Suicide and Mental Health of Young People: Tatton

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Care (Stephen Kinnock)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) for securing this debate and raising many important issues. I also thank her for sharing the tragic story of Olivia. My heart goes out to Olivia’s family and loved ones; it is a truly heartbreaking situation and process that they have gone through.

The right hon. Lady made a number of important points about withdrawal from SSRI antidepressants. A number of those points are quite specific, and I do not have in specific responses my notes. With her leave, I would like to write to her with responses on those points. She made a point about the coroner’s advice, which contained a lot of useful counsel on how we might address and tackle the issues raised. I will certainly look at that in detail, and will happily take those matters forward with her. We have a shared interest in addressing the issue. If the system is not working and people who are on that antidepressant are not being supported with withdrawal, we need to look at that in detail. We need to tackle it—I share her views on that.

I will turn to some more general points about the Government’s position on mental health. We have made suicide prevention and mental health a priority, especially for young people. Many of the issues raised today are symptomatic of an NHS that is broken. Looking at the figures, the challenges that face the NHS are truly sobering.

About 50% of lifetime mental health conditions are established by the time an individual is 14 and 75% by the time they are 24. Evidence suggests that the prevalence of mental health conditions is rising among children and young people. In 2023, 20.3% of eight to 16-year-olds had a probable disorder, compared with 12.5% in 2017. Of course, the covid-19 pandemic exacerbated needs, with analysis showing that 1.5 million children and young people under the age of 18 could need new or increased mental health support following the pandemic.

According to the Darzi review, 343,000 referrals for children and young people under the age of 18 are waiting for mental health services, including 109,000 referrals waiting for more than a year. Under the NHS Cheshire and Merseyside integrated care board, as of the end of September 2024, 10% of children and young people still waiting for first contact with NHS-funded mental health services were waiting for more than 951 days, equating to 1,301 people. Half of those still waiting had been waiting for more than 300 days. There are 13,010 children and young people still waiting for first contact with NHS-funded mental health services.

Until recently, there had been an upward trend in suicide rates for children and young people. For women between the ages of 10 and 24, the rate has nearly doubled since 2012, rising from 1.6 per 100,000 to 3.1 per 100,000 in 2023.

[Helen Grant (Maidstone and Malling) (Con)]

Over the past 10 years in England and Wales, one student has died every four days as a result of suicide. Despite that forlorn tragedy, the law remains unclear about the duties and responsibilities universities have towards their often very vulnerable young students. Will the Minister meet me and members of the LEARN Network and ForThe100 to discuss the introduction of a statutory duty of care for all higher education providers?

[Stephen Kinnock]

I thank the hon. Lady for that important intervention. I am happy to meet her and the LEARN Network. The Government cannot do all this alone; we need to work in partnership with all sorts of different stakeholders, including universities and the higher education sector. We would support any partnership working that we can do.

Until recently, there had been an upward trend in suicide rates for children and young people. For women between the ages of 10 and 24, the rate has almost doubled, but the trend for children and young people has flattened in the past year, despite overall increases in suicide. Although those rates are low compared with those for other age groups, children and young people are a priority group in our mission to tackle suicide. The Department is commissioning research via the National Institute for Health and Care Research to advance our understanding of why rates of suicide have been increasing in certain age groups.

We are committed to reforming the NHS to ensure that we give mental health the same attention and focus as physical health. It is unacceptable that too many children, young people and adults are not receiving the mental health care that they need. We know that waits for mental health services are far too long. We are determined to change that. That is why we will recruit 8,500 additional mental health workers across children’s and adult mental health services. We will also introduce a specialist mental health professional in every school and roll out young futures hubs to provide timely mental health support to our children and young people.

We are working with our colleagues at NHS England and the Department for Education as we plan delivery of those commitments. Furthermore, the Government are also committed to tackling suicide as one of the biggest killers in our country. The suicide prevention strategy proposes targeted support for priority groups such as children and young people. The Department for Education is reviewing the statutory guidance on relationships, sex and health education, and the Secretary of State for Education is clear that children’s wellbeing should be at the heart of it.

Some 79 voluntary, community or social enterprise organisations up and down the country have been allocated funding through the Department of Health and Social Care’s £10 million suicide prevention grant fund over the two years to March 2025. These organisations—from local and community-led through to national—deliver a broad and diverse range of activity that will prevent suicides and save lives.

Early intervention on mental health issues is vital if we want to stop young people reaching crisis point. Schools and colleges play an important role in that early support, which is why we have committed to providing a mental health professional at every school. Mental health support teams help to meet the needs of children and young people in education settings; such teams, which are made up of mental health practitioners and education mental health specialists, are available in schools in Tatton.

However, it is not enough to provide access to a mental health professional when young people are struggling. We want the education system to set young people up to thrive, and we know that schools and colleges can have a profound impact in promoting good mental health and wellbeing. Doing this well takes a holistic approach, drawing in many aspects of the school or college’s provision. Many schools are already doing that, and my Department is working alongside the Department for Education to understand how we can support such good practice across the sector, and across the length and breadth of our country.

The opportunity mission will break the link between people’s background and their success. The mission will build opportunity for all by giving every child the best start in life: high-quality early education, early child health, home learning environments and family support. The mission will also support children to achieve and thrive, ensuring high school standards with a broad curriculum, excellent teachers and targeted interventions, an inclusive approach to special educational needs and disabilities, mental health support, access to arts, culture and sport, and youth services and provision.

In our manifesto, the Government committed to rolling out young futures hubs. This national network is expected to bring together local services, deliver support for teenagers at risk of being drawn into crime or facing mental health challenges, and, where appropriate, deliver universal youth provision. The hubs will provide open-access mental health support for children and young people in every community.

We are concerned about the widespread availability of harmful material online, promoting content on eating disorders, suicide and self-harm, that can easily be accessed by people who may be young and/or vulnerable. We have been clear that the Government’s priority is the effective implementation of the Online Safety Act 2023, so that those who use social media—especially children—can benefit from its wide-ranging protections as soon in their lives as possible. Earlier this year, Ofcom concluded its consultations on the draft illegal content and child safety codes of practice. We expect the illegal content codes to be in effect by spring 2025, with the child safety codes following in the summer.

I will turn to other aspects of our plans to improve mental health services. The Mental Health Bill, which was announced in the King’s Speech, will deliver the Government’s manifesto commitment to modernise the Mental Health Act 1983 by giving patients greater choice and autonomy and enhanced rights and support, and aims to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout their treatment. It is important to get the balance right to ensure people get the support and treatment they need when necessary for their protection and for that of others.

I am pleased to say that the Bill has been introduced in the Lords and will be coming to the Commons in the new year. The Bill will make the Mental Health Act fit for the 21st century, redressing the balance of power from the system to the patient and ensuring that people with the most severe mental health conditions get better, more personalised care. It will limit the scope to detain people with a learning disability and autistic people under the Act unless they have a co-occurring mental health disorder that needs hospital treatment.

I conclude by once again commending the right hon. Member for Tatton for securing the debate and colleagues from across the House, including the hon. Members for Maidstone and Malling (Helen Grant) and for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for sharing their insight on the vital issue of suicide prevention and mental health care for children and young people. I am committed to working with the right hon. Member for Tatton and her hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Maidstone and Malling, to take forward these issues, and I hope that we can, together—across the House—address this vital issue.

Question put and agreed to.