Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding he plans to allocate to the prevention of child suicide over the next five years.

We are taking action to prevent child suicide through continued increasing investment in mental health services. Under the NHS Long Term Plan, mental health services will continue to receive a growing share of the National Health Service budget, with funding to grow by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24. Spending for children and young people’s mental health services will grow faster than the overall spend on mental health, which will itself be growing faster than the overall NHS budget.

This increased funding will ensure that by 2023/24, at least an additional 345,000 children and young people aged 0-25 will be able to access support via NHS-funded mental health services and school– or college-based mental health support teams.

We are also investing £57 million specifically in suicide prevention and bereavement services in all areas of the country by 2023/24.