Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to (a) increase access to and (b) ensure the adequacy of mental health care available to (i) school-age children and (ii) young adults.

We are expanding and transforming children and young people’s mental health services through the NHS Long Term Plan. Funding for mental health services will increase by at least £2.3 billion a year by March 2024, as part of which an additional 345,000 children and young people will be able to access National Health Service-funded mental health support.

As part of the £500 million COVID-19 funding for the Mental Health Recovery Action Plan, we invested £79 million extra in 2021/22 to significantly expand children’s mental health services. This allowed around 22,500 more children and young people to access community health services and a faster increase in the coverage of mental health support teams in schools and colleges.