Nick Fletcher (Don Valley) (Con) I beg to move, That this House has
considered e-petition 622847, relating to a statutory duty of care
for higher education students. It is a pleasure to serve under your
chairmanship, Sir Robert. I thank the 128,292 petitioners and pay
tribute to the lead petitioner, Lee Fryatt, who lost his son Daniel
to suicide, all others who have given evidence or whom my office
has spoken to—Ben West, Hilary Grime, James Murray, Maggie
Abrahart,...Request free trial
(Don Valley) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered e-petition 622847, relating to a
statutory duty of care for higher education students.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I
thank the 128,292 petitioners and pay tribute to the lead
petitioner, Lee Fryatt, who lost his son Daniel to suicide, all
others who have given evidence or whom my office has spoken
to—Ben West, Hilary Grime, , Maggie Abrahart, Mark
Shanahan, Hema Patel and Alice Armstrong—and all those who have
lost loved ones and been on a long journey not just to get to
today’s debate but to take on the universities and the Government
with one focus: preventing any more young people from taking
their lives.
Through my work as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on
issues affecting men and boys, and in the many debates that I
have led as a member of the Petitions Committee, I have spent
much time listening to family members who have lost loved ones by
suicide—heartbreaking stories, every single one of them. As Ged
Flynn from PAPYRUS stated, the longer he works in this field the
more he realises
“how complex suicide is. The contributory factors to suicide are
so many and so varied…but there are commonalities in those
stories that we must learn from.”
The question today is whether one of the lessons is to put in
place a statutory duty of care for students in higher
education.
I will run through some core statistics, which do not make for
good reading. Between the 2017 and 2020 academic years, 202 male
students died by suicide, as did 117 female students—319 lives
that could have been saved. The Petitions Committee ran an online
survey asking petitioners about their experience of poor mental
health at university, the support provided by their university,
and their views on introducing a statutory duty of care for
higher education students. More than 1,500 people replied. The
figures showed that an extremely large percentage of the current
and former students had suffered, or were suffering, with their
mental health. Around half felt that their university was very
unsupportive and did not feel that they could discuss the issue
with their tutor. For institutions that exist to work with young
people, that is poor.
(Halesowen and Rowley Regis)
(Con)
I, too, congratulate all the petitioners on securing today’s
debate. My hon. Friend is outlining some stark statistics. Mental
health in higher education has become a lot more complex and
serious following the covid pandemic, which revealed quite a lot
about the mental health of students. Does he agree that it is
probably time to review the law in this area to ensure that we
have everything in place to protect students, as more of their
mental health problems become apparent?
I could not agree more, and Members will hear more of my thoughts
on that.
Returning to the survey, parents and guardians were equally
disappointed, with 79% stating that they disagreed or strongly
disagreed that the current mental health support for university
students is adequate. A large percentage also thought that if
their child were showing signs of mental health issues, the
university would be in contact. We will learn later that that is
not always the case.
(Leeds Central) (Lab)
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that when a student at university
attempts suicide their parents should be told? I find it
inexplicable that that is currently not the case. Secondly, I
understand that Universities UK has drawn up suicide prevention
guidelines, which the vice-chancellor of Bristol was talking
about this morning. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, as an
interim measure, those should be made compulsory for
universities, rather than optional?
On the right hon. Gentleman’s point about not contacting parents,
I believe that some universities cite GDPR as an issue. In my
experience, safeguarding always overrides GDPR, so that is
definitely something we need to look at. I will speak later about
the guidance, but I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his
contribution.
Overall, the survey showed that support for students varies
significantly across the 200-plus universities and higher
education settings. Both students and parents expect better. I
have heard terrible stories, including of students being told by
email that they are being asked to leave their university; zero
marks being given without explanation and with no one available
to talk to immediately; emergency contact numbers not being
called in times of crisis, as the right hon. Gentleman just
mentioned; deaths being announced before family members can tell
their wider family; universities deleting student records in
advance of any coroner’s inquest; data protection laws being used
wrongly so as not to tell parents; and a general lack of
training. Given that students are paying £9,000 a year to
universities, is that acceptable?
(Ynys Môn) (Con)
My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech. As many Members know,
this subject is incredibly difficult for me to talk about, given
my personal experiences, but I would like to highlight the case
of one of my constituents. Mared Foulkes from Menai Bridge was in
her second year of studying pharmacy at Cardiff University when
she received an automated email from the university, hours before
her death, saying that she had failed her exams and would not be
moving on to her third year. Does my hon. Friend agree that that
is completely unacceptable?
I know how important the subject is to my hon. Friend, and I
agree that that kind of behaviour from universities is appalling.
Their entire being is about young people. They really need to do
better.
The petitioners call for a statutory duty of care, akin to
employers’ duty of care for employees, to protect them from
foreseeable harm caused by either direct or indirect actions.
Parents said that a duty of care would improve communication with
families—as we have seen, that definitely needs to happen—take
into account extenuating circumstances and the need to offer
further support; lead to better availability of support services
and staff training; mean the recording and investigation of
student suicides, including the publication of student suicide
rates; and give consistency of service at all universities.
The Government say that universities have a general duty of care.
There is a case in which that was found not to be the case, but
because there is an appeal in respect of the case, it is not
possible to discuss the details any further. Universities UK has
said that they have a moral and ethical duty, while also
suggesting that there could be some kind of mandatory excellence
framework, as it believes in continuous development.
(Staffordshire Moorlands)
(Con)
My hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful speech. I want to
speak out on behalf of my constituent Esther Brennan, who is here
with us today. Esther lost her son Theo. Theo went through all
the processes that the university put in place, and the
university failed him at every level. At the inquest, the
university claimed that it did not have a duty of care, and the
inquest found in favour of that position. That cannot be
acceptable. We cannot have this uncertainty. Does my hon. Friend
agree that we need clarity on this issue?
I thank my right hon. Friend for her contribution. I send my
sincere condolences to her constituent’s family. It is a terrible
issue and a terrible blow to the family. I will come to her point
later.
AMOSSHE, the student services organisation, recently stated that
it did not believe that an additional statutory duty of care
“is the right approach for embedding the wider improvements”
that it is committed to
“and that have been identified by bereaved families and the LEARN
Network.”
PAPYRUS agrees that there should not be a statutory duty of care
and that a more societal approach should be taken instead.
Further questions that have arisen from my research include the
following. Why are all universities not implementing the trusted
contact system and then using it? Why have all universities not
signed up to the “Suicide-safer universities” guidance and the
university mental health charter? Why are universities still
carrying out bad practice such as telling students they must
leave by email, without any thought of the inevitable emotional
and mental impact? Why are universities not coming together to go
through the coroners’ reports of the 319 tragedies that I
mentioned to find common themes and spread best practice to avoid
future deaths?
(Bury South) (Lab)
The hon. Member is making an impassioned speech. My constituent
Anu Abraham was on placement as part of a three-year course with
Leeds Trinity University, training to be a police officer. Not
only was he failed by the police, but he was failed by his
university. Sadly, he took his own life in March this year due to
the bullying that he was subjected to at his first placement, at
Halifax police station. Far too often, calls of this nature are
put to one side. As the hon. Member has said, a duty of care is
needed, but does he agree with me and Anu’s family that we must
ultimately learn from these cases? If we do not have a duty of
care, we certainly need a much more holistic view to ensure that
parents are fully understanding. Ultimately, parents put their
trust in these institutions to look after their children, and
that trust needs to be repaid with responsibility.
