​The Department is committed to supporting schools to promote good mental wellbeing, provide a supportive environment for pupils experiencing problems and secure access to more specialist help for those who need it. This can be especially important for children who have experienced trauma. In November 2018, the Department updated its advice on Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools. It directs schools towards information on how trauma and adverse childhood experiences such as bereavement can affect individual children and how schools can adapt their approach to support these pupils within the context of a school environment which sets clear expectations of behaviour and clear routines. It also highlights the importance of continuous professional development to ensure staff have the knowledge and confidence to identify the early signs of mental health problems.

The Department is taking forward the proposals set out in our green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’. There are three core commitments, which are intended to support local areas to support children and young people’s mental health as quickly as possible.

The commitments will incentivise all schools and colleges to identify and train a Senior Mental Health Lead; to fund new Mental Health Support Teams (which will be supervised by NHS children and young people’s mental health staff) and the piloting of a four-week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services. As part of the Green Paper proposals, the Government also committed to provide Mental Health Awareness Training for a member of staff from all state funded secondary schools in England by March 2020. This programme is funded and managed by DHSC.

The Department provides support for schools to help them manage their security effectively so that they can meet their obligations and ensure they have in place sensible and proportionate security policies and plans, covering various scenarios – including terrorism.  As part of our regular review, the Department has been working with educational institutions and local authorities to better understand what role it should play in supporting institutions to better prepare for and respond to a terrorist incident that affects the sector.  As a result, the Department has developed incident response guidance. This guidance signposts resources and highlights areas for consideration in the immediate aftermath and the days and weeks following a terrorist incident that affects pupils, students or staff. A key part of the guidance is signposting resources for those experiencing mental health issues as a result of terrorist incidents near their school or home. The Department works closely with the cross-government Victims of Terrorism Unit to ensure the guidance we provide is accurate and includes the most relevant, up to date material. We expect to publish this in November.

​The Department is committed to supporting schools to promote good mental wellbeing, provide a supportive environment for pupils experiencing problems and secure access to more specialist help for those who need it. This can be especially important for children who have experienced trauma. In November 2018, the Department updated its advice on Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools. It directs schools towards information on how trauma and adverse childhood experiences such as bereavement can affect individual children and how schools can adapt their approach to support these pupils within the context of a school environment which sets clear expectations of behaviour and clear routines. It also highlights the importance of continuous professional development to ensure staff have the knowledge and confidence to identify the early signs of mental health problems.

The Department is taking forward the proposals set out in our green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’. There are three core commitments, which are intended to support local areas to support children and young people’s mental health as quickly as possible.

The commitments will incentivise all schools and colleges to identify and train a Senior Mental Health Lead; to fund new Mental Health Support Teams (which will be supervised by NHS children and young people’s mental health staff) and the piloting of a four-week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services. As part of the Green Paper proposals, the Government also committed to provide Mental Health Awareness Training for a member of staff from all state funded secondary schools in England by March 2020. This programme is funded and managed by DHSC.

The Department provides support for schools to help them manage their security effectively so that they can meet their obligations and ensure they have in place sensible and proportionate security policies and plans, covering various scenarios – including terrorism.  As part of our regular review, the Department has been working with educational institutions and local authorities to better understand what role it should play in supporting institutions to better prepare for and respond to a terrorist incident that affects the sector.  As a result, the Department has developed incident response guidance. This guidance signposts resources and highlights areas for consideration in the immediate aftermath and the days and weeks following a terrorist incident that affects pupils, students or staff. A key part of the guidance is signposting resources for those experiencing mental health issues as a result of terrorist incidents near their school or home. The Department works closely with the cross-government Victims of Terrorism Unit to ensure the guidance we provide is accurate and includes the most relevant, up to date material. We expect to publish this in November.

​The Department is committed to supporting schools to promote good mental wellbeing, provide a supportive environment for pupils experiencing problems and secure access to more specialist help for those who need it. This can be especially important for children who have experienced trauma. In November 2018, the Department updated its advice on Mental Health and Behaviour in Schools. It directs schools towards information on how trauma and adverse childhood experiences such as bereavement can affect individual children and how schools can adapt their approach to support these pupils within the context of a school environment which sets clear expectations of behaviour and clear routines. It also highlights the importance of continuous professional development to ensure staff have the knowledge and confidence to identify the early signs of mental health problems.

The Department is taking forward the proposals set out in our green paper ‘Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision’. There are three core commitments, which are intended to support local areas to support children and young people’s mental health as quickly as possible.

