Baroness Tyler of Enfield (LD)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her response to this, as she said, wide-ranging—you could even say “interesting”, in a certain sense—debate. I simply reflect that, in terms of the tone of the debate that we have had, there was a time not so long ago—perhaps a few years ago—when, if you were talking about children’s mental health and well-being in this Chamber, there would have been a certain sort of debate. There would probably have been a general consensus about the problem and what we were trying to achieve, and there would probably have been some disagreement over the best way of getting there. I have to say: that is no longer the case. As with so many things in this current world, this whole issue seems to have become highly polarised and contested in a way that I find pretty unhelpful, but we are where we are. We can all quote our favourite bit of evidence or research report that backs up our own worldview but, frankly, unless you are looking at these things in the round, that rarely takes you much further forward. I was pleased to hear the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, talk about the need to look carefully at the root causes of mental health issues. That was a very helpful perspective; personally, pretending that a problem does not exist rarely helps to address it. I do not recognise that schools have turned into some sort of industrial complex of mental health with an excess of mental health professionals. All I can say is that the schools I have visited are not like that; they tell me what an issue mental health is and how they want extra help and support. That is all I am going to say in general terms. I will respond to a couple of the points on the amendments. On my amendment, I was moderately encouraged to hear the Minister talk about the pilots, looking at the enhanced levels of support from mental health support teams. That is exactly what I was trying to get at in my amendment about the missing middle, as I put it. It is about the skills mix. There is a legitimate question to look at there. I hope that that we can return to that point on Report because, according to the people I have talked to—practitioners on the front line—it is important. There was such a strong consensus. Well, it was not a consensus, but many people in the Chamber could see clearly the case that was being mounted for a national well-being survey—a voluntary survey. No one would be forced to do it. None of it would form any part of the accountability system of schools, but it would be something that those schools could have and use. Having and being able to use that data will be fundamental if we are to increase the well-being of children and young people in schools. As far as I am concerned, there is no running away from the PISA data that tells us that the UK’s young people have the lowest well-being in Europe and the second worst in the OECD. That is what PISA tells us. We need to do something about it. To do something about it, we need to be collecting that data. I am sure we will want to think about this again, and about putting it across—the costs would be very modest indeed—in a way that will be acceptable to the Minister and to this Government. Until we have that, we will not be able to address the fundamental problem of children who have poor well-being, are unhappy with perhaps poor mental health, do not learn well, do not achieve, and do not live the fulfilling lives that we all want them to live. However, at this point, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.