Dear constituent,

Thank you for contacting me about funding for mental health research, specifically in relation to young people and social media.

Keeping children safe online must be a priority. Some of the trends emerging on social media can be extremely detrimental to both physical and mental wellbeing. I am aware of desperately tragic stories involving young people harming themselves and, in some cases, taking their own lives after being exposed to harmful content online.

Despite years of warnings from the Opposition, campaign groups and charities, I am concerned that the Government has so far failed to take robust action.

The draft Online Safety Bill seeks to address a wide range of concerns relating to online harms. It has the potential to be the world-leading legislation that we need it to be, sending a message to social media giants who, for too long, have got away with allowing - and in some cases even promoting - harmful content online.

However, I share the concerns raised by the Joint Committee examining the Bill that the draft legislation is not ambitious or broad enough in scope to tackle the issues at their root. I urge Ministers to act on the Joint Committee’s recommendations and hold online tech giants to account for the design and operation of their systems.

Furthermore, the mental health charity MQ and others have raised the important point that this legislation must be supported by scientific research, to evaluate and understand the link between social media use and children’s mental health.

I support calls for a whole-Government plan to improve mental health outcomes for children. The UK sees great returns on research funding, both in terms of the economy and the positive impact for those who rely on breakthroughs in treatment.

More widely, Ministers must guarantee investment in mental health services and ensure parity of esteem with physical health. I support the establishment of a new NHS target that would guarantee mental health treatment within a month for all who need it. This should form part of a wider, transformative package that would see a radical expansion of the mental health workforce, an open access mental health hub for children and young people in every community and specialist mental health support in every school.

Thank you once again for contacting me about this issue.

Yours Sincerely,

Peter Dowd MP