5. Debate on the Children, Young People and Education Committee report on its inquiry into the Emotional and Mental Health of Children and Young People

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 4:34 pm on 4 July 2018.

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Photo of Lynne Neagle Lynne Neagle Labour 4:34, 4 July 2018

Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. I've got three minutes and 30 seconds to reply, which does rather limit what I can do. So, I hope that Members will forgive me if I don't respond to each individual contribution, but I would like to assure you that we will go through the Record and make sure that everybody gets a response to this really important debate. I would like to thank everybody who's spoken, from across parties. It is just so heartening to hear the massive support that there is in this place for the step change that the committee knows is needed. Particularly—although I said I wasn't going to respond to individual contributions—I would just like to thank David and Lee for sharing their personal experiences, which is not just courageous but helps everybody else realise that it's okay to talk about these things. So, thank you to both of you.

I should thank, as well, our brilliant clerk and our fantastic research team. We are really lucky, as a committee, to have such a brilliant team supporting us. I thank the members of the committee who've worked really hard on this important inquiry and thank again the stakeholders who have come to us so willingly and shared their experiences in such a powerful way. I think the committees are one of the huge strengths of this Assembly, and we're privileged and should be grateful that people come to us to share their views in that way. Nobody has a monopoly on good ideas, and I hope that is something that the Welsh Government will take into account. I'd like to thank the Cabinet Secretary for her response and thank her for her engagement with me, as usual. Even where we haven't agreed, there has been a willingness to engage, and I know that she personally is very committed to tackling these issues.

I hope that the Government will reflect on the response, because even the Cabinet Secretary's comments there highlight some of the anomalies, really. I am disappointed that the Welsh Government has got so hung up on the issue of everybody—or people working with children—having some basic mental health training, because I don't think that is too ambitious. There are loads of models out there. You only have to look at Dementia Friends—45 minutes to give you a really good understanding. The health committee has heard about 20-minute suicide prevention training. There are models out there, and I don't think it should be too much of an aspiration for us to try and do this for our children and young people.

I'm pleased with the movement that there's been, but there needs to be much, much more. What I would say is that the movement on the 'missing middle' recommendation just is a very powerful example, really, of how I don't think this response has been properly considered, because if people had read the narrative, understood the narrative and realised that this is happening in Gwent anyway, then there should have been no need for that rejection. So, it doesn't tell a good story about joined-up Government on such an important issue.

Can I just conclude, then, by thanking again the young people—the young people that are here for this debate, but also all the young people who have engaged with the inquiry and who I know this is so important to? I assure them that we have heard their voices and we, as a committee, will continue to do everything that we can with maximum urgency to get that step change that we need. This is about more than talking about early intervention. It's about more than claiming mental health has parity with physical health. This is about delivering this for our children and young people. If we get that right, not only will we improve the quality of their lives, but I believe we will save lives. Thank you.