Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Government's commitment to spend £343 million on opening 159 NHS mental health centres in England to provide people with earlier local support and specialist crisis care outside of A&E, whether provisions within this will provide support for young people who fall between early intervention and crisis care.

The recently announced community-based mental health centres are based on a pilot aimed at adults with severe mental health needs. The new centres announced are for adults. However, following the formal evaluation of this pilot, we will be looking at relevant learning to complement existing and future transformation of services for children and young people.

For children and young people in distress or struggling with their mental health, fast access to early, high-quality support is critical. That is why we are expanding mental health support teams in schools and colleges to reach full national coverage by 2029. We are also continuing to provide £7 million top-up funding to 24 Early Support Hubs to expand their services, enabling them to deliver at least 10,000 additional mental health and wellbeing interventions, so that more children and young people are supported.