Educational Poverty: Children in Residential Care

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

Our Committee did a separate report on exclusions a few years ago, just before the 2019 election; as we know, 40 children are excluded every day, which I think is wrong. It is a huge report that contains a whole load of recommendations. The problem is that when those children are excluded, they either do not end up in school at all, or end up in poor alternative provision. Often, that alternative provision is not in the areas where those children are excluded, so I refer the hon. Lady to our report on that issue, which contains quite a few recommendations dealing with some of the points she has made.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the Chair of the Education Committee for all his hard work, his personal commitment, and his endeavours. I, for one, am very much impressed by all he does, and by the work of the other Committee members who contribute as well.

Can the Chair outline the approach that has been taken to help provide adequate mental health care? Nine out of 10 children who have been abused or neglected at a young age will develop mental health problems by the age of 18. If that is sorted out early, it can give them a better life later on.

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman makes some very powerful points. Sadly, we have a mental ill health epidemic among young people in our country, especially since covid. The Committee has done a previous report on mental health, working jointly with the Health and Social Care Committee. The Government are doing some good things, but I believe they need to rocket-boost the programme to have mental health counsellors in all schools, and we need to do more to teach children resilience. I have proposed a levy on social media companies, which I think are responsible for a lot of these issues, especially companies such as TikTok. That levy would raise money to fund mental health resilience programmes in schools.

I also believe in a longer school day: not children learning algebra until 8 pm—although I do not know whether the new Schools Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince), would like that—but children being able to do arts, wellbeing and sporting activities, which all the evidence shows improves not just their mental health but their academic attainment. We need mental health counsellors in schools, because obviously some looked-after children—although not all—will need extra support, which is lacking. We in this country need to get a real grip through our education policy on the damage that children have suffered because they have been shut at home for two years on and off, and come up with a proper, serious, well-funded mental health strategy for young children. The damage we have done to their educational attainment, life chances, mental health and safeguarding has been enormous, and of course the most vulnerable children—many of them looked- after children—have suffered the most.