Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health report entitled Child health in 2030 in England: comparisons with other wealthy countries, published in October 2018 what assessment he has made of the implications for his policies of that report; and what steps he plans to take to prevent the negative health outcomes for children and young people by 2030 that are projected within that report.

Improving children’s mental and physical health is a top priority for this Government and will be pivotal in our long-term plan for the National Health Service, which we are backing with additional funding of an extra £20.5 billion a year by 2023/24. This follows the existing National Maternity Safety Ambition to halve the 2010 rates of neonatal deaths (as well as stillbirths, maternal deaths and brain injuries that occur during or soon after birth) by 2025, and to achieve a 20% reduction in these rates by 2020. Achieving this ambition would place the United Kingdom amongst other high-income countries with the lowest stillbirth and neonatal mortality rates.