Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle rising mental health disorders amongst under-18s.

We are investing at least an additional £2.3 billion a year to expand mental health services by 2023/24 and enable a further 345,000 children and young people to access National Health Service-funded mental health support. In March 2021, we announced an additional £79 million for children’s mental health services in 2021/22. This will allow approximately 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services, 2,000 more children and young people to access eating disorder services and accelerate the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.

In 2021/22, £15 million has been invested in local authority areas in the most deprived parts of the country for prevention and early intervention services, including for families, children and young people. NHS England and NHS Improvement have also provided a further £40 million in 2021/22 to address the impact of COVID-19 on children and young people’s mental health. In addition, the Government has announced £500 million for support for families, more than £80 million for family hubs.