Again, I send my condolences to the family of the hon. Member’s
constituent. In this debate, we need to discuss that exact issue.
The petitioners want a statutory duty of care, but there are many
voices to be heard. I hope that we will have a good debate and
that the Government will learn from it.
I hope this debate, with the facts that I have listed and the
questions I have raised, will help all stakeholders come to the
right decision for our young people. Before I finish, I want to
state how I see the issue. Too many young people are taking their
lives, but why? I believe we need to build more resilience in our
young people. Life is tough, but it has always been tough—it is
just tough in different ways. Work needs to be done to see how we
can better prepare all our young people in the years before they
go to university.
I say to universities: these young people are not just customers;
they are students, and the sole reason for you working in the
environment that you do. I know time and money are pressing, and
I know many students are off and on campus and can live
elsewhere, but surely to goodness you have to try harder. We
legislate in this place when things go wrong out there, so please
sort out what you are doing and get your heads together. If
signing up to the guidance and the charter is a good step, which
I believe it is, then please get on with it—no exceptions. You
are meant to be the brains of this country. We should not have to
debate this issue here. You are doing some good work, but you
could be doing so much better.
I say to our Government: a statutory duty of care would ensure
that all parties knew where they stood, but until we have one,
please use the levers you have to make the universities do better
at helping our young people. If they do not, do what the
petitioners ask and legislate so that they must.
I say to parents: your child might think they are grown up—mine
certainly do, and many in this place keep telling me that they
are; the Opposition want to give them the vote at 16—but you know
and I know that even at 23 they still have a lot of growing up to
do. We all need our parents at some point. So, parents, please
make that call, send that text or go and see them, even when they
say no. Tell them that you love them. They need it more than you
know. We all need support, however old we are. I know those that
I have spoken to have tried, but everybody needs to. Everyone who
has lost someone wishes they could still make that call, so do it
now—and every week and every day if you think it is
necessary.
As a result of having led these debates, I constantly ask my own
children whether they are okay. They call me daft; they laugh at
me for asking. I do not care—I ask, and tell them I love them,
because I do. I say this to every young person out there: nothing
is that bad. Trust me; I have heard it all in this place. No
matter how bad things are, there is always someone to help, but
you must ask. You are all precious and you are all priceless.
There is only one of you. So ask. Make that call. Confess that
issue. Tell someone that you are struggling. It does not matter
what it is; it only matters that you ask.
Finally, I am sure that I speak for everyone here when I say that
each suicide is a tragedy that will haunt family and friends for
the rest of their lives. Although it is a great thing that, as
the Office for National Statistics tells us, the suicide rate per
head of population has declined by 28% since 1981, that is no
comfort to those who have lost a loved one. Let us all play our
part and do what we can in this place and in the world outside as
we go about our daily business. I look forward to hearing
colleagues’ thoughts and the Minister’s response.
Several hon. Members rose—
(in the Chair)
Order. I remind Members that the petition being debated relates
indirectly to a claim against a higher education institution. The
legal case is ongoing and therefore sub judice. Mr Speaker has
agreed to my exercising the discretion given to the Chair in
respect of resolutions on matters sub judice to allow limited
reference to the findings of the county court in that case.
However, I ask that Members do not refer to details of the case
or the conduct of the case, including by attributing particular
arguments to the parties involved therein. I remind Members who
wish to speak to bob, as there are quite of a lot of you.
4.47pm
(Sheffield Central)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to be called first and to contribute under your
chairmanship, Sir Robert. I congratulate the hon. Member for Don
Valley () on his contribution in
opening the debate. Like him, I thank everyone who signed the
petition, which ensured that we had this discussion today. I
particularly thank the bereaved parents who have driven the
campaign. I cannot imagine anything worse than their loss—sending
a child off to university, full of expectations and hope, as Lee
Fryatt described at the pre-debate evidence session, and then
finding that that journey and excitement ends in the tragedy of
suicide.
I chair the all-party parliamentary group for students, which was
set up to provide a voice in this place for those studying in
further and higher education, and I have followed the issue very
carefully. I was pleased to join the recent LEARN Network event
in Parliament and listen to all the powerful personal
testimonies, particularly those from parents. I was also pleased
to be invited to join the Petitions Committee’s pre-debate
evidence session, and I have read the transcript of the part of
the session that I missed. All that I have learned convinces me
that today’s debate is necessary.
The number of suicides in this country is mercifully low, and it
is much lower among students—across all age groups—than among the
population as a whole, but even one suicide is clearly one too
many. As Ged Flynn from PAPYRUS emphasised at the pre-debate
session, suicide is very much a preventable death. That should
focus us acutely. Everything must be done to save lives, and the
action that we take makes the crucial difference. We should be
asking what more our universities can do, and indeed what more
the Government can do, recognising that we face a mental health
crisis, particularly among young people.
At this stage, we need to recognise that not all of the 2.8
million students in this country fit the conventional model of
young people going away from home to university. A quarter of
them are commuter students travelling from home. Half a million
are over 30, and half a million are part time. Many are
postgraduates, international students and so on. However, the
focus of much of this discussion has been on that younger cohort,
and we need to recognise that last year, 25% of 17 to
19-year-olds in England were experiencing poor mental health.
That figure is growing as a result of many factors, and it is up
significantly from 10% six years ago.
One thing that shocked me on becoming an MP 13 years ago, was
that when I went into schools, as I do every year, to talk to
young people about what they think my priorities should be as
their Member of Parliament, I was told that access to mental
health support was their top issue. That has been repeated almost
every year. Those young people emphasise the inadequacy of the
support available to them. There is too little in schools, and
where schools are acting to provide support, money is diverted
from teaching budgets. It takes too long to get a first
appointment with child and adolescent mental health services
after referral, and even when they get into CAMHS, there is too
little treatment because of the way the sessions are capped. It
is therefore probably no surprise that so many students are
entering university with mental health problems. UCAS estimates
that over 70,000 students enter higher education every year with
a mental health condition, but around half of them told UCAS in a
survey that they had not shared that information prior to
entry.
Universities have responded. I think they have been learning, but
not consistently and perhaps not quickly enough. In 2017, the
mentally healthy universities framework was launched. That formed
the basis of the university mental health charter created by
Student Minds, with whom the all-party parliamentary group has
worked. The charter framework rightly provides an approach of
improving the support available to students and addressing the
determinants of student wellbeing, including aspects of the
academic process that might have an impact on wellbeing, such as
assessment, fitness to study and dismissal. The problem is that
not every university has signed up, and clearly more should be
done to ensure that they do.
The responsibility does not just fall on universities. In the
pre-debate evidence session, National Union of Students
vice-president Chloe Field said that
“universities have become almost the only port of call for
students if they are suffering from mental health, because of the
failures of the NHS and the long waiting lists that the NHS has.
Students struggle to get through to that NHS service. There is a
huge number of students who try to access that support.”
She also pointed out the many factors that were exacerbating poor
mental health, including academic and financial pressures.
Because of the financial pressures, people face difficulties in
juggling so many jobs just to see themselves through university,
as well as meeting their academic commitments.
