Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development

Earl Russell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Earl Russell (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for bringing this important debate before the House, and those who are speaking today.

Improving the mental health and well-being of our children in school is one of the most important issues, and all of us must work on it together. In the early years, a good experience of education and the ability to learn, grow and develop in a safe and secure environment are essential to success in future life. Our children need to be resilient. Good mental health is a prerequisite to learning, as it is to good attendance at school. An ill child is no more capable of learning than a cheese grater is of being a glass of water. Our schools must be warm, welcoming, adaptable and inclusive spaces. Schools are ideal settings for providing our children with mental health support.

In a previous debate, the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, put it very well:

“Thinking about a child’s school environment, we need to develop a culture of nurture as the foundation for learning”.—[Official Report, 23/11/23; col. 837.]


We need proper funding and resources and a whole-school approach. First and foremost, we must deal with the immediate crisis.

I held my own debate in November on the current state of mental health support for children and young people in England. I declared my personal interest as a parent of a child who has gone through long periods of poor mental health, saying that it was one of the most challenging periods of my life and that no parent ever wants to see their child unable to keep themselves safe. My knowledge and experience in these matters is as a parent.

The scale of the mental health problem is huge; it disproportionately affects those in poverty and is made worse by the lack of resources available to resolve it. The most recent key findings from the NHS digital survey show that one in five of our young people aged eight to 25 had a probable mental health disorder. Rates remain at elevated levels following the pandemic, and among 17 to 25 year-olds, rates were twice as high for young women as they were for young men. We are treating double the number than before the pandemic of children and young people with eating disorders who need urgent care. We have huge waits for services, with treatment for even immediate and urgent cases often, in effect, being denied. We face a children’s and young person’s mental health emergency, and we must all work together to end the wait. The House spoke clearly with one urgent voice on the issues, and I think it will do so again today.

I have called on the Government to accelerate the rollout of mental health support hubs to all schools and colleges nationwide. That is the quickest and most effective form of help. I asked the Government to commit to bringing forward their target of 50% access by 2024-25 and making it 100%. Munira Wilson in the other place has introduced a Private Member’s Bill on this issue, and I am delighted that my party has put forward proposals for dedicated mental health professionals in all state-funded schools and to pay for that through a trebling of the digital services tax. Place2Be has calculated that every £1 invested in primary schools-based mental health provision will generate £8 in economic and social benefits.

The response from the Minister at the time of my last debate was positive; however, since then, nothing has happened. I kindly ask her why there has been no movement from the Government on these issues? The urgency and need is clear and the cost is not great, so are there practical problems with accelerating the policy? Is it about not being able to find and train staff in time, or are there other practical matters?

I will briefly say a few words about long-term persistent absence. When my child was ill, she was off school for prolonged periods and had a very poor attendance record during others. I know what it is like, and just how challenging it can be, when your child is not well enough keep themselves safe, let alone attend school. I know the struggle of trying to get them out of bed every morning. I also understand how we got in this position: Covid caused an explosion in mental health issues, and we need to understand better why that was. It shows that our children are lacking the resilience they so desperately need.

As a result of the increase in poor mental health and the lack of available treatment, absence rates invariably rose, and the Government and schools, rightly, wanted to bring those back down. However, my personal perception is that they went too far. Fining parents should be an absolute last resort. The parent of any child who is waiting for treatment for mental health issues or is unable to get a diagnosis for autism or other special needs should not face those fines. There needs to be far more co-operation between schools and parents in trying to get children who are suffering back to school. The Children’s Commissioner has also pointed out this problem, calling it

“the issue of our time”.

Like me, she is calling for the Government to accelerate the rollout of mental health hubs.

Although the causes of persistent absence from school are complex, one key factor is the lack of mental health support and I would like to ask the Minister about the connection with the numbers of children who have been waiting over a month for CAMHS. Do the Government keep statistics, cross-referencing them for children who are waiting for treatment against children who are also long-term persistently absent from school? It is important that the Government cross-reference those two groups so they can better understand whether a denial of treatment for mental ill-health is one of the key drivers of long-term persistent absence from school.

Finally, I call on the Government again to please take more urgent action on these matters. I recognise the progress made and the actions taken, but more needs to be done urgently to protect our children and young people.