Children’s Mental Health

Tom Hunt Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises the importance of Children’s Mental Health Week; is concerned about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the mental health of young people and that there has been a 77% rise in the number of children needing treatment for severe mental health issues since 2019; calls on the Government to guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it and to provide specialist mental health support in every school, including a full-time mental health professional in every secondary school and a part-time professional in every primary school; and further calls for the Government to establish open access mental health hubs for children and young people in every community to ensure the best start to life for future generations.

This is Children’s Mental Health Week. I congratulate the children’s mental health charity Place2Be, which launched the first ever Children’s Mental Health Week in 2015. I also congratulate all the mental health charities and schools that are taking part in events this week.

The whole House will want to recognise the hard work and dedication of mental health professionals, campaigners, advocates, teachers, parents and guardians, especially over the past two years. So many mental health professionals have themselves suffered mental ill health, exhaustion and burnout. As we reach out to all the children and young people affected by poor mental health, we want them to know that we in this House are with them.

The pandemic has placed a huge weight on the shoulders of our children and young people. With schools closed, financial uncertainty at home, the exams fiasco and anxiety about the future, the pandemic has hit the poorest and most vulnerable children hardest. This highlights the inequalities in our society.

Children with chaotic home lives, children in overcrowded and noisy housing and children from black and ethnic minority communities suffer disproportionately from worse outcomes and worse mental health provision than white communities. Black children are much more likely to experience a mental health problem but far less likely to receive any support.

[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

I am interested in that comment because, of course, the Education Committee recently found that white kids from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have the worst educational outcomes. I would take issue with the hon. Lady’s point.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Perhaps he would like to understand that some white groups from poor socioeconomic backgrounds have such outcomes but, by far and away, it is disproportionately weighted against black and minority ethnic groups as a whole in this country.

There was a crisis in child and adolescent mental health provision in this country even before the pandemic made it worse. The latest report by the Children’s Commissioner shows that demand for child and adolescent mental health services—CAMHS—increased in 2020-21, with one in six children likely to be suffering from a mental health condition, up from one in nine in 2017.

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[Dr Allin-Khan]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. There has to be retention, and I will come on to focus on our plan to grow the workforce. I will make progress, because I appreciate that I have been talking for a long time, and I want as many Members as possible to be able to speak.

I would like the Minister to tell us how they will tackle mental health inequalities on the lines of place, race, class and income—not slogans, not rehashed announcements, but a real plan with real funding. I have no doubt, sadly, that they will rehash old announcements. This is all while the Department of Health and Social Care wrote off £8.7 billion on wasted PPE equipment.

[Tom Hunt]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I am afraid I have to make some progress. Labour has a plan for children’s mental health, and the next Labour Government will implement it.

The next Labour Government will guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it, setting a new NHS target to ensure that patients start receiving appropriate treatment—not simply an initial assessment of needs—within a month of referral. The next Labour Government will recruit 8,500 new staff so that 1 million additional people can access treatment every year by the end of Labour’s first term in office. The next Labour Government will put an open-access mental health hub for children and every young person in the community, providing early intervention drop-in services. The next Labour Government will provide specialist mental health support in every school to support pupils and resolve problems before they escalate.

Labour’s plan will see a full-time mental health professional in every secondary school and a part-time professional in every primary school. The next Labour Government will make every week Children’s Mental Health Week, until every child has security, wellbeing and the support they need. Childhood should be a time of wonder and joy; a time to store up precious memories of friendship, holidays and play; and a time to experience the things that form us as adults, yet thousands of children are suffering from stress, anxiety or depression. We are failing them—failing on prevention, failing on access to treatment, failing on funding and failing on supporting their families—and the system is stretched to breaking point. The staff are exhausted. The children are suffering. It is all happening on the Government’s watch, and they are doing nothing about it. That is why I urge all Members across the House to support the motion.

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[Tom Hunt (Ipswich) (Con)]

It is very clear that this is an incredibly difficult time for our young people’s mental health. Clearly the disruption caused to education has contributed towards their anxiety over exams, as has not being able to socialise and do the things that they love. That has all contributed towards the significant increase in our young people needing mental health support.

It is important to bear in mind things like social media. Only this morning, we were in the Education Committee talking to experts about the impact that social media is having on young people. When I grew up and finished A-levels, we had Facebook Messenger, and I had Facebook when I went to university. Let us imagine a situation where someone is being bullied at school: back in the day, at least they could escape, or kind of escape, in the evenings, but in this 24-hour social media age it can be increasingly hard to do that. Serious regulation and intervention will have to be made in this area, and we have to be open to that. We cannot be overly libertarian on the impact of social media on the mental health of our young people.

When we talk about the disruption that has happened and the stop-start nature of a lot of it, largely unavoidably, we must bear in mind that often those with special educational needs really struggle with the transitions and their anxiety levels have potentially been inflamed particularly highly by the uncertainty that has been caused. Getting special educational needs right matters for the education of those young people, their ability to achieve in school, and their ability to get a good job and get on. If we do not get special educational needs right, it can be incredibly bad for the mental health of those individuals if they feel they are in an education setting where there is not an understanding of them and their needs, and how they process information. If you have a learning disability, your brain is wired a bit differently, as I know from my own experience.

The point I am making is about the importance of getting young people diagnosed as early as possible, because it is only when we know what we are dealing with that we can begin to have an education system that speaks to all young people and caters for them. Otherwise, they may feel as though they are not being understood and the education system is not speaking to them because of their potential “disabilities”—we call them that, but I do not like to do so, because I think difference is good and being an unconventional, creative learner, given the right support, is good.

Some positive steps have been taken and the Minister who is closing this debate is making a fantastic start, so he deserves credit for that, but we still need to strive to go further. Getting special educational needs right is important for not just these people’s life chances, but their mental health. We see this when we look at the fact that about 40% of those in prison have special educational needs. If people feel as though the system is failing them, we can understand why some want to turn against that system. I often get the violins about my own experience, but I will mention it again. As somebody who at 12 had the reading and writing age of an eight-year-old, and had my eyes glazed over at the back of the classroom, I felt that anger as well. That is my point about children’s mental health: it matters for all young people, but let us think about those with SEN, because not getting it right for their education is about not just their getting on in school and getting a job, but their mental health.