Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent steps his Department has taken to improve the provision of mental health support for young people who identify as transgender.

Our NHS Long Term Plan ambitions for service transformation and expansion include that, by 2023/24, an additional 345,000 more children and young people should have access to National Health Service funded mental health support. This includes for young people who identify as transgender.

The mental health support teams in and around schools, which we introduced through our children and young people’s mental health Green Paper, are part of this service expansion and transformation. As set out in the Plan, mental health support teams will receive information and training to help them support young people more likely to face mental health issues – such as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender individuals.