Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the (a) adequacy of mental health provision for young people and (b) the potential impact of rates of anxiety, depression, autism and ADHD on youth economic inactivity.

The Government is committed to improving access to mental health services for children and young people, and to ensuring a system that is simpler, faster, and stronger at every stage. Access to support is expanding, but services remain under pressure, and poor mental health and neurodevelopmental conditions can affect young people's education, training, and employment outcomes. We recognise the pressures on services, including long waits and variation in access, but we are taking action to strengthen the whole pathway, from early support in schools and communities through to specialist services for those with the most complex needs.

In April to June 2025 there were 374,000 people aged 16 to 64 years old with depression, bad nerves, or anxiety as a main health condition who were economically inactive due to long-term sickness. For autism and severe or specific learning difficulties, there were 178,000 and 68,000 people, respectively. There were 727,000 people who were economically inactive due to long-term sickness with a mental health condition, of which 216,000, or 30%, were aged 16 to 34 years old.

The Young People and Work: Interim Report is clear that this is a long-term, structural challenge rather than the result of any one recent change. It reflects a combination of factors, including weaker transitions into work, rising health-related inactivity, and a system that has too often failed to intervene early enough. That is why the Government is taking a cross-Government approach, acting across employment, education, skills, and health. In parallel, the Department has commissioned an independent review of the prevalence and support for mental health conditions, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and autism, which will inform a new cross-Government Mental Health Strategy for England.