Mental Health Education in Schools

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Chris Ruane

Monday 6th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered e-petition 176555 relating to mental health education in schools.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Brady, and to lead this debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee, given the importance of this issue for society as a whole and because of the frequency with which young people raise it with me whenever I visit local schools and youth organisations in Newcastle upon Tyne North. The e-petition, entitled “Make mental health education compulsory in primary and secondary schools”, has been signed by more than 103,000 people. It reads:

“Mental health education is still not part of the UK curriculum despite consistently high rates of child and adolescent mental health issues. By educating young people about mental health in schools, we can increase awareness and hope to encourage open and honest discussion among young people.”

I am pleased that many hon. Members are present today. That reflects the importance and timeliness of the debate. Many other hon. Members would like to be here but are unable to attend, and I am happy to put their concerns on the record. My hon. Friend the Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker) asked me to convey his constituents’ concerns, even though he is unable to be here himself.

I congratulate the e-petition’s creators—Tom King, a student mental health nurse, and Adam Shaw, the chairman of the Shaw Mind Foundation—on securing more than 100,000 signatures in the three months before the e-petition was closed just before the unexpected general election. Adam Shaw launched the e-petition as part of his charity’s wider HeaducationUK campaign. He explained why he established it:

“Currently mental health is only taught as an optional component of PSHE—but this is not good enough. It needs to be compulsory. Understanding mental health is an absolute life skill, and should be just as fundamental within the school curriculum as reading and writing. There needs to be a compulsory collaboration and integration between mental health education and physical education, so that children and young people can understand that maintaining good mental health is equally vital to their wellbeing.”

The HeaducationUK website states:

“The UK national curriculum puts a lot of emphasis on teaching our children about how our bodies work, physical illnesses, and how exercise and nutrition can keep us healthy. These are taught in mandatory subjects such as PE (physical education) and biology…Currently, mental health education is taught inconsistently in the UK, and only in secondary schools—despite 1 in 5 children experiencing a mental health difficulty before the age of 11.”

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend pay tribute to the mindfulness pioneers in the UK who developed the .b curriculum for secondary schools and Paws b for seven to 11-year-olds, which was developed at Bangor University? Bangor is already working on a curriculum for three to seven-year-olds. Most importantly, will she commend the work of Oxford University’s mindfulness centre and the Mindfulness and Resilience in Adolescence—MYRIAD—project, which hope to prove scientifically the benefits of mindfulness for young people aged 11 to 18?

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am more than happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating those organisations. He has campaigned hard on that issue in this place for many years.

HeaducationUK continues:

“Mental health education is delivered via the non-compulsory subject PSHE (Personal, Social, Health and Economic), or sometimes during school assembly or drama lessons. As PSHE is a non-compulsory subject, this means that not all schools teach it, and that in turn means that mental health education isn’t always taught.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

Absolutely. The hon. Lady is right that the Select Committees on Health and on Education undertook a joint inquiry and report into these very issues because, crucially, health and education are intertwined when we look at mental health and physical wellbeing. The outcome of that inquiry was that I was very keen to lead in this debate, because I share her view that it is crucial to improve outcomes for children in care as well as for all our children and young people.

The statistics are startling. HeaducationUK highlights some of them: 850,000 UK children and young people aged five to 16 have mental health problems, which equates to around three in every classroom; more than 75% of mental illnesses in adult life begin before the age of 18; the number of young people attending accident and emergency with a psychiatric condition has risen by 106% since 2009; reports of self-harming among girls aged 13 to 16 rose by 68% between 2011 and 2014; and suicide is the biggest killer of young people aged under 35, with an average of 126 suicides a week and more than 200 children of school age dying by suicide each year.

[Chris Ruane]

Is my hon. Friend aware that 32.3% of 15 to 25-year-olds have one or more psychiatric conditions? The wider point about all those terrible statistics is that even people who are not adversely affected by mental ill health can be taught in school through modern positive psychology and mindfulness to lead flourishing lives. The whole wellbeing curve of mental health could be shifted if we took that root-and-branch approach to putting mental education into our schools.

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. It is about not just shifting the life experience of an individual, but the knock-on effect of shifting the life experience of everyone around the individual and the whole community. We know that the lack of support and mental health education affects not only individual young people, perhaps for the rest of their life, but those around them. The potential returns from investing in our young people in that way are significant.

