Children: Welfare, Life Chances and Social Mobility

Lord Pendry Excerpts

Thursday 1st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Pendry (Lab)]

My Lords, I too must begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen for initiating this important debate. She has, of course, a record over the years of caring for children’s well-being and her speech today brings into sharp focus many of the problems that youngsters are facing.

It is abundantly clear that early intervention to combat some of these problems that children face should be taken as a top priority by this Government. One of those problems is the alarming growth of obesity in our young. Although the Government seem belatedly to be taking that more seriously, they are not giving the necessary resources to tackle that growth—certainly not with the vigour that it warrants.

The school curriculum is the obvious place to start with early intervention. When Labour was in government, we introduced school partnerships. But there have been savage cuts in the education budget starting with the reign of Michael Gove, who clearly had little understanding of the correlation—among other obvious factors—between good physical health and academic achievement, which is well-documented in respected educational research journals.

Recent figures show high levels of severe obesity among our children, which is mind-blowing. In July, Ofsted reported in Obesity, Healthy Eating and Physical Activity in Primary Schools that obesity was at an alarmingly high level, and highlighted the things schools should do to tackle it, including a high-quality physical education programme. Time does not allow me to go into the detail of that report, but suffice it to say that it recommended that all primary schools should spend two hours per week on PE in line with the policy of the Labour Government of 1997 to bring participation in PE to that level. The coalition Government ended that strategy, and we may have to wait for the next Government to recognise the pressing need to restore Labour’s approach to physical education in schools.

In the meantime, some impressive schemes are being undertaken by non-governmental bodies, notably from the world of football. The football authorities are doing a great job. They often get a bashing from the public, but clearly not for their policy of participation in sport and recreation at all levels. That should be put on the record. Many of these schemes are developed by the Premier League and other football leagues for youngsters right across the country.

The Football Foundation, of which I am president, continues to fund sites and to deliver schemes for exercise, healthy eating, physical and mental well-being, targeting 40% of its investment into the 20% most deprived areas of the country. All this work is very worth while, but so much more needs to be done by this Government. With their boast that austerity is coming to an end, this growing problem for our youngsters and their futures must be one of the Government’s most urgent tasks.

In the few minutes available to me, I turn to another area of urgent need for government intervention, namely mental health—especially its impact among our young. The lack of research in this vital area is well documented and is yet another growing problem. Mental health is a condition that does not begin only in old age. As far back as 2012, the annual report of the Chief Medical Officer stated that 75% of mental illness starts in children—before their 18th birthday and often before the age of 15. One could go on and on with these frightening statistics. For example, suicide is the biggest killer of young people in the UK.

Intervention by the Government, therefore, is urgent. That need has been spelt out graphically by the MQ mental health charity, which states that less than 30% of mental health research is donated for children and the young, despite—I repeat—the fact that 75% of mental health illness starts before the age of 18.

These figures, and others quoted during this debate, justify the needs raised by my noble friend in moving this Motion. I saw no evidence in the Budget that anything is likely to change. If this Government fail to respond positively to the messages of today’s debate, they have no right to call themselves a caring Government and should give way to one that will be.