Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps she is taking to hold universities to account on their duty of care to students.

The department’s position is that a duty of care in higher education (HE) may arise in certain circumstances. Such circumstances would be a matter for the courts to decide, based on the specific facts and context of the case being considered, and will be dependent on the application by a court of accepted common law principles.

The department continues to work closely with students, parents, mental health experts and the HE sector to drive meaningful change in mental health practice through the HE mental health implementation taskforce. The taskforce published its second stage report, which is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/higher-education-mental-health-implementation-taskforce.