Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the NHS Long Term Plan Implementation Framework, how much additional funding he plans to allocate to support the development of school or college-based Mental Health Support Teams.

The NHS Long Term Plan committed that investment in mental health services will grow faster than the National Health Service budget overall for each of the next five years, creating a new ringfenced local investment fund worth at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24. In addition, funding for children and young people’s mental health services, including mental health support teams, will grow faster than both overall NHS funding and total mental health spending.

Funding allocations will be made to local areas in consultation with NHS England and NHS Improvement regions to support the development of school or college-based mental health support teams in all regions, additional to clinical commissioning group baseline funding.

Details of the funding to be made available to individual systems will be decided through the five-year planning process.