Health: Children and Young People

Lord Prior of Brampton Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Prior of Brampton) (Con)]

My Lords, first, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on securing this debate. One advantage of the debate having quite a broad title is that one does not quite know where noble Lords will be coming from.

I shall start with schools, and I declare an interest. I was a founder of two free schools and, until recently, I was chairman of a free school and an academy group of schools in Norwich. It is good that they have freedom to decide on things such as school meals; it is right that academies should have that freedom. I spent last week talking about a sports strategy for our schools. Competitive sports and physical exercise are extremely important, and I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, that the curriculum crowds out those activities. One can make room for them. I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, that not just in secondary schools but in primary schools such activities are essential in building up young people’s self-esteem, self-worth and a sense of purpose, whether they are doing competitive sports, the Duke of Edinburgh’s gold award or any schemes of that kind. They are hugely important.

The thing that ran through the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and many other speeches, was early prevention. We have had four debates on this subject in the last few weeks. What I have learnt most is the importance of early prevention, right through to early pregnancy—and indeed before.

I also draw attention to the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, on the importance of the family. Other noble Lords have also stressed that. There is no substitute for family; the state can never be a substitute for the family. The noble Baroness put a figure of £48 billion on the cost of family breakdown but that does not do justice to, or begin to reflect, the family misery that that encompasses. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, drew our attention to the number of families growing up without a father. He mentioned that the figure will be 35% by 2030, according to an OECD report, which is truly frightening.

I hope that I can pick up a number of other points made by noble Lords. I was shocked by the comparison between our performance and that of Sweden. I have not seen that figure before. Infant child and adolescent death rates in the UK have declined substantially, but the overall UK child mortality rate is higher than that of some other European countries. I had not realised that as many as five more people under the age of 14 die each day in our country compared with Sweden. I think that that is what the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, said. Sometimes numbers can detract from an argument; that number certainly adds to this one. The Why Children Die report by the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health stated that there is no single cause for the disparity between countries and, equally, there are no simple solutions. I have no doubt that inequalities of health and of life contribute more than most to that rather startling statistic.

If I have time, I shall talk about three broad areas: ensuring that children are properly supported by health services; steps to ensure that children can live healthier lives; and those services that ensure that we can protect our children. I will leave the issue of child slavery, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for another day. Perhaps I may write to her on that?

Starting with maternity, what happens in pregnancy and in the early years of life has a long-term impact. There can be no doubt about that. We have made some achievements over recent years. Again, I am not sure that the numbers add much to the argument, but I have a list of the additional midwives and midwifery-led units, and of the extra money that we have spent in this area. I do not think that that adds much to the argument because we know that much more can be achieved.

Noble Lords are probably aware that my noble friend Lady Cumberlege is leading a major review of maternity services and that the Government will provide an additional £75 million over the next five years for services to support women with mental health issues in the perinatal period. We heard in an earlier debate from, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, who said that one in five children whose mother suffers from mental illness—postnatal depression—will, in turn, suffer from mental health problems. That was another point that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, made: there is a cycle to these things. If a child is brought up in a family that has suffered a breakdown, there is more chance that, in turn, that child’s family will also suffer. I know from personal experience how mental health, whether for genetic or other environmental reasons, can dog families through the generations.

Support in the community in early years is provided through the Healthy Child Programme, led by health visitors and their teams. Over the last four years, a major programme to revitalise the health visiting workforce has taken place, with 4,000 new health visitors now in post and a further 9,000 completing training. I ought to mention, although it is not an easy question, the £200 million that has come off the public health budget, as raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I hope that the noble Lord will allow me to defer an answer to that until the Question that will be asked on it early next week. From September 2015, health visitors and early education practitioners will deliver integrated reviews with the aim of giving families and health and education professionals a more complete picture of child development.

A number of noble Lords raised obesity. Childhood obesity is clearly a huge issue. The latest estimate of the cost to the NHS of overweight or obesity-related conditions is £5.1 billion, but of course obese children are more likely to become obese adults, with all the health conditions that go with that. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said that he detected signs of passion in NHS England, reflected in the NHS Five Year Forward View, about this subject and about prevention more generally.

There is a wider debate to be had about the role of government, how much legislation we want in this area and how much we rely upon personal responsibility. If we bring tax into these areas, for example, does that fall disproportionately on the very people who can least afford it? These are big issues and I do not think there is a right or a wrong answer.

It is not acceptable that one in five children leaves primary school clinically obese—that is, obese children aged 10 and 11. Obese children are more likely to be ill, absent from school, and suffer psychological problems than children with normal weight. While some progress has been made, we know that we must go much further. We have invested £222 million in programmes such as the PE and sport premium for primary schools, School Games, and Change4Life Sports Clubs. Last week we launched this year’s Change4Life 10-minute shake-up campaign with Disney, which encourages children to do 10-minute bursts of moderate to vigorous activity, inspired by Disney characters. I guess it is a fact that we cannot do enough in this area and there is a lot more that we, schools, families, parents and society could do. Clearly, there is a role for government but it is easy to say always that government should do more.

I should touch on preventing domestic abuse and child sexual abuse. As part of our strategy to prevent violence and abuse towards women and girls, we are providing tools and guidance for health and care professionals to enable them to better identify cases of violence and enable the young people affected to access the right therapeutic support. Routine inquiry into domestic abuse is expected to be undertaken in maternity and adult mental health services. Following publication on 3 March of the Government’s report, Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation, this will be expanded to settings used by children at risk of sexual abuse, including mental health services for people over 16 years old.

Last week, the Care Quality Commission published the results of its children’s in-patient and day case survey. I was going to talk about this but as no noble Lord raised it I will leave that for another day and move on to children’s mental health. It is an issue that we have discussed before but it is important to say that the Government are committed to spending an additional £1.25 billion over the next five years. That is a huge increase in the budget. This is on top of the £150 million for children and young people with eating disorders. That has to be one of the most shocking and ghastly illnesses that any child or family has to cope with.

This Government have also introduced the first ever waiting time standards for mental health. I think it is too early for me to report back to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on how that is going. Parts of these standards will apply to children and young people, including the target of treatment within two weeks for more than 50% of people of all ages.

I am afraid that my time is up. This has been a very quick whistlestop tour of some very important issues. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for bringing this debate to the House.

House adjourned at 7.38 pm.