Children’s Mental Health Week

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Lyn Brown

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill]

The hon. Gentleman makes a really important point. Far too often, we do not recognise the work that schools are doing, and the charity sector, especially, has contributed significantly. Importantly, the Green Paper does not recognise that.

Today I want to focus on the public health approach, utilising early intervention and prevention. This is far too often overlooked, but it is a vital part of any attempts to tackle the crisis we are facing. Furthermore, if we fail to support children at an early stage, we will inevitably feel the impact further down the line when emergency services will be forced to step in. That is what we are seeing at the moment, and change clearly needs to happen.

So what am I talking about and what does it look like in practice? Let us take local government. Because of huge cuts by national Government, 60% of local authority areas have seen a real-terms spending drop on mental health services for children that come under the “low level” bracket, which includes early intervention for things like eating disorders and depression. Or let us look at our creaking and failing criminal justice system. Research by Revolving Doors found that children of offenders are three times more likely to have mental health problems or to engage in antisocial behaviour than their peers—and, as I said, almost all 15 to 21-year-olds in custody suffer from a mental health disorder. Reducing reoffending and the number of parents experiencing incarceration is not just a good in itself but may prevent their children from having mental health problems and reduce the likelihood that the child is involved in offending in the future. Will the Minister explain why, in answer to my written question, the Department for Health and Social Care admitted last week that it had

“not made a formal assessment of the adequacy of mental health services or mental health assessment in Young Offender Institutions”?

Let us take community-based mental health services. The Care Quality Commission, in its review of healthcare and adult social care in England in 2018-19, found that 21% and 10% of community-based mental health services for children and young people are rated as “requires improvement” or “inadequate” for the responsive key question.

Take schools, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned. Schools in Birmingham are facing a funding shortfall of more than £90 million in 2020, but they are still working hard to fund their own mental health support or arranging peer mentors. Why are they doing that? One reason is that waiting times for referrals—if the referral is even granted—are far too long. Last year, I conducted a survey of schools in my constituency of Birmingham, Edgbaston and discovered that 90% had seen an increase in staff and students suffering from mental health problems. That is not sustainable without a substantial increase in support for our schools. Take looked-after children. According to Government data, they are nearly five times more likely to have a mental health disorder than their peers.

Take poverty. The TUC found that poverty in working households has increased by 800,000 since 2010. Poverty contributes to mental wellbeing. The Centre for Mental Health’s Commission for Equality in Mental Health found that children from the poorest 20% of households are four times more likely to have serious mental health difficulties by the age of 11 than those from the wealthiest 20%.

[Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend’s speech is resonating with me. In the conversations I have had with primary school teachers, they talk about the stress that children as young as six, seven and eight are under because their families are struggling to pay the rent, despite the fact that the parents are at work. Poverty is a major driver of this. We have to tackle both things—the mental health needs of our young people, but also the poverty in which they live.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

My hon. Friend is right; poverty has consequences.

Take social security. The Government’s flagship policy of universal credit is not only driving more households into poverty but is creating a climate of fear and threats. Those are all factors that lead to poor mental wellbeing.

No child should have to reach crisis point before they are able to get help with their mental health. We cannot pretend that the causes of mental health are simple or that they are not impacted and exacerbated by inequalities and injustice. The Centre for Mental Health has rightly raised the futility of funding mental health services that support symptoms if those resources are diverted from preventive measures to tackle poverty and inequality, including policies in the criminal justice system, education, public health, youth services, housing and social security.

Those sectors and services are all in vital need of long-term, sustainable support, and that is why I am calling on the Minister to ensure that a public health approach is introduced that promotes mental wellbeing, prevents future mental health problems and supports recovery from mental health issues. There are different ways to achieve that, but I would like to ask the Minister to take the first step and, with a reshuffle imminent, ask the Prime Minister to introduce a children’s wellbeing commissioner, or similar, with real teeth, powers and resources to work across Departments.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Preet Kaur Gill and Lyn Brown

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 28th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Preet Kaur Gill]

I have tabled an amendment to this Bill that has cross-party support. Members of all parties and I were concerned that the Bill would place severe restrictions on the ability of members of the Sikh community to observe and practise their faith. I thank the Minister for her clarity and assurances today, and I will not press my amendment.

