Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether the £100 million announced for parent and infant mental health in the Spending Review 2021 will be spent on perinatal and/or infant mental health services within the NHS.

The investment will allow us to invest in a package of support for staff, training and interventions to support the social and emotional development of parents and infants from conception until a child’s second birthday. Service provision varies across the country according to need, therefore local areas will be given the opportunity to tailor their perinatal and parent-infant mental health support offer. Provision is likely to be a combination of support for perinatal mental health and infant mental health. Further details on the process for allocating funding for these services will be confirmed in due course.