I highlight all of that not to diminish the responsibility of
universities, but to illustrate—as we were told several times in
the pre-debate session—that there is no silver bullet. What more
could universities do? Mark Shanahan made a really useful
contribution. His son took his life in Sheffield, in one of the
two universities that I am pleased to represent. He drew a
comparison between the teaching excellence framework and the
research excellence framework, which provide a disciplined
approach of expectations on universities, and he asked why we do
not have a student support excellence framework. Professor Steve
West, who gave evidence on behalf of Universities UK, took up
that point, acknowledging that there was not sufficient and
consistent best practice, but we should not talk about this as
best practice; we should be talking about it as basic practice
across universities.
I am not convinced that a duty of care will do the job that those
advocating it want, and it may indeed have unintended
consequences, but there need to be clear expectations—not
encouragement, not a willingness to do well, but clear
expectations—on universities to up their game consistently across
the sector. I hope that when the Minister winds up the debate, he
will set out how he thinks that might be delivered; I am
conscious that he has already done that to a significant degree
in the letter he circulated to us today. Clearly, it should not
be a one-size-fits-all solution, but there should be consistent
expectations.
I also hope that in winding up, the Minister will recognise—even
if it is not his responsibility—the other factors contributing to
the mental health crisis. Will he share with us what he will do
with colleagues across Government, particularly Health Ministers
and, in this context, probably the Chancellor, to make available
the sort of support working alongside universities that is really
necessary to tackle this crisis? As I said, I do not think that
there is a one-size-fits-all solution, given the diversity of our
student population, but there must be a real commitment from
Government, from the sector and from all of us in this place to
reducing student suicide.
4.56pm
(North West Hampshire) (Con)
I do not believe that this subject requires a long speech,
because for me the situation and the decision by the Government
seem to be relatively clear. It became distressingly clear to me
when my constituents Valerie and Andrew Hayter came to see me in
my constituency surgery in Andover one Friday morning to talk
about the loss of their son Alex, who, just a couple of years
before, had taken his own life following unexpected disengagement
from his university course and exams over the course of one
summer. Their view was that but for a simple phone call, a gentle
nudge or a small human connection by somebody at the university,
the life of their son may well have been saved, yet it became
clear from their account of the events that unfolded that that
was not an approach that would get much purchase in
universities.
Whatever we may think of the current state of universities —many
of them do a fantastic job—they have become much more
transactional places. There was a time, certainly when I was at
university, when they referred to themselves as communities—when
they were there for not just academic growth, but spiritual and
emotional growth. They recognised that they were taking on young
people who were adults legally, but perhaps not fully formed
adults emotionally, and who, at the tail end of adolescence,
would be going through particular difficulties and a
developmental stage in their mental acuity that required a
particular kind of attention and pastoral care.
We see that change in universities in their retreat into defence
when these horrible, tragic events happen. The defence is that
students are adults—a legal defence. Or there is a bureaucratic
defence, as my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley () mentioned, about GDPR.
There is never a mention of basic kindness or human connection,
or—an overused phrase sometimes— a common sense, or even a sense
of morality about what somebody might do when they notice
behaviour that might give a family cause for concern.
The university sector also retreats into the notion that, as the
hon. Member for Sheffield Central () said, suicides in
universities are lower than the average. Well, so they should be.
This is a supervised or semi-supervised environment where there
is supposed to be a latticework of support and care, and where
young people are given the space to grow emotionally as much as
intellectually. The fact that the rate is lower is not a matter
for congratulation or celebration; it is actually a notion that
they are not doing quite as well as they should be. The case for
a general duty of care is a strong one, particularly where we
have a sector that is retreating into, as I say, these
bureaucratic and process-driven arguments and that we all think
has a responsibility to our young people beyond just teaching
them.
The Government have said that they believe a duty of care already
exists in common law. That will be decided by the courts, but
more than one coroner believes that that is not the case and,
most importantly, far too many parents believe that that is not
the case. Far too many families have seen and felt in their own
lives that that is not the case, and they often feel that they
are dealt with in a casual or offhand way. They feel that their
kids are not disposable and should not be forgotten, and that
there should be some change to prevent anybody else from going
through what they have gone through.
There has been much talk about mental health support in the
debate and more widely. To be fair, universities have done a lot,
and the Government have spent a lot and have given money to
universities specifically for mental health support and care. The
NUS has done some work, as have others. I hope the Minister will
agree that the best and most basic mental health support that
people can get is a loving family. The idea that families should
be excluded from the process, particularly when their child is
exhibiting distressing, alarming or even unusual behaviour in a
university seems inhumane and immoral. I ask the Minister in his
summing up, because he is a thoughtful and independently minded
man, to depart from the Government line hitherto and think again
about this notion. We have imposed an awful lot on universities,
given their new freedoms and the fact that they have often become
big businesses. We have an Office for Students to guarantee the
quality of courses, and we have just imposed legislation on them
to guarantee free speech. Why would we not impose something on
them to try to guarantee the safety and lives of our
children?
5.02pm
(City of Durham) (Lab)
I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley () for leading the debate. I
thank the 25 families behind the petition, which has well over
100,000 signatures, and express my sincere condolences to all of
them. I extend my condolences to Lee, Hilary, Mark and Ben and
thank them for their appearance before the Petitions Committee
last month.
University should be an exciting, life-changing experience for
young people and their families; it should not be life-ending. No
parent should ever be told that their child has taken their own
life—not ever. The fact that over 100 students take their life
each year reflects that something is seriously wrong with the
current system. I must say that the Government’s response to the
petition has been quite insensitive. How can a Government say to
families who have lost their child that it would be
disproportionate to implement a statutory duty of care.
Disproportionate to whom? One hundred students are taking their
own life every year. If there had been a statutory duty of care,
they might be here today.
What we have now is a general duty of care, but let us be frank:
a general duty of care just does not work. If it did, we would
not be here debating the petition. Last year, a senior judge
ruled that no relevant common law duty of care existed in a case
from a bereaved family against a university. We could say that a
general duty of care does not even exist, and that needs to
change. The petition that we are debating is the right response:
it is fair, just and reasonable, and it has my support. A general
duty of care is too vague and does not provide clarity or
consistency. A statutory duty of care would change that and give
students and their parents peace of mind that they were
protected.
The Minister said that legislation might have unintended
consequences at this time. What does he think those will be?
While he is here, I want to put on the record the wider mental
health crisis among students. As we have heard, the NUS has found
that a third of students feel that the cost of living crisis is
having a major impact on their mental health. There has been a
mental health crisis at universities for over a decade now. To
make matters worse, those in crisis have to wait ridiculous
lengths of time to see a professional. I say to the Minister:
please do the right thing—ignore the advice of your Department
and implement the measure in this petition. It is sensible,
justifiable and it will save lives. We owe that to those who have
lost their lives.
5.06pm
(Maidstone and The Weald)
(Con)
The campaign that led to this debate first came to my attention
when I met my constituent Hilary Grime and her son Hamish in
December last year. Hilary’s daughter Phoebe had been a pupil at
Cranbrook School in my constituency, where she had been a happy,
outgoing student who loved surfing and ice hockey. But she
struggled when she moved to university, and tragically, on 5 June
2021—exactly two years ago today—she took her own life in her
university accommodation. The pain and ramifications suffered by
families who have lost a child to suicide are unimaginable, but
very sadly many other parents and families have been touched by
similar devastating losses.
Over 2.8 million students are in higher education in England and
Wales. Over the past 10 years, one student in England and Wales
has died as a result of suicide every four days. It is an
absolute tragedy that we are losing so many of our young people
right at the start of their lives. Yet despite that, the law
remains very unclear and limited when it comes to what duties and
responsibilities universities have in relation to their often
very vulnerable young students. The law in its current form was
tested recently. In that case, a claim of negligence failed
because the judge found that no relevant duty of care
existed.
