Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what fiscal steps his Department is taking to ensure that young people are able to access support for their mental health.

We are committed through the NHS Long Term Plan to investing at least £2.3 billion of extra funding a year into mental health services by 2023-24. This will see an additional 345,000 children and young people able to access support through National Health Service-funded services or school- and college-based mental health support teams.

To support adult and children whose mental health has been affected by the pandemic, we have provided £5 million of additional funding for mental health charities and, on 22 May, we announced a further £4.2 million to be awarded to mental health charities including those supporting children and young people such as Young Minds, as part of the Government’s United Kingdom-wide £750 million package of support for the voluntary sector.