The commitments will incentivise all schools and colleges to identify and train a Senior Mental Health Lead; to fund new Mental Health Support Teams (which will be supervised by NHS children and young people’s mental health staff) and the piloting of a four-week waiting time for access to specialist NHS children and young people’s mental health services. As part of the Green Paper proposals, the Government also committed to provide Mental Health Awareness Training for a member of staff from all state funded secondary schools in England by March 2020. This programme is funded and managed by DHSC.

The Department provides support for schools to help them manage their security effectively so that they can meet their obligations and ensure they have in place sensible and proportionate security policies and plans, covering various scenarios – including terrorism.  As part of our regular review, the Department has been working with educational institutions and local authorities to better understand what role it should play in supporting institutions to better prepare for and respond to a terrorist incident that affects the sector.  As a result, the Department has developed incident response guidance. This guidance signposts resources and highlights areas for consideration in the immediate aftermath and the days and weeks following a terrorist incident that affects pupils, students or staff. A key part of the guidance is signposting resources for those experiencing mental health issues as a result of terrorist incidents near their school or home. The Department works closely with the cross-government Victims of Terrorism Unit to ensure the guidance we provide is accurate and includes the most relevant, up to date material. We expect to publish this in November.

We are aware of concerns about the potential for excessive spending in games, particularly by young people. These concerns, and particularly those regarding the availability of loot boxes, are discussed in the recent DCMS Select Committee report on Immersive and Addictive Technologies. We are currently considering the Report and its recommendations and will respond in due course.

We do not currently have an estimate of the amount spent by people under 18 on in-app or in-game purchases over the last 5 years. However, we note that the Gambling Commission’s new research on Children and Young People found that of the 11-16 year olds taking part in their survey, 52% had heard of the availability of in-game items and of these 44% had paid money to open loot boxes.

We encourage parents concerned about in-game spending by their children to consider using the parental controls available on devices to disable this function.

We are aware of concerns about the potential for excessive spending in games, particularly by young people. These concerns, and particularly those regarding the availability of loot boxes, are discussed in the recent DCMS Select Committee report on Immersive and Addictive Technologies. We are currently considering the Report and its recommendations and will respond in due course.

We do not currently have an estimate of the amount spent by people under 18 on in-app or in-game purchases over the last 5 years. However, we note that the Gambling Commission’s new research on Children and Young People found that of the 11-16 year olds taking part in their survey, 52% had heard of the availability of in-game items and of these 44% had paid money to open loot boxes.

We encourage parents concerned about in-game spending by their children to consider using the parental controls available on devices to disable this function.

When it comes to early intervention, youth activities, youth clubs and the kind of thing we have just heard about in Southend are the sort of important work that we want to support more. I have talked about the £220 million of early intervention funding, which is a record amount, and it will go towards doing that, supporting some 200 different projects.

Through the Department of Education, we know that the Higher Education Statistics Agency reported that, in 2017/18, 24,815 UK resident entrants to higher education settings disclosed a diagnosed mental health condition such as anxiety. Robust data is not available to determine how much of this increase is down to increased disclosure resulting from reduced stigma, and how much is due to increased prevalence.

Any disclosure of diagnosed mental health conditions by higher education students to their institution is voluntary. The actual number of university students with diagnosed mental health conditions is therefore unknown.

The Department does not collect or publish information on the number of young people who live in their [family] home, or in university towns due to unaffordable rent in large cities and regional centres.

We welcome the recent report by the Institute for Fiscal Studies on the health effects of Sure Start. Across the key health outcomes for children and young people, children living in households in the lowest socio-economic groups have worse outcomes than other children. There are clear benefits to early investment and support through pregnancy and the early years. Children’s centres can play an important role in supporting families, but it is right local councils decide how to organise and provide services for families in their areas to meet local needs – whether this is through children’s centre buildings or delivering services in different ways.

Local authorities have a duty under the Childcare Act (2006) to ensure sufficient children’s centres to meet the needs of local families. Funding for children’s services (including children’s centres) is made available through the local government finance settlement. In addition, other government funding, including that for public health, adult skills training and troubled families may also be used locally to support services delivered wholly, or in part, through children’s centres. Children services funding for 2020-2021 and beyond will be determined in the Spending Review.

Obesity and poor diet are risk factors for bowel cancer in young people.

