Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many children and young people in secondary schools across England have access to a school-based counsellor; and how many of those children are in (a) maintained schools, (b) academy schools and (c) further educational establishments.

Children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing is a priority for this Government.

Schools are able to decide on the most appropriate support to provide for their pupils, including school-based counselling, based on their individual circumstances. To inform their decisions Government has published advice, drawn up with experts, on how to provide effective access to counselling support.

We do not require schools and colleges to report centrally on the support they provide. However, to inform further policy development, we are currently conducting a nationally representative survey of schools and colleges about what they offer to support the mental health of their pupils and students. The results should be available next spring and will provide national estimates of the proportion of schools and colleges which make different types of provision, including school-based counselling.