Mental Health Treatment and Support

Miriam Cates Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

It is well reported that mental health difficulties have become both more prevalent and more talked about in recent years. Lockdown has certainly had a detrimental impact on the mental health of the nation, which is completely unsurprising. Isolation and loneliness are significant contributors to poor mental health. We have also had the economic consequences of inflation putting pressure on people’s personal finances, and the consequences of the NHS backlogs that have been referred to in this debate, but I particularly want to focus on children’s mental health.

As has already been mentioned by other hon. Members, we have had a rise in diagnosable mental health conditions among children since before lockdown. We have gone from about one in nine children having potentially diagnosable mental health conditions to one in six. I am sure we have all had cases in our constituencies—tragic stories of children who no longer leave home because they are too anxious, who are not able to go to school. We have seen a rise in the number of ghost children, many of whom are not turning up at school because of anxiety and mental health issues.

The Opposition have talked a lot about all the money that needs to be spent. The Government are spending money, boosting mental health spending by at least £2.3 billion by 2024. The motion calls for improved outcomes for people with mental health needs. We all want that, but prevention is better than cure, and it is simply not sufficient to call for ever more money to expand remedial capacity without addressing the root cause of the problem. It is a bit like having a leaky roof and calling for ever larger buckets to catch the drips: we need to fix the roof. Many will cite poverty, poor housing and not enough youth services as the causes. All are contributing factors, I have no doubt, but there are two less well understood, less talked about, and potentially more significant factors contributing to poor child mental health.

The first, which has been mentioned already, is the clear correlation between the rise of smartphones and social media and deteriorating mental health in young people. The extent of online harms cannot be overstated. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) mentioned pornography. Violent pornography is now routinely encountered by children on the internet, with 1.3 million visits a month by UK children to adult sites. There is also eating disorder and suicide content—again, as my right hon. Friend so articulately mentioned —and child sexual abuse material and exploitation. Anxiety issues are compounded by social media platforms. Children stay up all night waiting for likes on their social media profiles. There is clearly a relationship between more time spent on screens and less outdoor activity, which is another good indicator for poor mental health.

There seems to be a relationship between children spending more hours on social media and worse mental health. The Online Safety Bill, which is going through the other place at the moment, will deal with some of those issues, but I urge Ministers to encourage their colleagues in Government to accept some of the amendments that their lordships have tabled to strengthen the age verification provisions, to make it absolutely watertight that children cannot access some of the worst of those harms. However, we urgently need some proper research into whether it is safe for teens to have smartphones or to go on social media at all. Some have said that their smartphones are as addictive as cigarettes—that they are the opiate trade of the 21st century. I applaud the campaign group UsforThem and its “Safe Screens for Teens” campaign, which is calling for proper research into the health impact of smartphones on teens and whether, like tobacco and alcohol, it is necessary for there to be a legal age limit for accessing some of these platforms, or indeed having a smartphone at all.

A second, under-discussed contributing factor to poor child mental health is family breakdown. We are not talking about a small number of children affected: the UK has the highest rate of family breakdown in the OECD and in the western world. Some 44% of our children will not spend their childhood living with both of their biological parents. There is not enough recent data on this issue, but Office for National Statistics studies from 2010 suggest that back then, 3 million children did not live with their father and 1 million had no meaningful contact with their father. Given those figures, a mental health crisis among children and young people is absolutely no surprise.

Of course, family breakdown leads to other factors that contribute to poor mental health, such as poverty and low income. Some 80% of single-parent households are on universal credit, I think. That is no surprise at all, as there is only one adult in the house to fulfil all the roles and responsibilities of a parent. It puts pressure on housing costs, as one adult is supporting the household—of course there are going to be pressures on housing costs. Single parents are absolute heroes, and I take my hat off to them. Being a parent is an incredibly difficult job when there are two adults in the house. Single parents are heroes, but few would say that it is an ideal situation.

Family breakdown is far worse for the poor, which of course is closely linked to marriage rates. Married relationships are statistically less likely to break down than cohabiting ones, and marriage rates have remained very high in high-income groups, but have collapsed in low-income groups.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. The hon. Lady has exceeded her time.