
No, I will not give way. I must make some headway.
In May 2021 we announced £9.5 million of funding to offer senior mental health lead training to around a third of all state schools and colleges in England in 2021-22, and as part of our commitment to offer this training to all state schools and colleges by 2025. Today we have announced an additional £3 million to respond to the high demand from schools and colleges for this training. This will help them to build on the incredible work that they and their colleagues have done throughout the pandemic to promote and support the wellbeing of their students.
I know that waiting lists are a real source of frustration for young people wanting to access NHS support, and of course for their parents and carers. It is an issue that the shadow Minister also raised. That is why we have set up the first waiting time standard for children and young people’s eating disorder services.
As part of its clinically led review of NHS access standards, the NHS has consulted on the potential to introduce a new waiting time standard, so that children, young people, and their families and carers presenting to community-based mental health services should start to receive care within four weeks from referral. This consultation closed in September 2021, and NHS England and NHS Improvement will publish their response in due course.
Maggie Throup
I must make some progress.
Throughout the pandemic, NHS mental health services remained open, offering digital and remote access to maintain support and to accept new referrals. It is important that we bank the success of these digital innovations, as service providers are actively considering what has worked well in encouraging children and young people to engage with, and adhere to, their treatment plans.
Government must also play their part. That is why we have provided £79 million of additional funding this year to make a real difference to young people’s lives by ensuring that 22,500 more children and young people can access community mental health services, giving 2,000 more children and young people access to eating disorder services and, as I mentioned earlier, accelerating the delivery of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.
Opposition Members raised the important issue of services for those teenagers transitioning into adulthood, and we have provided £30 million to ensure that young adults, aged 18 to 25, including university students, are provided with tailored mental health support, helping to bridge the gap between children’s and adult services.
Although lockdown measures have been very tough for many, thanks to the success of our world-leading vaccination programme, we can now look to the future. We plan to launch a public discussion paper this spring to inform the development of a new, longer-term mental health strategy, which will include children and young people’s mental health. This will pave the way for a wide-ranging and ambitious conversation about potential solutions to improve mental health and wellbeing both within and beyond Government and the NHS.
We also plan to publish an update to the NHS long-term plan later this year, taking into account the impact of the pandemic. Today we have published the Government’s third annual “State of the nation: children and young people’s wellbeing” report. This year’s report focuses on trends in mental health and wellbeing recovery over the 2020-21 academic year, as well as children and young people’s views about wider society and the future.
We owe it to our future generations to seize the opportunity now for both the health and care and the education sectors to deliver on our commitments to improve the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in this country. The Government cannot do this alone. There is a crucial role to be played by local authorities, the NHS, the private sector, schools and colleges, and the voluntary and community sector. Most importantly, we must continue to look to children and young people themselves and their parents, families and carers to understand what really matters to them.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Will Quince)
I start by thanking all Members in all parts of the House for their valuable contributions to this important debate. It is, I hope, one of those debates in which all of us fundamentally want the same thing, and I think we have heard an awful lot of agreement across the House today. In Children’s Mental Health Week, it is important that we raise awareness of this important issue. Like the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan), I congratulate and thank Place2Be for all the work it does to raise awareness nationally. It is right that we have a spotlight on children and young people’s mental health, and I join hon. Members in thanking all those who work in mental health services up and down our country.
As many Members rightly pointed out, the pandemic has proved to be hugely challenging for children and young children, but they have shown incredible resilience in the most difficult circumstances. The pandemic has been difficult for many families. We all know this and many examples have been cited today, but we should not overlook the impact on children from not being able to attend school or go to after-school clubs, from not being able to see friends and family or play the sport they love, and from being stuck at home with their parents, as my children regularly said. There was disruption to their lives, and I thank teachers and support staff throughout the country for helping us to reopen schools and get children where we know it is best for them to be and they wanted to be. Whenever I visit a school, I ask about mental health and mental wellbeing. Immediately before this debate, I was in Trinity Church of England School in London, alongside Instagram and “Love Island” star Dr Alex George, to meet the mental health support team. They are doing incredible work, which I want to see rolled out further and faster; I will cover that in more detail later.
As Minister for Children and Families, I have a cross-Government role, but I hope the House understands that my focus today is on education. I will try to answer as many of the points raised by colleagues on both sides of the House as possible, but first—perhaps unusually for an Opposition day debate—I want to say how much I welcome the Opposition raising this subject and pushing the Government to go further and faster. As Children’s Minister, let me say that one child or young person waiting too long for mental health support is one child too many. The health, both mental and physical, of children and young people is something that I and this Government take incredibly seriously. Are we doing a lot already? Yes. Can we do more? Yes, and we must. Our children and young people deserve nothing less.
Marco Longhi
Does the Minister agree that mental health is not something we can consider under one umbrella? In my Dudley constituency, Priory Park boxing club is doing fantastic work with children who are excluded from school. It is a great place not only for their physical wellbeing but for their mental health. The new hubs need to be integrated with other stakeholders in the community.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will come on to talk about family hubs and the role that they can rightly play.