The second chapter of the world-leading childhood obesity plan was published in June 2018. This builds on the real progress made since the publication of chapter one in 2016, particularly in reformulation of the products our children eat and drink most. In chapter two we have set a bold ambition to halve childhood obesity by 2030 and significantly reduce the gap in obesity between children from the most and least deprived areas by 2030.

Many of the measures in both chapters of the plan will have an impact on tackling obesity across all age groups. These include the soft drinks industry levy, sugar reduction and wider calorie reformulation programme, restricting promotions and calorie labelling in restaurants which will improve our eating habits and reduce the amount of sugar we consume.

‘Childhood obesity: a plan for action, chapter 2’ is available at the following link:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/childhood-obesity-a-plan-for-action-chapter-2

The Government is committed to respecting, protecting and promoting our democracy. We want to build upon recent record levels of individuals registering to vote and participating in elections. Our Register to Vote website is widely used by young people: over 7.83 million online applications have been submitted by 16-24 year olds since the service was introduced in 2014. Ahead of the General Election in June 2017 young people aged under 25 were particularly engaged, submitting over 1 million applications - more than 35% of all applications received in the pre-election period.

Since then we have taken further steps to promote democratic engagement amongst young people. Making use of the Suffrage Fund, we have delivered three projects to promote youth engagement: a scheme to recruit and train 1000 youth Democracy Ambassadors; the development and publication of a toolkit for parliamentarians to engage young people; and a new history and citizenship resource for secondary schools (www.suffrageresources.org.uk).

The Government’s recent report, Democratic Engagement: Respecting, Protecting and Promoting Our Democracy, sets out how we work with partners to encourage democratic participation. This includes National Democracy Week, which convenes youth focused organisations such as the British Youth Council, UK Youth, Elevation Networks and Patchwork Foundation to deliver targeted democratic engagement activity. The report also highlights steps to help Higher Education providers work with local authorities to promote electoral registration amongst their student populations.

DCMS provides funding for the UK Youth Parliament, Youth Select Committee and Make Your Mark ballot which support young people to raise issues on local and national levels.

Make Your Mark is a ballot of youth views which gives the UK Youth Parliament its mandate and gets young people, aged 11-18, involved in democracy, with over 1 million young people voting in 2018. (http://www.ukyouthparliament.org.uk/makeyourmark/)

The Government and construction industry have agreed an ambitious Sector Deal which aims to transform the productivity of the sector, including measures to increase skills and apprenticeships. We are working with the Construction Leadership Council (CLC), Construction Innovation Hub and Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) to identify the skills needed for the construction sector of the future and helping design the qualifications frameworks and training programmes that will enable firms to train the next generation of apprentices in these skills. A joint Government and industry commitment to develop 50 new construction apprenticeship standards by the end of 2018 has already been exceeded, with 82 new apprenticeship standards agreed.

Other measures include: a commitment to complete CITB’s reform programme by end 2019, to make it a more streamlined, responsive and effective organisation; an industry-led goal of increasing construction apprenticeship starts to 25k per annum by 2020; £34m investment in the Construction Skills Fund, to establish 20 onsite training hubs by 2020; an improved careers portal for the sector (through CITB’s GoConstruct), to help improve diversity of recruitment; work with industry to ensure sufficient high-quality work placements are available for the introduction of construction T Levels in 2020; and using public procurement to help drive investment in construction skills.

The following table from NHS Digital shows a count of finished admission episodes (FAEs) with a primary diagnosis of K76.0 - Fatty (Change of) liver, for patients aged under 18, for the financial years 2013-14 to 2017-18. Clinical code K76.0 includes, but is not limited to, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

Activity in English National Health Service hospitals and English NHS-commissioned activity in the independent sector

Source: Hospital Episode Statistics (HES), NHS Digital

An FAE is the first period of admitted patient care under one consultant within one healthcare provider. FAEs are counted against the year or month in which the admission episode finishes. Admissions do not represent the number of patients, as a person may have more than one admission within the period. Changes to the figures over time need to be interpreted in the context of improvements in data quality and coverage, improvements in coverage of independent sector activity and changes in NHS practice. For example, apparent reductions in activity may be due to a number of procedures that may now be undertaken in outpatient settings and so are no longer included in admitted patient HES data. Conversely, apparent increases in activity may be due to improved recording of diagnosis or procedure information.

The number of 16-18 year olds studying modern foreign languages is not held centrally, but the number of students entering an A level exam in any modern foreign language has been provided as a proxy.

