Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan

Debate between Daniel Kawczynski and Kevan Jones

Wednesday 15th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jones]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, eating disorders can affect people of any age, but there is a huge cohort that are young. I am coming on to my concerns about particular emphasis on young people’s mental health, which needs to be addressed.

[Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Mr Jones]

Give me two minutes to make some progress. There are two issues that I want to highlight, which will fall through the cracks without dedicated attention. That is tackling disparities, and the mental health of children and young people, just raised by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). In the original plan for the 10-year strategy, the Government spoke about tackling enhanced disparities. They said:

“Addressing disparities will be a key aim across the whole of the mental health plan—from prevention through to early intervention and treatment.”

[Daniel Kawczynski]

The right hon. Gentleman is talking about young people. We would all concur that additional support for young people with mental health issues is extremely important. Does he agree that emotional intelligence support for young people is related to this? Does he agree that more emotional intelligence should be taught in schools, to help people through with their mental wellbeing?

[Mr Jones]

Personally, I would not call it emotional intelligence; I would call it emotional robustness and I will come on to say more about that. However, the hon. Gentleman is right about the importance of trying to make sure that young people are as robust as possible in dealing with the situations that face them now in modern life.

The discussion paper for the 10-year plan mentioned no fewer than 18 disparity factors relating to mental health, including financial insecurity, discrimination, the criminal justice system, poor quality of work or employment, living standards—the list goes on. It is important to acknowledge those factors, because the Government themselves said that they needed to be addressed in mental health and wellbeing plan. Colleagues will know that I have often been on the record saying that the way to tackle mental health and wellbeing is to make sure that we hardwire into Government policy consideration of mental health and resilience across Departments. That is why I welcomed the approach in the plan.

However, building consideration of mental health into a major conditions strategy means that only one disparity factor is likely to be taken into consideration, which is physical health. Many other disparity factors, which are often complex, obviously relate to people’s wellbeing, but I fear they will be sidelined in the strategy.

Let us just take one of those other disparity factors, which is financial insecurity. According to the Office for National Statistics last autumn, around one in six adults experienced moderate or severe depressive symptoms. That increased to one in four for those who find it difficult to pay energy bills, or rent or mortgage payments. And according to a YouGov poll for Barnardo’s, almost a third of parents said that children’s mental health has worsened during the cost of living crisis.

We know that the effect of wellbeing on health includes its effect on mental health, which is substantial. This was such a key priority for the Government that they outlined its importance in their levelling-up agenda. The levelling up White Paper said that

“wellbeing has a bearing on all four of the UK Government’s objectives for levelling up”.

The 10-year plan discussion paper specifically said that

“a new plan for mental health is needed to deliver the Government’s levelling up mission to narrow the gap in healthy life expectancy between local areas”.

However, we now have no mental health 10-year plan, so where does that leave those good words that were in the levelling up White Paper?

We also need early intervention and prevention, which are so important. We know for a fact that around 50% of mental health conditions are established by the time that a child reaches the age of 14 and 75% of them are established by the time someone is 24. However, it is estimated that 60% of children and young people who have diagnosable mental health conditions currently do not receive NHS care. I share the very valid concerns raised by mental health charities and others that scrapping the 10-year plan and merging mental health into the major conditions strategy means that the people who will be at most risk will be children and young people, who are less likely to have chronic physical health conditions, but are most likely to benefit from early intervention, for example counselling or psychotherapy.

I have spoken before about the importance of making sure that we get children and young people’s mental health right. Rates of probable mental health disorders in children aged between six and 16 have risen from 11.6% in 2017 to 18% in 2022. That equates to one in six children aged between six and 16 having a probable mental health condition. And as has already been mentioned, 700,000 children have accessed mental health services in the last 12 months.