Josh Dean

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stuart. I thank the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) for securing this important debate, and my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (Perran Moon) for his deeply moving and courageous speech. As with many mental illnesses, eating disorders often present first in children and young people. Like other hon. Members, I am alarmed by the NHS England statistics that show that in 2023, 12.5% of 17 to 19-year-olds in England were living with an eating disorder. According to YoungMinds, “Young people can use their behaviour around food and eating to try to cope with…difficult thoughts, feelings and experiences.” YoungMinds also states: “Over time, these kinds of thoughts and behaviours around food become very fixed and difficult to change—and may start to take over daily life.” Early intervention for a young person struggling with an eating disorder is clearly critical if we want to support them to live a healthy, fulfilling life. I was politicised at school by the disparities in the mental health support received by my peers, and we know that young people today are at the sharp end of the mental health crisis. I, too, have had friends who struggled with eating disorders and disordered eating, and during the general election last year I was contacted by a young woman who had waited four years for her first child and adolescent mental health services appointment. Sadly, that has become the norm, rather than the exception, for young people with mental illnesses. I welcome this Government’s commitment to cutting NHS waiting lists and investing in talking therapies. I also welcome the commitment this Government have made to getting mental health support into our schools and delivering a network of Young Futures hubs with trained youth workers and drop-in mental health support, so that we can address eating disorders and mental health conditions early, and support our young people. I have a few specific questions for the Minister, and I would be grateful if he could address them in his response. First, could he set out what the Government are doing to improve the early identification of eating disorders? For example, in 2023, Place2Be called for every professional working with children and young people, including in the healthcare workforce, to be trained to identify young people with potentially impairing eating behaviours. Has the Department had considered that? Given the huge impact of the pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of young people, could the Minister further set out what action the Government are taking to specifically support individuals who developed an eating disorder or mental health condition during that time? Finally, could the Minister set out what cross-departmental work the Government are undertaking to ensure a joined-up approach to supporting young people with eating disorders? Those struggling with eating disorders deserve support and they need action, and we must treat eating disorders as the emergency that they represent. I was particularly moved by the words of the hon. Member for Bath, given her important work on the issue over a number of years, about the frustration of seeing things get worse, not better. I reflect on my experience as a young person going through school and watching my peers struggle with eating disorders and mental health conditions. Now I come into this place to represent my community, knowing that young people today are struggling so much more. That makes the urgency of the task even greater, so I thank the her again for her work and for securing the debate.