Mental Health Support: Educational Settings

Nusrat Ghani Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. I think eight Members are hoping to contribute. We will calibrate again. There will be a time limit of four minutes, because I want to make sure they all get in.

[Siân Berry (Brighton Pavilion) (Green)]

I thank the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for securing this debate and for talking about the importance of these programmes, and for mentioning anti-bullying programmes as well. I also thank the other hon. Members who have spoken about the wider mental health crisis and the extent to which teachers are picking up the pieces —these are all vital issues to talk about.

I am proud to say there has been some groundbreaking work on mental health support in educational settings in my constituency. A campaign led by young people and backed by Citizens UK secured funding for more counselling capacity in local schools, and is a genuine cause of city-wide pride. The £200,000 of investment from Brighton and Hove city council will support hundreds of young people with counselling across the city, including many in my constituency. I was very inspired by the work of the students pressing the councils for this support—notably Fi Abou-Chanad and Tally Wilcox, who put their case directly to the council—and spoke about them in my maiden speech. I am grateful to Brighton and Hove city council, which backed up its words with funds to support this vital work, and I am pleased that, following the pilot, it will now fund 2025-56 as well.

The key request now from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and Citizens UK is for Government-funded school counselling provision delivered by specialist children and young people counsellors and psychotherapists on a statutory basis. I welcome the pledges from the Government to introduce a mental health professional accessible in every school, and I hope we will see real investment in a national school counselling programme promised by Ministers today.

To conclude, I once again thank the hon. Member for Redditch for securing this debate, and once again pay tribute to the courage and campaigning of the young people who I know are out there all around the country, in all our constituencies, demanding support. Nothing could be of more value or more importance than investing in the thriving of the mental health of our young people, and particularly in schools.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Thank you so much for keeping well within the time limit. I call the Chair of the Education Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sojan Joseph]

I agree, and I have many similar cases. I want to refer some real-life examples. There is an excellent exhibition in the Upper Waiting Hall this week about the Mental Health Act, which has been put together by Mind. It features artwork and written pieces by people who have been detained under the current Act. I had the pleasure of meeting some of them on Monday, including a young lady called Afeefa. Afeefa is 19 but was first detained under the Act when she was 14. She spoke powerfully and movingly about the treatment that she endured while she was under section. When I asked her if there was one thing that could have helped her, she said without hesitation that if she had received mental health support at an earlier stage, her experience would have been very different.

I recall two examples from my experience of working in mental health system that demonstrate the difference that early intervention and support can make. They are of two young people of similar age: one is a teenage boy, who unfortunately has not been able to access the support he needs and, as a result, is struggling to cope. That is not only impacting on his mental health but is having a detrimental impact on his family, especially his parents.

By contrast, in the second case, the parents of a teenage girl who had been diagnosed with a mental health condition knew that I worked in mental health at the time and came to see me. I was able to ensure that she was referred to CAMHS at an early stage. As a result, both she and her parents are doing well. She is due to sit her A-levels in the summer. These examples underline how children who receive support quickly are less likely to develop long-term conditions that negatively affect their education, social development and health later in life.

I welcome the fact that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education has been clear that children’s wellbeing will be a priority for this Government. Research from the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy indicates that children whose mental health difficulties are initially too complex for lower intensity interventions, but not complex enough to be referred to higher intensity interventions such as CAMHS, can easily miss out on the mental health support that they need. Ensuring enough mental health support for children and young people in educational settings will help to free up NHS time and resources, while making sure that we have a healthy and productive population in the future.

We should also make sure that support exists in the community. Can the Minister provide an update on the Government’s plans for Young Futures hubs? Does he agree that open access drop-in hubs could be an important step in providing community-based mental health support for children and young people?