--- Later in debate ---

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am delighted that hon. Members on all sides of this debate are making my case for me. I just hope that the Minister is genuinely listening and taking that on board, so that change and something positive can come from putting on record the cross-party agreement on the need to do something for our young people on this issue.

[Chris Ruane]

The figure that I mentioned of 32.2% of 15 to 25 year-olds will include trainee teachers. After they finish their training, 40% of teachers do not continue in education after the first year, largely because of stress, so does my hon. Friend agree that perhaps one way to square the circle would be to train those 18 to 21-year-old potential teachers in ways of getting their own equilibrium, which might be a gift that they can pass on to tens of thousands of children over the course of their career?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend makes a key point. It is not just children and young people who face mental health difficulties as a result of the stressed environment in our education system, but the teachers, too. One has a huge impact on the other. Taking a whole-school approach to the issue could transform the lives of everybody in that school environment, all the families who surround it and are connected with it, and the local community.

Cycling

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Chris Ruane

Monday 2nd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Chris Ruane (Vale of Clwyd) (Lab)]

In 2006, four members of the Rhyl cycling club in my constituency were killed in the worst ever cycling accident in British history. They were Tom Harland, aged 14, Maurice Broadbent, aged 61, Dave Horrocks, aged 55, and Wayne Wilkes, aged 42. Two years before that accident young Tom Harland visited the House of Commons and I took him round. His father, John Harland, is a personal friend of mine. The club and families involved were faced with the decision of whether to crumple—both personally and as a club—or whether to thrive. They chose to thrive and I would like to outline some of the successes for cycling in my constituency since 2006, which I think could be replicated around the country.

John Harland got together a group of people, including a chap called Gren Kershaw, who was the ex-head of our local health board, and they had an idea, a vision, for cycling in my constituency, based around Marsh Tracks. In the intervening years, Marsh Tracks has opened, and includes a five-star BMX track with an Olympic starting gate and a £1.2 million floodlit off-road cycleway. It is now being extended with a mountain bike track over a 3 km area. Those are fantastic cycling facilities. The local authority has developed miles and miles of off-road cycleways connecting the towns of Rhyl, Prestatyn, Rhuddlan, St Asaph, Dyserth and Bodelwyddan, and connecting Rhyl college, the local hospital and St Asaph business park—all those key sites are connected off road to the cycleways.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Ruane]

Yes, because I want the extra minute.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity. He is making a powerful speech. Many constituents have asked me to come to this debate to make representations on their behalf, and in particular on behalf of their children. As cyclists, my constituents worry not only for themselves and their safety, but for that of their children, and many of them have asked me to press the Minister on making cycle urban infrastructure development compulsory as part of the legislation on cycling and urban planning. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Chris Ruane]

I think I have lost that minute—[Laughter.] My hon. Friend owes me 15 seconds but I agree with her and will come to the education side of that point in a moment.

We were also successful in getting £4.5 million for a purpose-built cycling bridge over Foryd harbour in my constituency. That will be part of the Sustrans national coastal cycling network around the UK. On 26 September I will meet Network Rail to see whether we can get a disused railway to connect the coastal path to the country paths further inland. They are currently cut across by a railway bridge, and we want to use an adjacent railway bridge to connect the coastal path to the country, so that the coast will be connected to the castles and cathedrals in my constituency.

I recently met Adrian Walls, a cycleways officer from Denbighshire county council, who is developing a mountain bike route in my constituency. He has not finished yet—it will be probably be finished in about six weeks and will be a state-of the-art mountain bike route. However, I do not think that the fantastic facilities I have outlined in my speech are being used sufficiently. The task is getting pupils in our schools and colleges, and workers, to use those facilities—those multi-million pound investments—which I believe are under-utilised in my constituency. How do we make the most of them? I have met council officers and enthusiasts, who have come up with a vision for a centre of cycling excellence in my constituency, which will be tied in to the back-to-work agenda. It will include cycle maintenance, and importing, assembling and selling cycles. That fantastic facility on our doorstep will be used to train local people, including unemployed people from some of the poorest wards in Wales.

Hon. Members have spoken of tying the cycling agenda to the health agenda. Denbighshire has high obesity levels. How do we get general practitioners to write cycling prescriptions? That has been done in other areas, including in London—Brent and Tower Hamlets have done it. People who suffer from diabetes, arthritis and a range of illnesses would benefit tremendously from cycling. If cycling prescriptions are available in Brent and Tower Hamlets—