Oral Answers to Questions

Henry Smith Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison]

The message is actually very clear, as we have labelling on over 90% of bottles. As the hon. Gentleman knows from the debates we have had on the subject, it is a difficult area and there is no consistent evidence of adverse effects from low to moderate pre-natal alcohol consumption. I have talked this through with the chief medical officer: we have to get the balance right between warning women and responding to the important stats the hon. Gentleman has mentioned, without causing unnecessary worry for the around 50% of women who do not plan their pregnancy and might have drunk alcohol before they realised they were pregnant.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

14. What steps the Government are taking to improve support for children and young people with mental health problems.

[The Minister for Community and Social Care (Alistair Burt)]

Improving children’s mental health services is one of my highest priorities. We want to achieve this by integrating mental health services for children and young people through a major transformation programme backed by additional funding; by expanding the children and young people’s access to psychological therapies; and by working with the Department for Education to develop single points of contact for mental health in schools.

[Henry Smith]

I pay tribute to the West Sussex youth cabinet that is looking into the issue of mental health provision for young people. Why does the Minister believe this area has been chronically underfunded for so long, and will he give me an assurance that this will not be the case in the future?

[Alistair Burt]

I agree with my hon. Friend when he commends the involvement of young people in discussing their services. Only last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for East Surrey (Mr Gyimah) and I attended a youth select committee organised by the British Youth Council to do something very similar.

There are two reasons why I think these services have not been so good in the past. First, there is the difficulty of collecting information and data; and, secondly, there is the complexity of financing for services. I hope that we will address both of those, and we will ensure that people know about this so that things do not slide back by being more transparent about both.