By contrast, the Government’s response to the petition appears,
on the face of it, to have a rather different expectation of
universities. They said:
“Higher Education providers do have a general duty of care to
deliver educational and pastoral services to the standard of an
ordinarily competent institution and, in carrying out these
services, they are expected to act reasonably to protect the
health, safety and welfare of their students.”
They go on:
“This can be summed up as providers owing a duty of care to not
cause harm to their students through the university’s own
actions.”
That statement is too simplistic and cites no legal authorities
whatever in support. Lawyers have argued that the general duty
does exist, but those arguments have thus far been
unsuccessful.
In answer to a question asked in March this year by the shadow
Minister for Higher Education, the hon. Member for Warwick and
Leamington (), the Government
conceded:
“The existence and application of a duty of care between HE
providers and students has not been widely tested in the
courts.”
Therefore, at this moment, beyond certain very specific
circumstances, the law offers only limited protection to students
who suffer harm because of their university’s negligence.
This issue affects a significant and very vulnerable section of
our society. University students are adults in law, but they are
often living away from home for the first time in their lives.
They are sometimes located great distances away from their
established support structures of school and home. University
students are not covered by the laws that protect students at
primary and secondary school, nor do they receive the legal
protections afforded by employment. There is a gap: far too many
students fall through the middle and do not receive the
protections to which they are entitled.
Some progress has been made on prevention in recent years.
Universities UK represents 141 universities and, working together
with agencies such as Papyrus, is improving access to mental
health and pastoral support for students, but such support is not
consistent throughout the country. Universities UK concedes that
one in four students have a diagnosed mental health issue and one
third are recognised as having poor wellbeing. It says that the
university mental health charter, created by Student Minds in
partnership with UUK and others, provides a framework for
institutions to adopt.
Universities UK says that the framework would enable a
whole-university approach for safe, inclusive, healthy settings
for students, but there is no requirement for universities to
sign the charter. There are at least 285 higher education
providers in the UK and, of the 141 universities that UUK
represents, only 61 have signed the charter. Only five have been
awarded charter status and none have thus far achieved the two
higher levels of accreditation: merit and distinction.
Although some universities are clearly raising their game, others
are lagging behind, creating something of a care and wellbeing
lottery for students in the UCAS application process. A statutory
duty of care would set the bar to level up that standard—a
standard that requires all higher education providers to do what
might reasonably be expected, while maintaining their autonomy in
deciding exactly how that will achieved. That is the backbone of
this debate.
(Bristol East) (Lab)
I apologise for not being able to stay for the whole debate; I
must be on the Front Bench in the main Chamber soon.
As a Bristol MP, I have been in touch with the vice-chancellors
of the University of the West of England—who is the national lead
on mental health—and of the University of Bristol to try to get
assurances that they are taking this issue seriously. I believe
they are. The hon. Member made an important point: the focus is
very much on the big universities, but we also need to work with
other further education establishments and those that are less in
the spotlight. Does the hon. Member think that the statutory duty
of care is the way to bring those organisations onboard? Or is
there another way to do that?
Mrs Grant
I certainly do. As I said a few moments ago, a statutory duty of
care would level up the standard of care in the way that our
young people deserve. Obviously, we must put in place all the
other suicide prevention measures, but they are not working. They
are insufficient. We need both. We need more. We need clarity in
the law, and we certainly do not have that at the moment.
(North East Fife)
(LD)
I apologise that my Select Committee duties prevented me from
being here at the start of the debate. The hon. Member mentioned
that one in four students say they have mental health challenges.
A more transparent framework or a duty would surely give students
the confidence to come forward to the university to seek help and
support. I can imagine that when they are facing mental health
challenges they often feel there is nobody to turn to, and they
do not necessarily have confidence in those institutions. A duty
of care would surely help them to come forward and share their
struggles.
Mrs Grant
A statutory duty of care would certainly help, but we need
everything—it is about having a multi-pronged approach, which I
will come to in a moment.
Suicide is a complicated issue, and preventing it requires many
different approaches. In that respect, let me say something about
two other important and related issues. The first issue is
combating stigma. People who struggle with suicidal thoughts may
be afraid of being judged or stigmatised if they talk about their
feelings. Some pastoral carers have concerns about talking to
people they know may be at risk for fear of increasing the
likelihood of suicide. Contrary to that, research has shown that
asking direct questions about suicide can help to save lives.
The second issue is about learning from tragedy to help us to
prevent future deaths, which is precisely what Hilary Grime and
her colleagues at the Lived Experience for Action Right Now
Network are striving to achieve. It was their petition that
brought this debate to the House of Commons. Through a
presentation in the Jubilee Room in April, they educated many MPs
about the need for a statutory duty of care. They are helping us
to learn and giving us the chance to make a change through the
loss of their children: Natasha, Kieran, Stefan, Mared, Ceara,
Phoebe, Jared, Lucy, Oskar, Harry, Romily, Kim, Cameron, Daniel,
Rory, Ben, Harrison, Alexandra, Theo, Charlie and Naseeb.
In conclusion, the decision of Judge Ralton in Abrahart v.
University of Bristol is being appealed in the High Court. That
will allow the arguments surrounding the existence of a
common-law duty of care to be looked at again, although judges
are often reluctant to confirm the existence of a duty where none
has existed before. The introduction of a statutory duty of care
would, however, remove the current uncertainty and ambiguity. It
would allow all stakeholders to contribute to the development of
a set of legal norms that would strike the right balance between
students and their teaching institutions. It would also bring our
law into line with other common-law jurisdictions, such as the
USA and Australia.
I have written to and spoken with the Minister, on behalf of my
constituent, making the case for a statutory duty of care. In his
written response to me, dated 25 November 2022, the Minister set
out in detail the policies, practices, frameworks, champions and
data that exist in relation to suicide prevention. The response
failed, though, to address the uncertainty surrounding the duty
of care for students in higher education. I hope that today’s
debate will allow the Minister to listen carefully to the
arguments and look again at this vital issue.
5.19pm
(Stretford and Urmston)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Robert. I
thank the hon. Member for Don Valley () for compellingly
introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.
I first became aware of today’s debate by chance, just a few
hours after meeting with my constituents, the parents of Naseeb
Chuhan, who took his own life at the end of his first year at
Leeds Beckett University in June 2016. They have campaigned
tirelessly ever since to secure a statutory legal duty of care
for students in higher education. I can appreciate that this is a
complex matter—my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central
() set out some of the reasons
why—but it is on their behalf that I want to support the
aspirations of the petition, and to do so by sharing a little of
Naseeb’s story.
There were clear signs that Naseeb was struggling. At the time of
his death he had eight outstanding pieces of university work, yet
it appears that no welfare checks were made to follow up on his
missing work or his attendance issues. The day before his death,
he visited the university wellbeing service, where he was honest
and up-front about how he was feeling. Naseeb’s parents have
looked into that interaction and are clear that, in their view,
the service failed to adequately identify, assess and respond to
risk.
Following Naseeb’s death, his parents sought to make a complaint
about the university’s handling of his case and its lack of
effective pastoral care and support for him. They discovered that
complaints by parents are not routinely accepted by universities
without the consent of the student concerned. In fact, this is
discretionary, despite consent being impossible in such tragic
circumstances as the student has already passed away. That is an
absurd position for grieving parents to be in and is a result of
the lack of regulation in this area. There simply must be a
statutory duty of care placed on universities to support their
students properly with any mental health issues that they face—a
duty of care that already exists for universities regarding their
staff and for under-18s in higher education.
