Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport have to ensure that social media companies (a) tackle online trolls and (b) improve the reporting process for victims of that abuse.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
This Government is clear that online abuse of any kind is unacceptable. Social media can be a way of making positive social connections, and should never be used as a platform to abuse or bully individuals. Evidence has shown links between certain increases in social media use and poorer mental health, however it is not clear whether increased use causes poorer mental health. For example, it is possible that poorer mental health drives an increase in use of social media. To better understand the relationship between social media and the mental health of children and young people up to 25 years old, the Chief Medical Officer is leading a review to examine all relevant international research in the area. The review will inform a report from the Chief Medical Officer, expected for publication next year.
To help tackle some of these issues, we have talked to social media companies about taking concrete action, particularly in the areas of improved age verification for underage children, tackling long periods online and harmful content. We understand that companies have existing work in place in these areas, and that there are significant challenges, but we are keen for further action to be taken. This is why the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (the. Rt. hon. Jeremy Hunt) asked social media companies to set out their formal positions on this work and how they envisage we could work together to make further progress. We have received a number of responses and we are working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as we consider our next steps, and they work with the Home Office on a White Paper on Internet Harms, following their consultation on internet safety.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of (a) internet trolling and (b) online abuse on people’s psychological wellbeing.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
This Government is clear that online abuse of any kind is unacceptable. Social media can be a way of making positive social connections, and should never be used as a platform to abuse or bully individuals. Evidence has shown links between certain increases in social media use and poorer mental health, however it is not clear whether increased use causes poorer mental health. For example, it is possible that poorer mental health drives an increase in use of social media. To better understand the relationship between social media and the mental health of children and young people up to 25 years old, the Chief Medical Officer is leading a review to examine all relevant international research in the area. The review will inform a report from the Chief Medical Officer, expected for publication next year.
To help tackle some of these issues, we have talked to social media companies about taking concrete action, particularly in the areas of improved age verification for underage children, tackling long periods online and harmful content. We understand that companies have existing work in place in these areas, and that there are significant challenges, but we are keen for further action to be taken. This is why the former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (the. Rt. hon. Jeremy Hunt) asked social media companies to set out their formal positions on this work and how they envisage we could work together to make further progress. We have received a number of responses and we are working closely with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport as we consider our next steps, and they work with the Home Office on a White Paper on Internet Harms, following their consultation on internet safety.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he has made an assessment of the implementation of Local Transformation Plans for child and adolescent mental health services; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Every clinical commissioning group (CCG), working closely with their partners, including children, young people and their families, has developed local transformation plans to transform their local offer for mental health and well-being services for children and young people. Local transformation plans require refreshing and republishing on each CCG’s website, at least annually. All CCGs provided assurance via NHS England Regions that plans had been updated and republished for 2017/18 as part of routine planning processes.
Local transformation plans now form part of sustainability and transformation partnerships.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether funding for the implementation of proposals relating to the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper will be in addition to funding for the implementation of the Future in Mind strategy.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
The £300 million to implement the key proposals set out in our recent health and education Green Paper on children and young people’s mental health is in addition to the £1.4 billion that has been made available towards delivering Future in Mind.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much of the £1.25 billion allocated for the implementation of the Future in Mind strategy has been spent in each year of the strategy to date; and what plans he has to spend the remaining funding between now and 2020-21.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
Following the publication of Future in Mind in 2015, the Government committed to making £1.25 billion available to transform services for children and young people’s mental health, excluding funding for eating disorders. The total spending for children and young people’s mental health, excluding eating disorders and perinatal mental health, was £173 million in 2015/16, £240 million in 2016/17 and £249 million in 2017/18.
The planned spending for each of the 2018/19 and 2019/20 is £250 million per year, excluding eating disorders.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the number of (a) children and (b) adolescents admitted to out of area mental health beds in 2017-18.
Answered by Jackie Doyle-Price
This information is not available in the format requested. The Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services Tier 4 Report, NHS England, 2014 includes the latest available analysis of out of area placements for children and young people and is available at the following link:
https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/camhs-tier-4-rep.pdf
On 31 March 2017, NHS England announced the next steps to ensure children and young people do not have to travel far from home for mental health care. As well as funding between 150 and 180 new beds, we are increasing the availability of services in the community to ensure the right beds are in the right place. This includes a programme of work to improve timely treatments in the community for those needing urgent or emergency assessment as well as the development of, and recruitment for, community eating disorder services.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Cabinet Office:
To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what information his Department holds on the amount of sick leave taken by civil servants for mental health issues in (a) his Department and (b) the civil service, in each of the last two years for which data is available.
Answered by Oliver Dowden - Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Civil Service recognises that good workforce health and wellbeing is fundamental to delivering effective public services. We support people so that they can remain at work where possible and to return as soon as they are ready following sickness absence.
The Cabinet Office holds information on the amount of sick leave taken and the reasons for sick leave taken for (a) all of the civil servants in the Department who have recorded absence due to sickness. This includes sick leave for mental health issues that in each of the calendar years 2016 and 2017 amounted to less than 1 day of absence per staff year.
Statistics on sick leave taken by staff in the Cabinet Office are published quarterly in arrears at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cabinet-office-absence-data .
The Cabinet Office collates data on sickness absence from (b) civil service departments and agencies on a quarterly basis in order to understand variation across departments and overall civil service trends. The data can be broken down across a range of types of illness including mental ill-health. The latest data held covers the years leading up to and including Q2 2017 (July 2016 - June 2017). In this period there was an average of 1.7 days per staff year of absence due to mental ill health across the civil service. In the previous year (July 2015-June 2016) there was an average of 1.8 days per staff year of absence due to mental ill health across the civil service.
The latest Civil Service sickness absence data for Q1 2017 was published on 14 December 2017 and is available online at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/civil-service-sickness-absence .
The Civil Service continues to review how it can actively manage all sickness absence and improve health and wellbeing at work even further, ensuring that it consistently delivers the high level of service that the public demand and expect.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what information his Department holds on the amount of sick leave taken by staff in his Department due to mental health causes in the last two years for which data is available.
Answered by Caroline Dinenage
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I gave to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) on 30 April 2018 to Question 138036.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government on Government support for local authorities to maintain local roads.
Answered by Jesse Norman
The Secretary of State for Transport meets regularly with the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government to discuss a wide range of issues.
The Department for Transport is allocating over £6 billion in capital funding to support local highway authorities in England, outside London, to maintain the roads for which they are responsible. This includes a £296 million pothole action fund in order to repair potholes and to stop them forming.
The funding is not ring-fenced and it is entirely for each authority to determine how their funding allocation is utilised based on their needs and priorities.
Asked by: Paula Sherriff (Labour - Dewsbury)
Question to the Ministry of Defence:
To ask the Secretary of State for Defence, pursuant to the Answer of 18 April 2018 to Question 135699, how much additional funding his Department has allocated to the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory for running costs of the Chemical Weapons Defence Centre during the current spending period.
Answered by Guto Bebb
We are investing an additional £48 million to create a new Chemical Weapons Defence Centre at Dstl Porton Down which is scheduled to open in autumn 2021.