Mental Health: Weight and Shape-related Bullying

Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

The noble Baroness is right that children exposed to persistent bullying risk experiencing these problems. This is related to the experience of face-to-face bullying, but exposure on social media can also cause the problem. That is why the Department for Education is providing over £2.8 million of funding between September 2016 and 2020 to four anti-bullying organisations—Internet Matters, the Diana Award, Anti-Bullying Alliance and the Anne Frank Trust—to support schools to tackle bullying. Of course, all schools must have in place an anti-bullying policy, which Ofsted regulates.

[Baroness Chisholm of Owlpen (Con)]

My Lords, we have already heard from noble Lords how important this problem is, but of course it is partly the responsibility of the Department of Health. I ask my noble friend whether we are also talking cross-departmentally. Surely schools have a role to play here, so are teachers being taught about the problems this can bring? Is DCMS being taught about online bullying, et cetera?

[Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford]

My noble friend is quite right. As I have already pointed out, DfE-funded anti-bullying work is ongoing. Work is also increasing to join up the provision for young people through the children and young people Green Paper, which will put in place early intervention provision to make sure that young people do not have to wait until they are ill before they can get support. This problem needs to be challenged right across government, which is why we have also brought in the online harms White Paper to make sure that social media companies play their part.