There is clear evidence that the places and circumstances in which people are born grow, study, live and work have a powerful influence on their mental health. As Place2Be has said, children and young people from low-income families are four times more likely to experience mental health problems than children from higher income families, while one in four children and young people with a diagnosed mental health condition live in a household that has experienced a reduction in household income. This is why I want reform of the way that we deal with mental health. From Westminster, I would like greater cross-Government working to address the social detriments of our mental health. At a local level, I believe that greater co-operation between schools, colleges and universities, along with local health providers and others in the local community, can help create education settings that are effective at protecting young people’s mental health and general wellbeing. Taking that long-term approach will help create a society that prevents mental ill health for children and young people in the first place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Due to the number of withdrawals, Members may have noticed that we have stopped the clocks timing speeches. There are two colleagues left, and I will allow you to police yourselves. Members on the Front Benches want to be up by 4.30 pm, so I will let you manage the time between yourselves.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Milne]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In my speech, I referred to West Sussex county council but neglected to mention that, as declared in my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, I am still a member of that council. I want to put that on the record—my apologies.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I thank the hon. Member for his point of order. Now that he has put it on the record, it will be recorded as such.

We come now to the Front-Bench contributions. I call the Liberal Democrat spokesperson.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this incredibly important debate. I have spent much of the past five and a bit years in this place talking about children’s mental health, which, frankly, I do not think we can ever have enough debate about. It is so incredibly important.

We have heard many statistics from hon. Members today, to which I will add. OECD evidence, based on a survey of 15-year-olds, shows that UK students have the lowest reported wellbeing in western Europe. In 2024, the Children’s Society found that the happiness of UK children aged 10 to 15 was at its lowest since recording began in 2009-10. As we have heard, NHS reporting shows that a staggering one in five children—six in every classroom, on average—have a mental health disorder.

I would argue that it is not an exaggeration to say that we are heading towards a public health emergency as far as our children’s mental health is concerned. Yet, as is so often the case, children and mental health are both overlooked and low down on the priority list. The Darzi report highlighted that children account for 24% of the population but only 11 % of NHS expenditure. The latest evidence from Rethink Mental Illness states that people who need mental health are treatment eight times more likely to have to wait over 18 months than those seeking treatment for physical health. Despite that, the Government’s targets to bring down NHS waiting times exclude mental health. Given that more than 100,000 children are waiting for over a year to be assessed for mental health treatment, it is clear that children have been deprioritised, but as I have said repeatedly in this place, putting money into services that support children is the greatest investment we can make as a country. When budgets are tight, support for child and adolescent mental health should not be pushed aside.

I do not think it an exaggeration to call the situation a public health emergency. In public health, prevention and early intervention are absolutely key. That is where the role of schools, colleges and universities comes in. As we have heard, half of lifetime mental health conditions arise before the age of 14, so ensuring that mental health support is available in schools, from primary upwards, is a critical intervention. The Liberal Democrats have long called for a mental health practitioner to be placed in every primary and secondary school. In the light of the impact of online harms on our children’s mental health, we have made a strong case for the “polluter pays” principle, whereby big tech giants bear the cost burden of the measure. A trebling of the digital services tax would fund a practitioner in every primary and secondary school.

I am slightly confused because, as the Minister said during the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill Committee, and as I have seen in Labour party material, the Government are committed to

“introducing specialist mental health support for children and young people in every school”.

However, Labour had previously committed to having a counsellor in every secondary school, and indeed the hon. Member for Redditch talked about having a counsellor in every school. I hope that the Minister will clarify that point of policy when he speaks in a moment.

My impression during the Bill Committee was that the Government intended to build out from the mental health support teams that were established by the previous Government. The Minister confirmed in Committee that only 44% of children and young people have access to such teams, which will rise to 50% in April, but he did not set out a timeline or a plan for how or when the Government will meet their commitment by ensuring that every school has access to specialist support.

MHSTs are brilliant. I have spoken to staff who work in those teams, both in my own constituency and in Carshalton, with my hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Bobby Dean). However, the reality is that MHSTs are spread far too thinly across a number of primary and secondary schools, with some schools only getting half a day or a day of support. That is not enough. Last year, one teenager in a secondary school in my constituency took their own life. Another school in my constituency had three teenagers end up in A&E in the space of about two months, having attempted to take their own lives. Clearly, that level of mental ill health requires much more acute intervention than therapy in school, but the reality is that if we start early—if we start young—with proper support, some of these truly awful incidents might be prevented.

