Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Paula Sherriff and Damian Hinds

Monday 10th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paula Sherriff (Dewsbury) (Lab)]

T10. The Government have pledged to train a teacher in every school in mental health first aid. Identification is one thing, but provision is another, and in some areas the provision of mental health support is absolutely dismal, particularly for children and adolescents. Will the Secretary of State therefore today pledge to match Labour’s election promise of placing a counsellor in every high school?

[Damian Hinds]

Our plan on mental health, as put forward in the Green Paper, contains three important elements: there is the designated senior lead in each school; there are the support teams in or around schools; and there is piloting the shorter wait time for children and young people’s mental health services. More broadly, the Government are investing £1.4 billion to improve children and young people’s mental health services. Quite rightly, there is a much wider appreciation of these issues now than there ever has been, and schools have an important part to play in this alongside society as a whole.