The number of entries by students at the end of their 16-18 study in England for 2009/10 to 2017/18[1] inclusive is provided in the tables below. Further information can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/a-level-and-other-16-to-18-results-2017-to-2018-revised.

Source: 16-18 attainment data.

[1] Covers examination results of students aged 16, 17 or 18 at the start of the academic year, i.e. 31 August 2017.

[2] Figures from 2012/13 to 2014/15 cover students at the end of advanced level study who were entered for at least one A level, applied single award A level, applied double award A level or combined A/AS level in the reporting year. Figures for earlier years cover students who were entered for at least one A level, applied single award A level, applied double award A level or combined A/AS level in the summer of the reporting year.

[3] Figures for 2015/16 onwards cover students at the of advanced level study who were entered for at least one A/AS level, applied single A/AS level, applied double A/AS level or combined A/AS level during their 16-18 study. As a result there has been a large increase in the number of A level students since 2016 and therefore figures are not directly comparable to earlier years.

[4] 2018 figures are based on revised data. Figures for all other years are final.

The requested information is provided in the table below:

Proportions of under-18s who joined the UK Regular Armed Forces and left their Service before their 18th birthday, by Financial Year (FY) and Service

Notes:

1. FYs relate to the year in which personnel joined the UK Regular Armed Forces.

2. Outflow relates to those who have subsequently left the UK Regular Armed Forces having joined in each FY and includes those who left in the same FY or a later FY.

3. Outflow has been measured to 30 September 2018. There may still be some outflow of personnel who joined before 31 March 2017 and have not yet reached age 18.

4. The proportion of under-18s who joined in FY 2017-18 and subsequently left before the age of 18 is not yet known.

5. Tildes ‘~’ refer to percentages which are suppressed on the basis that the underpinning numbers are below five.

The Serious Violence Strategy published in April last year places a new emphasis on early intervention and prevention and includes a range of measures to prevent young people from becoming involved in crime and violence in the first place.

The Strategy specifically sets out measures to support schools and young people at risk of involvement in serious violence, such as commitments to improve guidance to services, exploring models of partnerships working between schools and police and to work with the Department for Education to consider the support provided to young people who are at risk or have been excluded from school. The Strategy further commits to fund early intervention and prevention initiatives, for example through the Early Intervention Youth Fund and Anti-Knife Crime Community Fund.

The Home Secretary chairs the Serious Violence Taskforce, of which the Department for Education is a member, which brings together partners within government and across sectors to drive forward implementation of the Strategy. The Taskforce has discussed a range of issues including young people in gangs and how services, including the education system, can better identify these young people. The Inter-Ministerial Group on Serious Violence has also discussed the issue of vulnerable young people at risk of involvement in serious violence.

In general, funding for mental health services, such as counselling, is the responsibility of local clinical commissioning groups (CCGs). Some CCGs may choose to use non-National Health Service providers, including those run by charities. It is up to the local CCG to make commissioning decisions.

The Department does directly provide funding to third sector organisations through the voluntary, community and social enterprise organisation (VCSE) Health and Wellbeing Programme, which launched in 2016, replacing the previous VCSE grant funding and engagement programmes. A key part of the programme is the Health and Wellbeing Fund, and the theme for the Fund in 2019-20 is children and young people’s mental health. More information can be found at the following link:

www.gov.uk/government/publications/vcse-health-and-wellbeing-fund-2019-to-2020-how-to-apply

The information requested falls within the responsibility of the UK Statistics Authority. I have asked the Authority to reply.

As part of the Suffrage Centenary programme, the Government has been leading on a number of projects designed to promote democratic engagement and electoral registration in secondary schools. This includes the Parliamentarian Toolkit and Secondary Schools Resource.

The Toolkit includes activities and worksheets that parliamentarians can use with pupils when visiting schools or engaging with young people at youth clubs or on social media. It has been designed to teach young people about their democratic rights today and the history of those who fought for these rights. Exercises will help generate discussion and encourage young people to think about the role of democracy in their lives.

The Government has also commissioned the Historical Association to develop a Schools Resource which will be launched later this year. The Resource will use a historical knowledge base to improve pupils’ understanding of UK democracy, democratic institutions and of how they can participate in our democratic processes today. While the funding is England-only, Devolved Administrations are welcome to utilise the materials.

Spending on mental health is planned to increase to a record £11.86 billion in 2017/18.

The government has published proposals to improve mental health support for children and young people in England, and over £300 million has been made available to fund these.