Naseeb’s parents have since produced a report, which I have
circulated to a number of parliamentary colleagues, calling for a
series of changes in the light of Naseeb’s death. Specifically
regarding universities and student wellbeing services, the report
makes the following recommendations: university and student
wellbeing services should be accountable, with an independent
complaints procedure accessible by parents automatically if a
student dies; universities should monitor and follow up student
attendance and performance to check on the wellbeing of anybody
who is struggling with these issues; university staff should be
trained in suicide risk and prevention, along with mental health;
students should have a clear pathway if in academic crisis;
universities should work with coroners and keep records about
student suicide; student wellbeing services should have training
on suicide and keep appropriate records.
Those recommendations should not be too much to ask for. They are
reasonable and proportionate and would almost certainly fall
within the requirements of a statutory legal duty of care of
universities to their students, which I why I am so supportive of
the petition that we are here to debate.
I note the Government’s response to the petition, but I must say
that, much like my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham
(), I find myself
considerably frustrated by the response that was submitted along
with the details of the petition and today’s debate. The response
appears to fall somewhere between the “nothing to see here”
approach—that this would be a disproportionate response as
suicide rates among students are relatively low—and the “why
regulate when this happens anyway?” argument.
If it happens anyway, what is the problem with regulating
existing practice? Of course, in Naseeb’s case—and, from talking
to other parents in similar situations, I suspect in the case of
many students—this is not what happens in practice. It is for
that reason that I hope the Minister will listen to today’s
debate and respond positively to the arguments made. For that
reason also, I thank everybody who signed the petition, and pay
tribute to Naseeb’s parents for their campaigning in the face of
such devastating personal tragedy.
5.24pm
(Guildford) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I
thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley () for opening the debate and
for his tireless work supporting the mental health of men and
boys. I also thank the 394 petitioners from my constituency of
Guildford, which is home to the excellent University of Surrey. I
should declare that my eldest child is currently a university
student.
Although I recognise that universities are autonomous, the
petitioners are—reasonably, in my view—calling for a statutory
legal duty of care for students in higher education. I am
grateful to my right hon. Friend the Minister for sending a
detailed letter to all colleagues in the House about why the
Government believe the statutory duty is not required, and I am
sure he will go into more detail on the Government’s position. I
also acknowledge the significant funding that has gone into the
university sector to support mental health, and the Government’s
drive in setting a target for universities to sign up to the
mental health charter by September 2024.
I am grateful that the Government have stated that if they do not
see a proactive and positive response from the sector, they will
ask the Office for Students to explore targeted regulation to
protect students’ interests. The Government are also right to be
wary of unintended consequences, but the main thrust of their
argument seems to be that we must wait so as not to stifle
innovative projects. I love innovation, and universities are
particularly well placed to innovate, but I am afraid that it is
too late for the families in the Public Gallery who have lost a
loved one to suicide while they were at university, and it will
be cold comfort to families who will lose someone in the coming
months and years while the Government wait.
From both reading the evidence given to the Petitions Committee
and my conversation last week with Dr Mark Shanahan, who is a
politics professor at the University of Surrey in my constituency
and who is here today with his wife Jacquie, having tragically
lost their son Rory, it is clear to me that the families are not
looking to replace the work that has already gone into the mental
health support for our young people. They are not trying to
reinvent the wheel, nor do they wish to seek retribution. They
simply wish to fill a legal gap—an anomaly.
My understanding is that there is a duty of care in place for
further education students, no matter their age. We have worked
so hard to bring parity of esteem between FE and HE, and for
society to recognise the value of apprenticeships in particular.
It is a shame for our world-leading university sector that any
parent listening to the debate could deduce that they are more
likely to be contacted by the provider of their family member’s
education when there is a mental health crisis if they choose
further education.
Not all 18-year-olds are ready for university, and not all
18-year-olds should go to university. Some 18-year-olds and their
families have no idea that they are neurodiverse until they go to
university, such has been the level of support and coping
mechanisms in place until then, and we all know that the
prefrontal cortex does not fully mature until about the age of
25. Potential changes in diet, misuse of alcohol and/or drugs,
and sleep disturbance or deprivation can wreak havoc on the
neurotypical. For the neurodiverse, they can spike anxiety and a
downward spiral very quickly. There are no protections for such
students if they are undiagnosed.
As a constituency MP, I have had the sadness of having to support
parents of university-age children who have had psychotic
episodes and have had to be hospitalised. It is horrific. Once
someone knows their child is mentally not well, they never stop
worrying that they have just had their last phone call or text
message from them. When they cannot be contacted, that worry
escalates. It does not ever really disappear over that child’s
lifetime—and I speak from personal experience.
As has been mentioned, there have been instances of
misunderstanding of GDPR that have led to no contact with
families. The university sector clearly needs to improve its
understanding of how to use GDPR properly. Each young person
going to university could have an automatic nominated point of
contact in case there is a mental health concern or crisis. It
may not need to be a family member, and could be a trusted
friend. The fundamental question is: why should parents be
contacted on the death of their child, but not before?
Finally, I thank Dr Mark Shanahan for telling me about Rory and
the desperately sad circumstances around his suicide, and how it
was dealt with by the university in question. It is cold that
universities simply wait for a medical “fit for study” notice so
that they can issue an invoice for fees. It is a shame that
students taking a break are often hounded about when they will
return to complete their studies. It is not right, and we need to
get it right.
All the families in the Public Gallery cannot bring back their
loved ones, but they dearly wish to prevent other families from
suffering needlessly. I thank them for their selfless battle for
others. The Government need to look again at how they can work
with the Office for Students to plug this legal gap. If the
universities do not come to the table and explore targeted
regulation, anything else is no more than hand-holding, a cup of
tea and warm words. That is not enough.
5.30pm
(Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Robert. I pay
tribute to the 128,000-plus people who signed the petition, many
of whom have their own very personal stories. I say a big thank
you to the hon. Member for Don Valley () for making a very
passionate, thoughtful and human speech at the beginning of the
debate. Indeed, I found everybody’s contributions personally
moving, and I am sure that people in the Public Gallery also
thought so.
In paying tribute to all those people who signed the petition,
and in particular those who had a very personal reason for doing
so, it is my privilege and honour to speak in memory of Oskar
Carrick, who died by suicide two years ago. His parents, Maxine
and Gary, are with us today. As the hon. Member for Guildford
() said just now,
everybody involved in this campaign is immensely selfless. They
have lost somebody utterly dear to them, they have
experienced—are experiencing—appalling grief, and yet their
thought is, “What can we do to protect other families from the
same thing?” We all owe them a huge debt of thanks for their care
for those who come next and for their determination to ensure
that practical lessons are learnt.
Oskar had made an attempt on his life, and despite the fact that
both he and his parents had consented for the university to
disclose information, that incident was not passed on to Oskar’s
mum and dad. Whether that was because of GDPR concerns—a sense of
a person’s right as an adult to privacy—or whatever else, that
was massively wrong-headed. As the hon. Member for Sheffield
Central () pointed out, a huge
proportion of students at university are not 18 to 22-year-olds,
but whatever their age they are potentially vulnerable, and we
all need to have somebody who cares for us on the outside. The
thought that a higher education institution of any kind should
have any hesitation about sharing such vital information with
parents and loved ones—because of concerns about legality, form,
traditions, GDPR or whatever it might be—is clearly wrong and it
is important that universities understand that. I hope that the
Minister will be clear that parents and loved ones should be
informed when there is a legitimate concern about somebody’s
mental health.