I believed these consequences would have been inadvertent and perhaps due to a lack of consultation with the Sikh community, so I welcomed the opportunity to meet the Secretary of State and the Minister to outline these concerns and to clarify their position. Following these meetings, I was pleased to see a desire to avert what would have been the Bill’s damaging consequences for the Sikh community. I welcome amendments 59, 60 and 61, which are the Government’s own amendments to avoid that situation, and I fully support them.

On behalf of the all-party parliamentary group for British Sikhs, I would like to record my appreciation to the Secretary of State and the Minister for listening to the concerns raised by the APPG and the Sikh Federation about the Sikh kirpan. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) and the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) for their support in this process. I will briefly outline the importance of the Government amendments in ensuring that the Bill will maintain the status quo in continuing to legally safeguard the sale, possession and use of large kirpans.

I should say at the outset that the Sikh community in the UK is fully behind tightening the law on offensive weapons. We have all been appalled by the toll that knife crime is taking on innocent young lives, and every Member supports a robust and just system of law to crack down on this very serious problem. That system of law should include the measures in the Bill on restriction of sales of particular types of knives and appropriate punishments. It must also be paired with early intervention to tackle youth violence and the police being provided with adequate resources to tackle violent crime. We cannot go on with the level of knife crime that is taking place in many parts of the country.

Observance of the Sikh faith for practising Sikhs requires adherence to keeping what we call the five Ks, one of which is to wear a kirpan. Larger kirpans are used on many religious occasions such as during all Sikh wedding ceremonies up and down the country, during nagar kirtans in April and November, in front of the holy scriptures, in gurdwaras and in homes, and during gatka demonstrations where thousands take part. I could go on.

The Bill in its current incarnation would—I paraphrase from the policy equality statement produced by the Home Office in June 2018—place limits on the use and availability of these ceremonial kirpans that can be found in virtually all Sikh households. The current language would expose Sikhs who have kept kirpans at home for years to prison sentences of up to a year for doing nothing other than following one of the key tenets of our faith and the Sikh way of life. There are strict rules about the carrying and use of the kirpan. It is strictly ceremonial and must never be used in an aggressive, confrontational or offensive manner. These rules are respected and understood by the Sikh community.

Our amendment sought to amend the Bill to allow the use of ceremonial kirpans as they have been used, with no threat to public safety or public order, up until now. The Government’s amendment does nothing other than to maintain the status quo. I am pleased to support it, alongside the understanding that there will be an accompanying set of documentation that explicitly mentions the kirpan and therefore reflects the importance of not criminalising the Sikh community for the sale or possession of large kirpans.

[Lyn Brown]

I want to focus on new clause 6 as well. Although we all know how falling police numbers are impacting on crime in our communities, we also need to look at other things, including cuts to children’s services. I have heard directly from parents who are most affected by social workers no longer having the time to build proper relationships with families, or not having had the right training so they do not recognise when a child is being groomed by criminals in a gang and instead blame the family and criminalise the child.

I am happy to see that this issue is being dealt with through training, as recognised in the new protocol against criminalising children this month. However, I am concerned, yet again, about whether any additional resources will be available to fund the big programme of training we desperately need and to monitor its implementation. The fact is that when public services are underfunded, that makes it easier for the county lines gangs to exploit local children, and that exploitation breeds violence. I seek further measures that would ensure that the police and courts focus on the true perpetrators of county lines violence—those who control the gangs and reap the profits. The Minister talked about the reported arrest of 500 groomed children or young adults, but, with all due respect, that will not change the nature of the county lines infiltration into our communities. Only by arresting the groomers—those who are reaping the massive financial rewards at the top of the tree—will the game be changed.

We need to support youth workers who prevent grooming and violence by working with children of all ages, all year round. We need training for every professional who works with young people, from the police to social workers to teachers, so that they understand the threat of gang grooming and the tactics that groomers use. We need a third-party reporting system that young people will actually use; they will not do so at the moment because they believe that the police can get information without anyone being put in danger. We have to make public authorities responsible for protecting people who are at risk because they have done the bravest of things and given information to the authorities. We need to support them and their families with a path to a secure future. We need to take stronger action against incitement online. We need to support communities after the trauma of a young death.

This Bill is a start, but it ain’t the panacea that my community so desperately needs. We need further legislation from this Government to tackle the real issues that are afflicting our communities.