Children’s Health

Adam Jogee Excerpts

Thursday 10th July 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Opher]

I totally agree—indeed, my hon. Friend pre-empts some of my remarks.

Another proposal in the 10-year plan involves the investment, through Sports England, of £250 million into such opportunities for children. The Starlight Children’s Foundation promotes play and exercise, and I am a particular fan of adventure playgrounds in urban areas, which allow children to cut loose, particularly after school, expend energy, and have fun in a safe setting.

I am also working with colleagues on access to nature. It is incredibly important that every child has access to nature, so that they can explore nature and have that type of exercise. I also stress that 50% of children have active travel—bike or walking—to get themselves to school. Let us increase that; let us try to get more children cycling and walking to school, as that will increase their fitness.

Dental care is also in the 10-year plan. I am delighted to see that supervised brushing is already there, and also that fluoride varnish will be applied by people to prevent dental caries from occurring. I will give a quick shout-out on asthma prevention, which is key and all about air quality. I know some young people who, since the ultra low emission zone scheme was introduced, have stopped using their inhalers because pollution has gone down. That is something we must emphasise.

[Adam Jogee (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Lab)]

On air quality, will my hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the Stop the Stink campaigners in Newcastle-under-Lyme, who fought so hard to clean the air around schools such as St Mary’s primary school on Silverdale Road? Their work helped to make the lungs of our young people that bit healthier.

[Dr Opher]

Absolutely, and I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right: clean air is one way to address our five most preventable health risks, and we must do more on that.

[Adam Jogee]

Will my hon. Friend join me in calling on the Government to adopt World Health Organisation levels for particulate matter 2.5?

[Dr Opher]

I am afraid that is not my special area, but it sounds like a good idea and I thank my hon. Friend. Because we cannot see clean air, we do not realise what it is doing, but people genuinely need their inhalers less, and particularly for young people with asthma that is incredibly important.

I want to talk quickly about early years support. In Gloucestershire, an organisation called Home-Start involves volunteers going into the homes of women who have just given birth to support them. Interestingly, women who have had that support often go on to be volunteers. It is a fantastic organisation. This week I was delighted that the successor to Sure Start, Best Start family hubs, is coming back. Sure Start was one of the most glorious things that the Blair Government did, and it affected the health of young people enormously. I am pleased that childcare is getting much more funding. Furthermore, as set out in the 10-year plan, Healthy Start will be restarted in 2026-27, providing money to pregnant women and children aged one to four whose families are in financial difficulty, helping those who are less well off.

Mental healthcare is in a bit of a crisis. Some 25% of young people have mental health issues. We spend only 10% of NHS funds on mental health, but it contributes to over 20% of morbidity. About a million people are on the child and adolescent mental health service waiting list at the moment, and I know that Ministers are doing all that they can to bring that down. To prevent poor mental health, we need to look at exercise, as I have mentioned, and at music in schools, which is proven to reduce rates of mental ill health. I am backing the National Education Union campaign to get rid of SATs, which cause enormous tension and stress in young people.

On treatment, I am delighted that we will have mental health support teams in every school—I understand that 60% will be in place by next April, and 100% by the end of this Parliament. We will have 8,500 more mental health workers and a whole-school approach. I particularly endorse the mental health first aid training that has happened in some Stroud schools, and I have also been looking at the Young Futures hubs.

With the massive CAMHS waiting list—in my area, people sometimes have to wait for two years—and the sudden increase in neurodiversity, we need to look at schemes that use creative and social prescriptions to deal with those children while they are on the waiting list. Given the right support, I reckon a lot of them will not need specialist psychiatric assessment. I am chair of the beyond pills all-party parliamentary group. Are hon. Members aware that one in eight 12 to 17-year-olds have been put on a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor antidepressant? That is scandalous.

This year, I hosted a roundtable at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health. Children are generally waiting longer than adults for care, which we must turn around. As I said, there are often long waiting lists for mental healthcare. Sadly, Harry, the son of my constituent, Louise Turner, had a sarcoma and died at the end of last year. She reports that the nursing staff and doctors were fantastic, but there was a lack of facilities, such that sometimes they would turn up for chemotherapy but there was no bed for Harry, so they had to go away and come back the next day. Going forward, we must ensure that that does not happen.

What is the solution? We need to get paediatric care out of the hospital and into the community. We need to get hot paediatrics—feverish kids—seen in the community, potentially by paediatricians or well-trained GPs. Furthermore, during GP training, which I have carried out for about 25 years, it is essential that every single doctor who becomes a GP has time in a paediatric assessment unit. The main feedback from the roundtable at the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health was that we must involve children in designing paediatric services, otherwise they will not work.

--- Later in debate ---

[Leigh Ingham (Stafford) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this debate. Like many colleagues in this House, I stood for election on a promise to help raise the healthiest generation of children in our country’s history—a bold ambition, but a worthy one. In order to get there, we need to look beyond the doctor’s office or the dinner table.

One of the most powerful and often overlooked tools that we have is physical activity—sports and play, and the chance to be outside. When sports and play are a part of a child’s daily life, they become a training ground not just for the body, but for life. In Stafford and across our villages, I have seen brilliant teachers and community workers help children to build the skills and confidence they need to stay engaged. One young constituent, Tane, spoke honestly to me about what he sees among his peers: rising mental health struggles, too much time online and a worrying dip in resilience. He is right, because when children do not get the opportunity to move and play, it affects their wellbeing and education, but also their future.

Where else but in sport do children learn how to lose with grace, win with kindness and keep going when things get tough? But not all children have parents who can afford to pay for clubs, kits or transport. For many, school is the only place where they will ever get to be part of a team or even discover a sport they love. That is why PE should never be seen as optional; it must be a core part of every school week. I welcome the Government’s renewed support for school sport partnerships, and their commitment to equality between girls and boys in sport, but we can go further. That means multi-year funding settlements that schools can count on, and a clear ambition that every child, no matter their background, has access to sport and play.

In Stafford, I have been campaigning for more inclusive public play places. Families of disabled and neurodivergent children tell me they avoid parks because they have nothing that their children can safely enjoy. Campaigners have spoken powerfully about this, as Christine McGuinness did only yesterday. Play is not a luxury; it is essential for children’s development, their health and their joy.

[Adam Jogee]

I am grateful to my constituency neighbour for giving way. For every Christine in Stafford, there is a Christine in Newcastle-under-Lyme too, and one uniting point that my hon. Friend and I will no doubt put to our colleagues at Staffordshire county council is for them to play their part, and to play their part fast.

[Leigh Ingham]

I am already on record as criticising Staffordshire county council today, so I will hold off in this debate—although it could be better at everything.

My commitment to play is why I co-sponsored the amendment to the Planning and Infrastructure Bill, in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Tom Hayes), that seeks to provide in law for sufficient play opportunities, especially inclusive play opportunities. I call on the Government to invest in potential, and to give every child the opportunity to grow up healthy, confident and, importantly, resilient—ready not just for school, but for life.