Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment his Department has made of the long-term economic merits of supporting children to have a safe, happy and healthy childhood.

The department’s vision is to provide world-class education, training and care to make sure that everyone has the chance to reach their potential and live a more fulfilled life. This will create a more productive economy, so that our country is fit for the future.

For example, one of the department’s priorities is to improve our understanding of child wellbeing and happiness. Beginning in 2019, the government will publish a State of the Nation report every year on World Mental Health Day. This report will highlight the trends and issues in young people’s mental well-being - the first time children’s mental health will be reported in this way, alongside their physical health and academic attainment. The government will also provide tools to help schools measure their students’ health, including their mental wellbeing - building on the commitment to make education in mental health and resilience a compulsory part of the curriculum. Further information on these announcements can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-pledges-action-on-suicide-to-mark-world-mental-health-day.

The department has also announced it is developing an activity passport - a template intended to provide ideas to schools to support their efforts to encourage young people to try a wider range of activities and develop new interests.

Further details on how the department will ensure that education builds character, resilience and well-being is provided in our single departmental plan, available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/department-for-education-single-departmental-plan/may-2018-department-for-education-single-departmental-plan.

Nothing is more important than safeguarding children and promoting their welfare. This is why we have strengthened local safeguarding arrangements through the Children and Social Work Act (2017) by placing a duty on the safeguarding partners, - the police, health and the local authority - to work together to make plans to keep children safe. As part of this we have consulted on and updated the ‘Working Together to Safeguard Children’ statutory guidance.

All children deserve a safe environment in which they can learn and schools and colleges are under a legislative duty to make arrangements to safeguard and promote the welfare of their pupils. We recently consulted on and strengthened the ‘Keeping Children Safe in Education’, statutory guidance for schools. We also provide a range of advice documents to support schools and colleges to keep their children safe, including sexual harassment and sexual violence advice, bullying advice and behaviour advice.