Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paul Maynard and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Monday 26th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree with the hon. Lady. We all, as constituency MPs, hear these heart-rending stories. I, too, have had parents in my constituency bring to my attention cases of eating disorders among young people. I mentioned the £1.4 billion that the Government have already introduced, a significant sum of which is being spent this year on supporting young people with eating disorders. We are also contributing £1.5 million to a pilot with NHS England to train single points of contact in schools and specialist mental health services so that those services work well together to ensure that schools, which do not necessarily have mental health experts trained in that area, know exactly who to go to and how to get help for their pupils.

[Paul Maynard]

The Secretary of State may be aware that Blackpool has the highest proportion in the country of pupils in pupil referral units. This stems partly from poor underlying mental health. What more can the Government do to ensure that each pupil has a single point of contact not just in one school but throughout their education, from age four to whenever they leave, so that we start to tackle this problem?

[Nicky Morgan]

I have just mentioned the £1.5 million we are contributing to a pilot for single points of contact between schools and specialist mental health services. That pilot will run in 250 schools, with training starting later this term. I should also like to mention that this year, for the first time, the Department for Education included just under £5 million in our voluntary and community sector grants for organisations such as Mind and Place2Be and for putting new resources for parents on the MindEd website.