The MHST model may well be the best model for support in schools, but I urge the Government to be ambitious in the resourcing of those teams, so that every school has the full-time equivalent of one person in the provision of this support. I know that many schools are trying to top up the resource out of their own funds, but with budgets being stretched ever further, sadly, mental health support is one of the areas that headteachers and governors tell me they are having to start cutting back on.

We know that the epidemic of mental ill health is driving the crisis of persistent absence in our schools. As the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare (Dan Aldridge) said, we have heard a lot in recent days about the million or so young adults who are not in education, employment or training, often because of mental ill health. For the sake of those young people’s futures, our economy and our society, we must do better, and we must do more.

I do not have time today to talk about school staff, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Weston-super-Mare, but we have a recruitment and retention crisis in our schools, and that is because many teachers see themselves as the fourth emergency service. We have to support them with their mental health if we want to stop that flow out of our schools. In higher education, I hope the Government will look at introducing a duty of care, because we have heard too many tragic stories of students taking their own lives and their loved ones knowing nothing about their mental health problems.

I pay tribute to the charities around the country that are plugging the gaps in mental health support. In my constituency, we have amazing charities such as the Purple Elephant Project and Off The Record working with children and their families. Anstee Bridge works across Richmond and Kingston with children who are no longer engaging with school. As I said, there have been a number of attempted suicide cases in my constituency, and when I have been to Anstee Bridge, I have heard many more stories of children attempting to take their own lives. These services are critical if we want to keep those children and young people safe and help them to recover.

I want to touch on two more points. Childhood bereavement is a really important and often overlooked issue. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), who has long championed the need for a register of children who have been bereaved. We know that childhood bereavement has a terrible impact on children’s wellbeing, potentially their mental health and their educational outcomes. I hope Ministers will look seriously at introducing a register, so that we know how many of these children there are, where they are and what support they need, because that information is not available at the moment. Additionally, there is no national mandate from the Department for Education for schools to have a bereavement policy, nor is there any national policy to support schools with this. I hope that will be addressed.

The hon. Member for Redditch mentioned children growing up in kinship care. The Minister will know that I have long been campaigning cross-party on support for kinship carers and children growing up in kinship care. Like other Members, my inbox has been filled recently with emails from constituents who have either adopted children or are kinship carers for children whose parents can no longer look after them and have benefited from the adoption and special guardianship support fund. It is a critical fund that carers often access to provide therapeutic support for children who have experienced terrible trauma, loss and instability. However, there has been no reassurance from Government about the future of that fund. I think at the moment we only have funding confirmed until the end of this month. There is a huge amount of uncertainty, and hon. Members from across the House have tabled written questions but there has been no clear answer on the future of this fund. I hope that when the Minister rises at the Dispatch Box, he will put on record the plans for the adoption and special guardianship support fund as it is crucial and we cannot lose it.

Our children cannot thrive and cannot achieve their full potential if they are not happy and if they are not well, so I implore the Minister to work closely with his counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care to treat this public health challenge as an emergency. Our children and young people are only young once; they deserve the best future they can get. They cannot afford to wait; we need to prioritise this.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) on securing this important debate in the Chamber. I should also declare an interest: I am a consultant paediatrician and have worked throughout my career with children usually at the point of severe crisis when they have been admitted through A&E to hospital following episodes of deliberate self-harm, such as cutting themselves or taking overdoses, and I have clearly seen the heartbreak for families as they have struggled to understand what they can do to best help their young person get better.

Over recent years there has been a decline in the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people and an increasing demand for mental health services. This is perhaps one of the big challenges of our era. Currently around one fifth of children aged eight to 16 are said to have a probable mental health disorder, up from 12.5% in 2017. This figure is even higher, at 22%, for people aged 17 to 24. The consequences of mental health issues for students range from poor academic performance and dropping out of university or college to self-harm and suicide, and we must do all we can to help.

