Young People’s Mental Health

Christina Rees Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting). I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes) on securing this debate and the Backbench Business Committee on allowing it.

I have a new member of staff in Westminster, who started with me only last week, Matthew van Rooyen. He is 18 going on 28. He is cool, calm and collected; I have only seen him panic once so far, which was when he lost his hair gel. By an amazing coincidence he is from the village in south Wales where I was born, Kenfig Hill; more amazing still, I used to do judo with his mother when I was a child. As I have said before, Wales is one big family, and that has its advantages and its disadvantages, so in many ways this is Matthew’s maiden speech.

Matthew is a Member of the Youth Parliament and has been elected by fellow Welsh youth parliamentarians to represent Wales at the sitting of the Youth Parliament in this Chamber on 11 November. The calibre of the debate is always exceptionally high; at times, higher than some of our debates—Matthew is obviously driving the point home here—and I urge all right hon. and hon. Members to attend to show their support for the UK Youth Parliament.

By way of background, each year the UK Youth Parliament holds a UK-wide ballot called “Make Your Mark” that allows for young people to vote to campaign on an issue that is most important to them. The five campaigns with the most votes are then debated by members of the Youth Parliament at their annual sitting in this Chamber. Matthew has asked that I thank the House for allowing this opportunity year after year. In 2014, more than 90,000 votes were cast specifically to campaign for the improvement of mental health services. Following the debate, the Youth Parliament voted to campaign on mental health services as its priority campaign. The Youth Select Committee subsequently launched an inquiry into mental health provision, publishing its report in November 2015. Today, this report comes before the House for debate.

What the report indicates, quite simply, is that there is a lack of full and proper support for young people with mental health issues. Nearly 850,000 people aged between five and 16 suffer from a mental health issue. There is clearly a real need for good quality, mental health provision. The fact that over 90,000 young people voted for this as their priority campaign is indicative that the standard of service provided falls far short of the standard of service that can be expected.

It is not even the case that the service provided is good, but young people expect excellent and they deserve excellent. It is the case that the service is simply substandard. In written evidence to members of the Youth Select Committee, one young person explained their frustration:

“After a lot of deliberation, I decided to take myself to my GP in search of support…What you must remember is the amount of courage it takes to open up about your mental health issues. It is extremely difficult for someone...who’s totally confused about what’s going on in their life, to openly talk about having suicidal feelings in a five-minute appointment to someone who feels like a complete stranger. This landed me in a vicious cycle. I ended up returning to different GPs, in a desperate cry for help, but time and time again I was refused any help. It took seven visits before I eventually got the support I needed. Seven times I had to retell that same story. Seven times I was faced with not being ‘sick enough’ and seven times I had to walk out of that same GP surgery feeling absolutely crushed and demoralised.”

That young person is only 14 years of age.

The stories from young people, up and down the country, of substandard interactions with their GPs and medical practitioners are many. With countless witness testimonies, the report highlights the many areas where improvements need to be made with regard to the medical profession and health services. I would welcome an update from the Minister.

There is not one single area that needs improvement. We need to improve the overall state of services for those suffering from mental health issues. We must also look at the education system and what role this has to play in improving young people’s mental health. The report, very thoroughly, covers the education curriculum. It suggests improvements to personal, social, health and economic education, which would provide the most effective environment for mental health education. I broadly endorse those.

A key issue that has been raised time and again by the Youth Parliament is the need for a curriculum for life—to meet the needs of young people by having a national curriculum that sets them up to succeed and not fail. This issue is so fundamental to young people that it received the most votes in the “Make Your Mark” ballot this year. In the local authority area of Neath Port Talbot, in which my constituency of Neath lies, around 2,300 young people took part in this year’s ballot. I look forward to working with the Neath Port Talbot Member of the Youth Parliament further over the coming year.

To return to the report, the findings of the Youth Select Committee make clear the need for an all-encompassing approach to improving mental health and wellbeing. Although the Department for Education has introduced character-building and resilience programmes, the report notes that this is not the best method of improving the wellbeing of young people and instead proposes further training for teachers and academic staff. The report specifically mentions that teachers said in evidence that they feel they

“need more regular training on how we promote positive mental health.”

The Youth Select Committee recommends that, as part of the core content of initial teacher training, there should be mandatory training for teachers on young people’s mental health, with the training focused on how to respond to a young person who asks about mental health, how to spot problems and where to refer young people. The committee goes on to recommend the inclusion of a trained counsellor in all schools and agrees that schools should make counselling services available to all secondary school pupils. These are recommendations that I am sure every Member of the House will agree with.

Today’s debate has highlighted the vital work done by the UK Youth Parliament, the British Youth Council and the Youth Select Committee, all of whom I commend in assisting young people to have their voices heard. In recent times, there have been multiple reports and initiatives to improve mental health services for young people, aiming to reach parity of esteem, but until equal funding is achieved for physical health and mental health provision for young people, with funding for young people’s care at least equal to funding for adult’s care, the campaign will go on. Young people are our future. It is our duty to ensure their success and wellbeing. My thanks to Matthew—great speech, Matthew, and it is a pleasure to work with you.