I am no expert in this field, but I listen closely to those who are and I split mental health and mental wellbeing into three categories: resilience, identification and intervention, and specialist support. On the first, what can we do to help children and young people to be more resilient? We do that through our relationships, sex and health education, which is now compulsory between five and 16 years old, through our behaviour in schools guidance, through the sports and extracurricular activities that we have in schools throughout our country, and through things like forest schools, which have been mentioned and which are absolutely brilliant.
How can we identify emerging problems sooner and provide that all-important support? We can do that through measures such as mental health lead training and rolling out mental health support teams across the country. For access to specialist mental health support, we have the NHS long-term plan and additional investment of £2.3 billion a year by 2023-24, allowing at least an additional 345,000 children and young people to access NHS-funded mental health support, which of course comes under the Department of Health and Social Care.
Robert Largan
Does the Minister agree that we must not forget the acute services as well? It is fantastic news that we are putting £4.8 million into building a new psychiatric intensive care unit at Tameside General Hospital, which will be a big boost for the fantastic staff at the Cobden unit at Stepping Hill Hospital too.
Will Quince
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: acute services, which are of course a Department of Health and Social Care lead, are very important. In the Department for Education, we have a role to play in doing as much prevention as we can and getting early identification and support in place for people so that they do not need to attend the acute unit, which then frees up space for those who desperately do need it.
Let me turn to some specific points made by hon. Members from across the House. Time is relatively short, but I will cover as many as I can. I remind the House that my door is always open; Members can come to see me if I do not address any of these points and I will be happy to meet them to discuss them in person.
The hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron)—I have probably pronounced her constituency wrongly, so I apologise for that—and my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Antony Higginbotham) made positive and constructive comments about how it is so important that we remove the stigma and break the taboo about mental health, and put children and young people at the heart of our recovery. My hon. Friend mentioned Burnley FC and its work through football in the community. It does hugely important work and I echo his comments about it. Those Members, along with my hon. Friends the Members for Sevenoaks (Laura Trott) and for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates), raised the issue of online harmful content, particularly about self-harm and suicide. They rightly said that the Online Safety Bill must tackle this issue, and I can certainly give the House the commitment and confirmation that the strongest protections in the Bill are on the safeguarding and protection of children.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) raised the issue of the Youth Concern charity in his constituency, rightly praising its work, and I echo his comments. He also rightly raised the issue of waiting times, which are too long in too many cases. We need to address them, and we are doing that in part with the NHS long-term plan. His experience of the Youth Custody Service is hugely welcome, and we will certainly be calling on him to discuss that further.
The hon. Members for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater) and for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle) rightly referenced the serious point about suicide. Of course every suicide is a tragedy, especially so when it involves a child or young person. DHSC has a suicide prevention plan, and we are investing £57 million in suicide prevention by 2023-24, as part of the NHS long-term plan. I know that the Minister for Care and Mental Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Chichester (Gillian Keegan) will be happy to meet both of them to discuss that issue further.
My hon. Friends the Members for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) and for Truro and Falmouth (Cherilyn Mackrory) discussed the importance of green open spaces—I am amazed at the number of people in Cornwall who have not had access to the sea, so we certainly need to look at that. They also mentioned the importance of being in school wherever possible, and I have to say that there are no greater champions for the people of Milton Keynes, and Truro and Falmouth than my hon. Friends. The hon. Member for Ealing North (James Murray) raised the issue of mental health professionals in schools. We are rolling out mental health support leads and mental health support teams up and down the country, and I welcome his interest in this area.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton), a passionate advocate for children and young people in Stoke-on-Trent, has made a compelling case for family hubs and the family hub model and investment in Stoke-on-Trent, and we will no doubt discuss that further down the line. The hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) raised the issue of the importance of early intervention, and I totally agree on that; we are doing this in schools and colleges, and she was right to praise two schools in her constituency, in Whickham and Kingsmeadow.
My hon. Friend the Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt) is a passionate advocate for children and young people with SEN and disabilities, and I am happy to discuss this issue with him later at greater length. I agree with him on the importance of early diagnosis. My hon. Friends the Members for Devizes (Danny Kruger) and for Sevenoaks, and the hon. Members for Bath (Wera Hobhouse)—I wish her a happy birthday—and for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake) rightly raised the issue of eating disorders. We have put additional investment in, and there is a new waiting time standard, but I know we need to do more in this area, and I would be happy to work with the hon. Lady.
I am proud of our record in supporting children and young people, and I am grateful for the ongoing support that hon. Members have given to this agenda. Can we do more? Yes. Can we always do more? Yes. We must do more and we will do more. I welcome the spotlight on this issue. Let me assure the House that good mental health and wellbeing for our children and young people remains a priority for me and this Government, and it will continue to be a priority as we recover and build back better from this pandemic, improving children’s futures and the future of our country.
Sir Alan Campbell (Tynemouth) (Lab)
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
Question agreed to.
Main Question accordingly put.
Question agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House recognises the importance of Children’s Mental Health Week; is concerned about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the mental health of young people and that there has been a 77% rise in the number of children needing treatment for severe mental health issues since 2019; calls on the Government to guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it and to provide specialist mental health support in every school, including a full-time mental health professional in every secondary school and a part-time professional in every primary school; and further calls for the Government to establish open access mental health hubs for children and young people in every community to ensure the best start to life for future generations.