I want briefly to talk about university students because university is supposed to be one of the most enjoyable and formative periods of a person’s life, but for many it is also when they leave home for the first time and when they are separated for the first time from their family and friends and their support networks. Data from the Office for National Statistics shows that during the covid-19 pandemic students reported higher levels of anxiety and lower levels of happiness than the general population. The number of students saying they have a mental health condition has increased sevenfold in the last decade. Even before the pandemic students consistently reported worse mental health than the rest of the adult population, but these trends were greatly exacerbated by the impact of lockdown. Will the Minister update the House on what steps he is taking to support young people with mental health problems as they go to university or who develop mental health problems at university?

Despite the unprecedented challenges the previous Government faced, not least the pandemic, we made important strides in improving mental health services, in increasing the recognition and discussion of mental health problems, in increasing investment and in reducing stigma. Between 2018-19 and 2023-24, spending on mental health services increased by £4.7 billion which gave an additional 345,000 young people access to the mental health support they needed, and the number of mental health nurses increased by 30% since 2010, yet still we see that demand is outstripping supply.

Prevention is better than cure and we need to understand why we have such high levels of mental health problems in children. Can the Minister update the House on how the Government are working to identify risk factors for poor mental health and how they will support children and families to prevent it?

The last Government tried to detect mental health problems early and stop them escalating, expanding mental health support teams in schools, committing almost £8 million of funding for 24 early support hubs in ’24/25. These offered earlier open access mental health intervention without the need for a referral by a doctor or school. The drop-in centres offer vital advice to young people going through the trauma of stress and anxiety, giving them a space to go to when their problems first emerge. Can the Minister update us on what the Government are doing in terms of expanding the availability of these centres?

The Online Safety Act 2023 made very good progress in protecting children from harmful online content but there is much more to do on the topic of screen time, as has been mentioned by hon. Members this afternoon. Does the Minister agree that the mounting evidence we are hearing especially from health professionals about the impact of smartphones in particular on children’s mental health is very concerning? If so, will he support the Conservative amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill to ban smartphone use in schools?

However, there have been some concerns that in the desire to support and enable individuals to have positive mental wellbeing, there is a danger that the pendulum has swung a little far and the boundaries between distress and disorder have become blurred. That means that there is a risk that those who are most unwell may miss out on the treatment they deserve and need because of the volume of referrals, as well as a risk of burdening others with unhelpful labels and prescriptions that could hold them back, without addressing the root cause of their very real need.

Some 84% of GPs are now said to believe that society’s approach to mental health has led to medicalising the normal ups and downs of life. The terms “wellbeing”, “mental health” and “mental illness” are often used interchangeably, so what steps is the Minister taking to distinguish between those terms in educational contexts, and to deliver public services to ensure that we can get the best outcomes for those affected, so people get the treatment they clinically require?

I pay tribute to the work that many charities do to support our young people with mental health problems. Will the Minister talk to the Chancellor about funding for those services? Dr Sarah Hughes, the chief executive of Mind, said that

“the implications of the NIC rise is eye-watering, at a time when we are trying to direct every penny towards delivering the best support.”

Such charities do immense work to create a mentally healthy society, putting everything they have into it, and the Government should recognise that huge investment, not destabilise it by introducing mounting costs that charities simply cannot subsidise.

It is important to recognise the connection between physical and mental health, and that those with long-term physical conditions are considerably more likely to have poor mental health. What are the Government doing to support children who have chronic illness to help improve their mental health?

In 2023, the now Education Secretary said that Labour wanted a trained mental health counsellor available in every secondary school. What steps have the Government taken towards achieving that aim? More specifically, why have they focused on secondary schools? In April 2024, Dr Patrick Roach, the general secretary of NASUWT, said:

"We also need to see improved support for pupils in primary schools to secure wraparound care for pupils at all stages of their education.”

What are the Government doing to support children in primary schools with their mental health?

