Amanda Hack

I first want to say how incredible it is that Members are stood here in the Houses of Parliament discussing the mental health of our young people, and I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Redditch (Chris Bloore) for bringing forward such a critical debate. In a previous role on the health scrutiny committee for Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland, it was clear to me that young people are waiting too long for treatment, and that is having a long-term detrimental impact on them. That is in addition to the increasing number of young people on too-long CAMHS waiting lists. We also need to look at specialist services, such as for those suffering with disordered eating, which has doubled in just a couple of years. It is clear that we need to improve early intervention for our young people. We have to ensure that young people discuss mental health not only as part of the curriculum, but with their peers. We also need to ensure that young people reach out for support when they need it. Just as importantly, we need to listen to them and act when they do reach out—often, young people are ignored. Our children and young adults have experienced a global pandemic. We cannot ignore this period in their lives and the impact it has had on some of them. I have two teenagers, so I have seen it at first hand. By increasing mental health support in educational settings, we know that we can provide the foundations that our young people will need for their future. We are discussing something that cannot always be seen on the surface and that is often viewed as off-limits. I often think about a group of young people I visited in an alternative educational provision setting in Moira in my constituency. From speaking to them, I know how difficult and tough life has already been for them at such a young age, but I also feel empowered by them—they were amazing young people. They knew the support they had received when they needed it had turned their lives around. For some, school can be six hours of relentless bullying, abuse or loneliness. Sixty per cent of our 11 to 16-year-olds told Girlguiding that they had received negative comments about their appearance from other people, some of which were in a school setting. Nearly half of seven to 10-year-olds say they feel alone some or all of the time—seven to 10 is so little. Too often when we have conversations about mental health support, we just talk about teenagers. Mental health support needs to be available for young people of every age to help them build healthy habits, to help them talk about what they need from us, and to set out where they can go for support.