Question to the Department for Education:

To ask His Majesty's Government what plans they have to reduce stress for children in poverty in schools and other educational settings in order to improve their mental health outcomes, and how they will assess the effectiveness of interventions in this area.

Child poverty has gone up by 700,000 since 2010, with over four million children now growing up in a low-income family. This not only harms children’s lives now, but it also damages their future prospects and holds back the economic potential of the country.

My right hon. Friend, the Prime Minister announced the appointment of my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education to be the joint leads of a new ministerial taskforce to begin work on a child poverty strategy. The government is committed to delivering an ambitious strategy to reduce child poverty, to tackle the root causes and give every child the best start at life.

This government is committed to improving mental health support for all children and young people. This is critical to breaking down barriers to opportunity and learning. The right support should be available to every young person that needs it, which is why the government will provide access to specialist mental health professionals in every school.

The government will also be putting in place new Young Futures hubs, including access to mental health support workers, and will recruit an additional 8,500 new mental health staff to speed-up access to treatment for children and adults.