Ahead of the last general election, the Labour party promised to establish Young Futures hubs, recruit 8,500 mental health staff and provide mental health support in schools. Why has so little progress been made on delivering those promises? When the Minister stood on a manifesto to establish the Young Futures hubs, which were said to have a cost of £95 million, and to provide mental health support in all schools, at a cost of £175 million, the Government said that they would fund that through revenue raised from applying VAT and business rates to private schools. Will the Minister confirm whether the revenue obtained from applying the VAT to private schools looks like it will be sufficient to expand the mental health support as described? If not, how do the Government intend to fund the measures they said they would implement?

In a speech to the Confederation of School Trusts on 7 November last year, the Education Secretary claimed that the Government would give

“every single child the very best life chances”

in

“a new era of child-centred government.”

How does she justify the impact on the wellbeing of those children who are forced to move schools due to the imposition of VAT on the private sector? Numerous think-tanks and mental health charities have noted that being forced to move school at a non-standard time can have a significant and long-lasting impact on children’s friendships, support networks and emotional development. What support is the Minister offering to those children?

Mental health issues among our young people are one of the defining issues of our time. As with so many other policy areas, the Government have promised a panacea, but so far they have delivered a sticking plaster.

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Morgan]

I can assure the hon. Member that I have not announced anything today. As I mentioned in response to the intervention from the hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson), we are working through the detail, but the commitment is to access to dedicated mental health support in every school. It was a real pleasure to visit the hon. Member’s constituency and see that work at first hand.

A number of Members are interested in the role of councils in this important issue. Local government’s public health responsibilities are an essential element of preventing ill health, promoting healthier lives and addressing health inequalities. The Department of Health and Social Care will provide more than £4 billion of public health funding in 2025-26, including over £3.8 billion through the public health grant to local authorities—an average cash increase of 5.4%, or a 3.0% real-terms increase in local authority public health grant funding compared with the last financial year. That represents a significant turning point for local public health services, marking the biggest real-terms increase after nearly a decade of reduced funding.

I thank all Members from all parts of the House for their contributions this afternoon. My hon. Friend the Member for Redditch spoke with real insight and passion about the support that children and young people need, and about the need for parity between physical and mental health, and he made a number of informed contributions based on evidence and research. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon and Consett (Liz Twist), who for some time has spoken in this place on behalf of families who have lost loved ones due to suicide. I pay tribute to her work alongside the hugely dedicated campaigners that are the 3 Dads Walking. I have had the privilege of meeting those individuals, and they are inspiring in the work that they do.

We heard from the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), who made a number of points from her experience on the Select Committee and from visits to schools in her area. I look forward to her continued constructive engagement as we progress our ambitions on mental health in this place.

A number of Members made contributions on support for SEN children. Every child, regardless of their individual needs, deserves the opportunity to achieve, thrive and succeed. This Government are aware of the scale of the challenges in the current system, and we have made clear our commitment to addressing them.

In conclusion, I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch and all Members that this Government prioritise the health and happiness of children and their wellbeing. We recognise the need for further support in schools, so that all children can achieve and thrive, including in tackling the generational challenge of school absence and bolstering young people’s wellbeing and sense of belonging. We value the many contributions from across the House in the debate today, and I again thank my hon. Friend for securing it.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The last few minutes go to Chris Bloore to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robbie Moore (Keighley and Ilkley) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I seek your guidance on what mechanisms are open to Members under the Standing Orders of this place to obtain accurate information from Government Ministers. Earlier today, during the debate on the future of farming, the shadow Environment Secretary asked the farming Minister for the exact cap associated with the sustainable farming incentive, which the Minister claimed has now been reached. Astonishingly, the Minister was unable to give that information to the House, despite farming being in his brief. How can Members of this place ensure that Ministers provide accurate information to the House of Commons? If the Minister is unable to do so when requested, how can I request that he come back to the House to update Members when the exact information is known?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

The hon. Member will know that the content of statements that Ministers make is not the responsibility of the Chair, but he has put his comments on the record. Of course, he can go to the Table Office, which will give him further advice on how he can put in probing questions for further clarity. No doubt those on the Treasury Benches have heard him and will relay that information.

I assume that the hon. Member alerted the Minister that he would raise this point of order. If not, he will no doubt do so very swiftly.