The simple ask of the petition is that a statutory duty of care
should be placed on universities, and having worked in higher
education for 13 years before I entered this place, I understand
why there is some pushback. But universities are wrong to push
back. The truth of the matter is that students are not regular
customers. As other hon. Members have mentioned, universities
have a duty of care to their staff and yet apparently not, in the
same distinct way, to their students. Students are not the same
as regular customers for obvious reasons. Despite the fact that
many do not fit the typical demographic, the majority are young
people living away from home for the first time, and of course
they have recently gone through, as we all have, the enormous
disruption of covid and all that went along with it.
We are also in a time when it feels like there is a great
unkindness in the discourse. In the ’60s, Andy Warhol said that
in the future everybody would be famous for 15 minutes. He did
not know the half of it. In this future, everybody is famous all
the time on social media. People like us—Members of
Parliament—are meant to deal with that professionally; we are
meant to be resilient. But human beings who are not Members of
Parliament—young people, whatever age they are—do not have the
resilience to cope with that constant judgment and exposure
because of the society we are in. Of course universities need to
take their duty of care seriously: it should be statutorily
placed on them.
I have two kids at university. I also spent 13 years working in
higher education before I entered this place. Before that even, I
was the president of Newcastle University’s students’ union. It
was a different kettle of fish in those days, not least because
there were fewer students. People did not pay fees; there was not
even the concept of students being customers. Universities were
smaller. It was less possible to disappear in the late 1980s and
early 1990s as it is today. Universities are far larger now, with
cities full of students from more than one institution. The
ability to get lost is that much greater. The need for us step in
and take care in a practical way is much greater than it was
then.
It is not all down to universities. This is not me castigating
the entire higher education sector for its failures. I am
reminding them of the fact that they have responsibilities—some
legal, some moral. Today we are talking about potentially making
the moral responsibilities also legal. As has been mentioned, by
the time a person who has a mental health condition, or is
perhaps developing one, goes to university, they may well have
been let down for several years before they get there.
The simple fact is that universities are very often filling the
gap that child and adolescent mental health services have not
been able to fill due to a lack of funding for years before.
Today we have a society where we talk about mental health more
than we did. That is a good thing, and there is less of a stigma,
but we are a society that breeds worse mental health than any
other in human history.
We talk about parity of esteem and treating mental and physical
health the same, but we do not. If an 18-year-old or 19-year-old
playing rugby, cricket or football or running or whatever breaks
their leg on a weekend, they are straight into the system there
and then. The healing begins that day. If something not visible
to the eye were to break in that person, even if it happened to
them when they were 14, they may wait months and months for a
first appointment to be seen. This is something we all own and
all have responsibility to, not just the higher education
sector.
We have to learn the lesson of the importance of building
resilience in youth, not just in dealing with poor mental health,
but building good mental health. I go running not because I am
ill, but to try to fight off middle age and make sure I stay
relatively well. The same goes for our mental health. We must
look after our mental health before we become unwell. Young
people need help to do that. That is why outdoor education is so
important and should be integrated in residentials and into every
child’s learning experience at primary and secondary schools, so
that that level of resilience is built for when tough times
come.
As has been said, suicide is preventable. In many ways, that is
the most heart-breaking thing about it. I know that from personal
experience of a loved one of mine who passed away in that
way—thinking of whether there is something that I or any of us
could have done. I want to pay tribute to PAPYRUS, which does
wonderful work in engaging with and supporting suicide
prevention, but also to the three dads—Mike, Andy and Tim—who
drew attention to their own plight, having lost their daughters
Beth, Sophie and Emily. They tried to make sure, like the
families here today, that others do not experience what they did
by recognising the importance of trying to build suicide
prevention into the curriculum.
All of us must take on that responsibility. This debate is
focused on the petition, which asks higher education institutions
to step up to the plate and accept that duty of care, and indeed
for the Government to impose it on them. We entrust our young
people into the hands of august higher education institutions. It
is so important that as we entrust our young
people—predominantly, young people—into institutions’ care, they
respond by providing care and kindness, paying attention to their
needs, not letting anybody fall between the cracks and making
sure that people’s loved ones back home are always kept informed
of how they are. That way they can intervene and prevent
appalling tragedies occurring again in the future.
5.39pm
(Camborne and Redruth)
(Con)
Throughout this debate we have heard tragic stories: it is clear
that the problem affects many families up and down the country. I
am afraid I am going to add the case of Harry Armstrong Evans,
whose parents, Alice and Rupert, have been running a campaign in
his memory. He came from Launceston in the constituency of my
hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (). Because my constituency has
the only university in Cornwall, the parents also approached me
since they felt this was important.
Harry had had an exceptional set of exam results during his time
at the University of Exeter, but he went from being a star pupil
to having an unexpectedly set of poor results in his final year.
He was in anguish and tried to reach out to his course tutor to
discuss it, but it was during half term and the course tutor was
not around. As a result of that anguish, Harry took his life. The
great tragedy is that his parents were not aware that there was a
problem. They had no reason to expect that Harry would have
unexpectedly bad results in his final year and saw no reason to
reach out to him to say, “Don’t worry if it does not go well in
the final year”, or to try to broach that conversation with
him.
Some colleagues have said this afternoon that suicide is
preventable. It is important to recognise that although it is
preventable, that does not mean that there is someone else to
blame. When people experience a suicide in the family or among
friends or work colleagues, there is always a sense that if only
they had known that there had been a problem, they would have
reached out to somebody to tell them that there was no need to
worry or to be concerned.
It is important that we are clear with universities. When we say
that there is a case for a statutory duty of care, we are not
necessarily saying that they are to blame for everything that
might happen. We are all just collectively saying that there are
things that we could do differently, that suicide is preventable,
and that if we work on getting things right, we can reduce the
number of such tragedies, for suicide is always a terrible
tragedy.
Following the death of Harry, Alice and Rupert launched their own
parliamentary petition to call for something that they have
called Harry’s law. This focuses specifically on the issue of
requiring universities to at the very least publish the suicide
data that they have. It would simply require that where coroners
inform universities that there has been a suicide of an enrolled
student, that university has to declare it and make that
information public. If the Minister is resistant to going all the
way to having a statutory duty of care, or if he is advised by
departmental lawyers that such a step is unnecessary and does not
add much, at the very least could we require universities to
publish the suicide data? If they are required to publish that, I
think it likely that they would pay much more attention to the
work that they do and the pastoral care that they provide to
avoid such terrible tragedies.
Alice and Rupert Armstrong Evans have also proposed that if a
university is performing particularly badly and has a highly
disproportionate number of suicides, they should potentially be
placed in special measures or be given the support that they need
to make sure that they get in place the right kind of pastoral
care. If the Minister is not willing to support a statutory duty
of care for universities, I hope he will look at what can be done
to improve the transparency of data and require universities to
publish that as a first step, and then perhaps a statutory duty
of care could be considered at a future date.
(in the Chair)
We now have the Front-Bench wind-up speeches.
5.44pm
(Warwick and Leamington)
(Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I
express my particular thanks to the hon. Member for Don Valley
() for his impassioned speech.
