Pupil Mental Health, Well-being and Development

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I too want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, for securing this important debate. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, will be pleased to know that Everton ward, one of the most deprived communities in Liverpool, is celebrating 10 years of In Harmony—I have been invited—and it has been life-changing for some of those young people.

I am changing what I was going to say. For starters, the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, ought to have been a primary teacher—no two ways about it. It is only nine or 10 years ago that I was the head of a three form-entry primary school in a place called Knowsley, outside Liverpool, with 500 pupils from one of the most deprived communities in the country. We had 96% attendance, the children wanted to come to school, and they were enthusiastic. We had science trails with parents, technology days, and all the children, from year 3 to year 6, went away to the Isle of Wight for either a weekend or a full week. Parents did all sorts of things for the school, and raised huge amounts of money. I look back and ask: what, sadly, went wrong?

By the way, this school had three Ofsted inspections, and we were a good school for all three of them. The results were above the national average; this is not me boasting—it was due to the teachers and pupils of that school. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, that we did not get an Artsmark—but we did get a gold Artsmark. One of my very average teachers was doing a literacy lesson when the Artsmark inspector came, so I was thinking, “Oh no”, but then she came back and told me it was the best lesson she had ever seen—that the teacher had done the literacy lesson with percussion instruments. I thought, “Wow, I’ve underestimated him”. He was brilliant and rose to the occasion. With all that enthusiasm, the pupils wanted to learn and come into school; 97% of our pupils went to the local secondary school and the links were fantastic. It was not just my school—the five other primary schools and the Church of England primary school all worked together and the local authority gave us support when we were in difficulty. We supported each other. I do not know why we have lost all that.

Several noble Lords have talked about the alarming mental health statistics for our children and young people. Two sets of statistics have not been mentioned. First, terribly sadly, the numbers of young people taking their own lives, the numbers of young people self-harming and the numbers of young people with eating disorders are all increasing every year. Secondly—of all the statistics we have mentioned, this really concerns me—10% of children aged five to 16 are clinically diagnosed as having mental health problems, but 70% of them had not had appropriate interventions at a sufficiently early age. Had we intervened as early as we could have done and had the support mechanisms there, we might have prevented some of the problems we face further down the line. It is a bit like the discussions we used to have about special educational needs; if we can diagnose autism or dyslexia at an early stage then we can intervene and do something about it, and the same should be true of mental health.

I am sure the Minister will tell us about the resources the Government are spending on mental health, which are to be welcomed and applauded, but we face a mental health emergency and there is a huge hole in the current provision. Last year, fewer than half—44%—of the 1.5 million children who needed additional support had not received a CAMHS appointment. A report conducted last year by the Children’s Commissioner found that the average waiting time in England between referral and the start of treatment is the highest it has been for two years. Some 35% of those classified as having high psychological distress say that they have not received the support they sought and Barnardo’s points out that children with moderate mental health issues are falling through the gaps, as they are considered too acute for intervention from mental health services but do not meet the threshold for CAMHS, as my noble friend Lady Tyler said.

Schools have been helping children and young people with mental health problems through online tutoring, particularly those with special educational needs, some of those in alternative provision and those who are home-educated. That scheme will come to an end this summer, with its £200 million not going back into education but being returned to the Treasury. That is a lost opportunity. I know that the tutoring programme was brought in during Covid, but it was immensely successful and has helped huge numbers of children, particularly those in deprived communities. Will the Minister look at how we can keep that programme? It is no answer to say that it can be provided from the pupil premium; that is already overstretched and in many schools some of that money is used for mental health support.

What should we do in this mental health emergency? My noble friend Lord Russell told the House what we would do: we would put a statutory duty on every state-funded school to make provision for an education mental health practitioner or a school counsellor. A mental health practitioner means a person with a graduate- or postgraduate-level qualification accredited by Health Education England. For schools with 100 or fewer pupils, the duty may be satisfied by a collaborative provision between schools.

We also need urgent financing, training and provision for CAMHS staff, and indeed for school support, whether it comes from the school psychological service or from speech therapists. Children with speech and language challenges are twice as likely to have difficulties with mental health.

I am sure that many colleagues will have received numerous briefings from charities and professional bodies, and I thank them. I was particularly taken with the Mental Health Foundation, which had a very pupil-focused approach, with clear, school-based actions: school anti-bullying programmes; the whole-school approach that the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, mentioned; targeted programmes; implementation of a trauma-informed approach; supporting the most minoritised and marginalised pupils; looking at comparable studies in other countries; and learning from the experiences of young people themselves. There was the remarkable quote from one young person:

“Despite the profound impact on individuals and communities, mental health remains largely undervalued and shrouded in silence”.


I end with a comment the Minister made in response to the Select Committee report on the 11-16 curriculum. As was pointed out, sadly, all those recommendations were rejected by the Government. The noble Baroness, Lady Barran, said:

“Exams are a great leveller, whatever a pupil’s origin or level of disadvantage”.


Exams may or may not be a great leveller, but they are also very stressful. We have more tests and more exams for our children and young people than any other country in the world. Perhaps our target-driven schools need to be more focused on a child-centred approach, which would certainly help with mental health issues.

I end by repeating the quote from that young person:

“Despite the profound impact on individuals and communities, mental health remains largely undervalued and shrouded in silence”.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a truly interesting and varied debate. I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, on securing it. There can be nothing more important in a child’s development than ensuring that they have good mental and physical health, not least in what many noble Lords have noted is a complex and often confusing world.

Children need a healthy, caring, constructive, lively and varied school environment, of the type to which the noble Baroness referred in her opening remarks. As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, good mental health is a prerequisite for learning. My noble friend Lord Touhig powerfully articulated the need for children to have the confidence to succeed.

I also agree wholeheartedly with my noble friend Lady Morris that academic education and mental health and well-being should not be seen as being in competition with each other. I am very much in the camp which believes that schools should prepare children for life and work, and liked how my noble friend Lady Morris articulated how this might be balanced in relation to exams, and how people view exam success and failure.

I do not, however, think that this excludes fun or creativity. I agree wholeheartedly with the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, on the need for creative arts to be a key part of school life and the lives of students. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chichester also spoke powerfully to this point, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on the work of the charity, Books Beyond Words.

My noble friend Lady Blake did not speak in this debate, but I understand she did great work as leader of Leeds City Council in ensuring that all children had access to learning a musical instrument. This is the type of thing that can enrich children’s lives and make school life much more rewarding.

I found the contribution of the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, on physical activity and food very compelling. Clearly, the quality of food in school is an issue that my noble friend Lord Brooke has campaigned on with vigour, not least on sugar, and will continue to do so.

From what we have heard today, none of us can be in any doubt that we have a huge mental health crisis among children and young people. As the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, also made clear, schools have a very distinct role in identifying and triaging issues. Schools and teachers do incredible work in a difficult environment. Schools sometimes struggle to meet the needs of their students, and teachers do not always have the support they need, or the time or expertise to identify and deal with student mental health issues. CAMHS cannot deal with the scale of the demand, with unacceptable delays for treatment that risk an individual’s mental health issues escalating.

I return to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, about the focus on fun. I think that we all now want to visit his school, so he should expect a queue for us to do that.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

He should change to being a primary teacher.

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

He does not have to become a primary school teacher; he can carry on as he is.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, mentioned the need for a whole-school approach, as did others, but what we really need is an understanding of how we get a better whole-system approach—I would welcome the Minister’s thoughts on that. Surely, that is what is needed to address the issue. There is a clear need for the Government to drive forward and work much more on a cross-departmental basis. The NHS, individual schools, charities and local authorities cannot solve the child mental health crisis alone. The noble Lord, Lord Wei, discussed the need for school pathways to be made clearer and simpler for parents and children, and I would be interested to hear the Minister’s reflection on his point about the correlation with decisions that parents might make on home schooling.