I thank all Members who have contributed to the debate, all of
whom I believe have spoken with a degree of respect and
understanding that I can only hope members of the LEARN Network
will feel does justice to their campaign. This debate is the
culmination of the LEARN Network’s tireless work. The ability for
members of the group to turn their grief into such a formidable
and effective political campaign is remarkable and to be
commended. I thank all those who signed the petition.
In terms of the LEARN Network, I have had the privilege of
meeting many of the parents, most recently at the parliamentary
reception. I must say that that event left a lasting mark on me,
as well as all my colleagues who attended. The powerful
testimonies were incredibly moving, and gave us all cause for
reflection. I want to place on record my particular thanks to
Gillian Green and Bob and Maggie Abrahart, all three of whom have
been instrumental in pushing forward the campaign. I extend my
thanks to the hon. Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant)
for her role in sponsoring the parliamentary event and
encouraging participation in the comprehensive debate we have had
today.
I will turn to what have been very reflective and considered
contributions from around the Chamber. As I said, the hon. Member
for Don Valley gave a particularly impassioned speech, but I was
really disturbed to hear the evidence given by certain colleagues
of automated emails being issued by institutions, without any
empathy or understanding, and being received cold by students.
There is clearly something wrong with that.
My hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham () talked about the wider
mental health crisis we have had for over a decade, and the hon.
Member for Maidstone and The Weald talked about a lottery that is
perhaps out there in the quality of provision among our higher
education providers. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale
(), among others, spoke about how these are all
preventable deaths. The right hon. Member for North West
Hampshire () spoke about universities—institutions—becoming
more transactional places. Not just the academic pressures, but
the financial pressures faced by students—whether it be the fees,
the maintenance costs or the cost of living—have driven so many
to despair, so I agree with him on that particular point.
My hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central () made the point, which I
think was a suggestion from his constituent and picked up by the
vice-chancellor of UWE, that if we have TEF and REF, why should
we not have a support excellence framework? There is real merit
in pursuing that as a means of measuring. That is a point that I
think has been made around the Chamber today; there is a need to
measure and understand the quality of provision among our higher
education providers.
(Oldham East and
Saddleworth) (Lab)
First, Sir Robert, there was a delay in my arrival;
unfortunately, the trains were not behaving this afternoon. I
wanted to make an intervention, particularly given the death of
our nephew, Jack, while at the University of York. One of the
things we put to the coroner and the university was that in
addition to ensuring there was training for all university staff
at all levels—not just departmental or front-facing, but all
levels involved in the administration—it was important that there
should be a named advocate, if not a parent, who can be notified
if there are concerns about the mental health of any student.
Does my hon. Friend agree that that would be a practical way
forward?
I thank my hon. Friend. I totally agree, and my condolences to
her on her particular experience. I believe that is something
that should be introduced as well.
I will come to the powerful testimony and example given by my
hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (). I was surprised to hear
about his constituents’ experience. In many cases across the
piece, we have heard of the wellbeing service failing to identity
risk, but I was most disturbed by that particularly absurd and
impossible situation. It was a totally insensitive situation to
put a family in.
I have met many families from the network. Their diversity and
number are a painful reminder that no family is immune from the
consequences of the mental health crisis that affects many
students on campuses today. Every suicide is a tragedy—a death
that is preventable. Student suicides are no different from
similar tragedies in wider society. They send shockwaves through
families, loved ones and communities, and leave lasting impacts.
They also represent a failure, whether partial or total, of
structures intended to provide support to students in mental
distress.
I appreciate the time and money that many universities give to
providing mental health support for students and staff, and I am
confident that student support services in universities are doing
the best they can to support student welfare with the resources
they have available. However, the gap between the expectations of
students and parents and the reality of mental health provision
in universities is far too great. A 2023 survey for The Tab, a
student news site, revealed that only 12% of students think that
their university handles the issue of student mental health well.
Parents responded similarly, with 67% saying that their child had
not felt that their university supported them with their mental
health. Many have to wait a whole year for access to support;
others are granted a maximum of only six sessions over the course
of their degree.
As we have heard, demand for services and support is clearly
rising, with one in four student respondents to one survey
reporting a diagnosed mental health issue. Many of those issues
are also starting earlier in students’ lives. The number of
accepted home applicants who declared a disability related to
their mental health on their UCAS application form increased from
around 2,500 in 2011 to almost 22,500 in 2022. We should also not
be blind to the effect of recent trends on student mental health,
notably the cost of living crisis. Ninety per cent. of students
surveyed by the National Union of Students in September 2022 said
the rising cost of living had negatively impacted their mental
health. It is almost impossible to argue there is not a serious
mental health crisis on our campuses. The question, then, becomes
what we can do to remedy it and prevent further unnecessary loss
of life.
The UK higher education sector, by the unfortunate necessities I
have described, needs to be at the forefront of tackling wider
trends in mental health problems in society. The right hon.
Member for North West Hampshire made that point. It is therefore
important for the sector to work in harmony. I welcome UUK’s
“Stepchange: Mentally Healthy Universities” framework and welcome
the fact that almost all universities have used it to feed into
their student mental health policies. In my many visits to higher
education providers, I always insist on meeting with students and
their representatives, and mental health is a topic I always
cover.
It is clear that approaches vary among institutions, but that
some have designed comprehensive strategies to ensuring student
welfare is central and integrated into the experience. These are
centres of excellence whose work I want to see replicated across
the piece. Where best practice is well-informed, widely applied,
comprehensive and open to constant improvement, I believe the
sector can create strong support structures for students.
However, I was concerned to read in the transcript of the
Petitions Committee evidence session that best practice
guidelines were being adopted inconsistently with little
accountability. If true, that needs addressing urgently and I
implore UUK to investigate it as a matter of priority.
I note that the university mental health charter has been
regularly cited. The principles behind it are certainly worthy,
but it is somewhat disappointing that fewer than half of
universities are signatories. I welcome the Minister’s
announcement this morning requiring universities to become
signatories by September 2024. While the charter is not a
panacea, it sends an important signal to prospective and current
students that a university takes its commitments to student
welfare seriously. Absent a statutory duty of care, clear,
unequivocal statements such as the charter would go a long way in
assuaging the concerns that many people have regarding student
mental health provision.
With demand for services clearly outstripping provision, however,
surely the time has come for more investment in our young
people’s mental health. That is why Labour has committed to
guaranteeing mental health treatment within a month for all who
need it, by recruiting 8,500 new mental health professionals to
support 1 million additional people a year. With a particular
focus on child mental health, such investment might begin to stem
the rising tide of the mental health crisis on campus.
Labour would also prioritise ensuring that universities are far
more integrated into local national health service trusts, so
that students can readily access services via their campuses and
communities. Too often, students feel isolated from those
services. I note that the previous Minister, the right hon.
Member for Chippenham (), announced a similar
policy over a year ago, alongside the Department of Health and
Social Care, so I would welcome an update on that work all these
months on.
In Wales, the Tertiary Education and Research (Wales) Act 2022
requires the new Commission for Tertiary Education and Research
to ensure that it is satisfied with the effectiveness of the
registered tertiary education providers’ arrangements for
supporting and promoting the welfare of their students and staff.
The point is that, although it is fine to have a charter, it has
to be enforced; there has to be an audit of how that charter is
being delivered by an institution—the institution cannot just
have a charter mark on its wall. Wales is the first country in
the UK to introduce such a requirement for higher and further
education providers, and to provide for it in legislation. My
question to the Minister is: has he considered, or will he
consider, a similar approach for the English regulator, the
Officer for Students?