I will give a personal view of an amazing meeting I had this week with a fabulous group of students from the Ark King Solomon Academy near Edgware Road. It was a reminder of how a good school can provide a truly nurturing environment. The students spoke to me about the mental health provision in their school with their vice-principal and the charity Place2Be, whose services the young people had accessed. They told me that Covid had led to isolation, that they needed more clubs and activity to improve their well-being, and that PHSE could do so much more than it does currently to help young people understand their mental health and how to deal with any issues they might face. They also said that their parents often did not know how to help, so the parents also needed additional support to help deal with the issue.

The provision that the students had accessed had given them a sense of belonging and a trusted space. But they said that there was a need for more provision, so that students did not have to wait to access services. The students were hugely articulate in how they spoke about their experience and the need for young people to build resilience. I have no doubt that their school and their parents are incredibly proud of them. After they met me, they went to No. 10 to deliver a letter to the Prime Minister; I would be very grateful if the Minister could ensure that it reaches the right person for a response.

We cannot talk about the role of schools in mental health without discussing the wider context. The scale of the problem was mentioned by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, who noted that the rise means that, on average, five children in a class of 30 are likely to have mental health issues. He also noted the recruitment crisis in specialists.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked what was probably the most valid question of the whole debate: what is going on? In 2022, 1.4 million children were referred to CAMHS, with 270,000 children waiting longer than three months to begin treatment. The Local Government Association has found that at least one in six children and young people aged seven to 16 has a probable mental health disorder, which increases to one in four for young people aged 17 to 19. The Children’s Commissioner, who has been quoted several times, has raised particular concerns around older teenage girls; she found in her report last year that nearly two in five of 16 to 17 year-old girls were unhappy with their mental health. Things going wrong— such as when children and young people do not get support in a timely way—can lead to forced hospitalisation. In the worst cases, unresolved mental health issues lead to self-harm and attempted or successful suicide, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, highlighted in his remarks.

Children living in poverty, where parents separate or have a financial crisis, or children whose own parents have poor mental health or poor health, are even more likely to have poor mental health themselves. As my noble friend Lord Touhig said, children with speech and language difficulties are twice as likely to have a mental health issue than their peers—the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, also highlighted this point. This is also the case for children and young people with a wide range of other special needs, physical illness or disabilities.

Can the Minister say what the government view is on how provision is currently tailored towards the needs of different groups of children, and what more can be done to ensure that children and young adults get access in a timely way? To tackle an issue of this scale, you surely need a thorough understanding of what needs to be addressed—and with apologies to the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, I do not think that policy should be made routinely at London dinner parties.

Can the Minister clarify whether the Government intend to start to routinely collect statistics on mental health provision in schools, including the type of provision and therapy provided? As the noble Earl, Lord Russell, said, this should include a cross-referencing of this with other data, including absenteeism. If not, can the Minister tell the House when the Government at the very least intend to carry out a new survey, given that it is almost a decade since the last one found that only 62% of schools offered counselling services? However, I understand that that figure has risen. Can the Minister provide information on how many schools now have counselling services? Are the Government, like Labour, committed to specialist mental health support for children and young people in every school? Furthermore, can the Government provide a demographic breakdown of the number of children accessing mental health services in schools and through CAMHS?

Finally, I acknowledge that I am clear that the Government know that there is a problem. However, I do not feel that they have yet managed to introduce a comprehensive solution—the proposed ban on phones in schools is evidence of this. Many noble Lords referenced social media and phones. However, many schools have introduced this, and head teachers have noted that they cannot control their use out of school. Having heard today’s debate, what more is the Minister able to commit to the Government doing to address this epidemic of mental health issues in children and young people, both in and out of school, to ensure that our young people get the support they need to thrive both socially and academically through their childhoods to successful adult lives?