It is regrettable that, rather than investigating a similar
statutory requirement for England, the Government have spent two
years attempting to exacerbate culture war divisions through the
passage of the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023. I
would argue that the matter we are discussing is a much higher
priority. To that end, I would also be grateful if the Minister
provided an update on the work of the student wellbeing champion
in promoting good mental health support among higher education
providers. In addition, in light of real-terms cuts for student
premium and mental health funding for the academic year 2023-24,
how confident is he that the Office for Students has adequate
funds to promote and encourage good mental health support among
providers?
Can the Minister provide an update on the UK mental health
charter? What steps is he taking to encourage universities to
sign by the recently announced new deadline of September 2024?
How will that be audited and who will determine whether higher
education providers continue to meet their duties under the
charter? Finally, will the Minister provide an update on the
roundtable convened by the previous Minister, the right hon.
Member for Chippenham, in July 2021 on suicide prevention in the
higher education sector? I also suggest to the Minister that, if
he chose to reconvene that roundtable to include members of the
LEARN Network, universities, myself on a cross-party basis, and
sector stakeholders and student representatives, we might be
well-placed to advance effective policies that enjoy a broad
range of support.
5.58pm
The Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and Higher Education
()
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Robert. I
thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley () for the way he opened the
debate. He fairly set out all points of view on this very
difficult issue. It has been a deeply emotional debate; we have
heard heartrending testimonies from MPs on behalf of their
constituents. I hope my remarks will set out some real things
that the Government are doing. I will be limited in responding to
everyone, because I want to be able to speak to the families here
today, and to those watching on BBC Parliament or the internet. I
thank Lee Fryatt and the LEARN Network for starting the petition,
and all the families. They are rightly calling for students to be
better protected when they leave home for the first time for
university. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale () said that the selflessness of the families has been
clear. He is exactly right. Theirs is a very important
description of what is happening, and what everyone has been
through.
I know that many people listening to the debate have had painful
first-hand experience of losing bright, capable young people to
suicide, and it was an honour to attend the parliamentary event
last month to personally hear their testimonies. We owe it to the
memories of those young people to collectively take strong and
effective action that prevents further tragedies. That, above all
else, should be what the Government deliver for them, and since
being appointed the Minister for Skills, Apprenticeships and
Higher Education by the Prime Minister last year I have made it a
priority for my Department.
Let me set out what our approach will be. The first point is
funding and resourcing vital services. I know that that is a
concern of the shadow spokesman, the hon. Member for Warwick and
Leamington (). I welcome the constructive
way in which he set out his argument. The second point is
spreading and implementing best practice, and the third is having
clear responsibilities for providers and protection for
students.
First, to deliver the determined interventions that are needed we
absolutely need the right funding. That is why we invested £3.6
million via the Office for Students to establish Student Space.
Since its launch in 2020, nearly 300,000 students across the
country have benefited from the free mental health resources and
confidential support that that online service offers. We have
also asked the Office for Students to distribute £15 million this
academic year so that support can be targeted towards students
starting university for the first time. That funding will also
enable effective partnerships between providers and local NHS
services so that students can better navigate the pathways for
mental health provision. Those NHS mental health services are
receiving record funding through the NHS long-term plan. By March
2024, an additional £2.3 billion per year above 2018-19 levels
will go into mental health services in England. As a result, a
further 345,000 people under the age of 25 will get the mental
health support that they need.
A number of Members talked about the mental health charter,
especially the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (). It has been acknowledged
that the university sector has made some important strides in
recent years to develop clear mental health support frameworks,
working with charities and experts. The suicide-safer
universities framework provides guidance on suicide prevention
for university leaders. There is also now postvention best
practice on providing compassionate and timely support after a
suspected suicide. Building on those foundations, Student Minds
developed the university mental health charter, setting out the
principles for a whole-university approach to mental health. That
includes the need for mental health training relevant to the role
of individual staff—an issue that I know the LEARN Network has
raised.
The associated charter programme is not a panacea but a
process—one that enables continuous improvement and that has
already raised standards in the sector. As has been mentioned, I
have written to ask all universities to sign up to the mental
health charter programme by September 2024. It is right that just
61 universities are already part of the charter programme. I know
that that concerns my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and
The Weald (Mrs Grant), and I agree that it is time the rest got
onboard. It is time that parents and students have the confidence
that a safety net is in place, whatever university they have
chosen to study at.
Providers that do not have degree-awarding powers are not
eligible but can still follow the charter’s principles, and there
is an Association of Colleges mental health and wellbeing charter
for colleges. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford () talked about parity of
esteem, and about how FE is doing these things and universities
should be doing them as well. She is absolutely right. I thank
all the further education colleges and providers for all they do
to support learners with mental health difficulties.
I am confident that higher education can meet this challenge.
However, I have made it clear that if the response is not
satisfactory, I will go further and ask the Office for Students
to look at the merits of a new registration condition on mental
health. To those who fear it would not have the right impact, I
want to be clear that any breach of such a condition would be
subject to the same sanctions as breaches of other registration
conditions.
I have been asked about the student support champion. For the
record, I should declare that I was made an honorary professor of
Nottingham Trent University when I was Chair of the Education
Committee. We appointed Professor Edward Peck as the first ever
student support champion in 2022, and I am pleased that he is in
the Public Gallery to observe this debate. I am indebted to him
for all his support and wise advice.
Professor Peck has worked with the LEARN Network to identify four
more areas where providers should go further to protect students’
mental health. First, providers need to identify students at risk
early, with pastoral care well before they reach crisis point.
UCAS has worked hard to improve disclosure of mental health
conditions by breaking down stigma and promoting the benefits of
having reasonable adjustments in place from day one. Providers
are already finding effective ways to identify students who have
not yet disclosed but need help, such as Northumbria’s innovative
use of student data analytics. We need to waste no time in
rolling this out, but there needs to be a clear action plan,
backed by the sector and students, to ensure that it happens.
Secondly, higher education needs to get behind a university
student commitment on more personalised and compassionate
academic processes, so that students are dealt with sensitively
when they face course dismissal or receive difficult assignment
results. The LEARN Network has raised the importance of that
issue, and has asked for students to be treated fairly. Under the
commitment, providers would review their procedures to ensure
that the circumstances of individual students are considered,
including their mental health.
Thirdly, lessons from existing reviews of student suicides need
to be shared more widely, which I know some bereaved parents have
been calling for. To ensure that that happens, we will commission
an independent organisation to carry out a national review of
university student deaths. That is the best way to ensure that
local reviews are done rigorously, to learn from these tragic
events and to prevent lives from being lost. My right hon. Friend
the Member for Camborne and Redruth () talked about the suicide
data issue. I will come on to what we are doing. I mentioned
Professor Peck and the review, and it is perhaps something we
could look at in relation to that. As my right hon. Friend knows,
the Office for National Statistics has published national data on
student suicides.
I know that there are bereaved families listening today who would
particularly like to see Universities UK guidance on sharing
information with trusted contacts effectively adopted. That has
been raised by a number of Members. Of course, where possible,
information should be shared with parents. There may be
circumstances where students do not want to share. They may be
adults; there may be issues with family breakdowns or personal
issues that mean they do not want to share with parents, but
having a point of contact is exactly right.
As of May 2023, a Universities UK survey showed that 93% of
members have adopted or are adopting the guidance on information
sharing, so we should start to see a change in practice. Ensuring
that best practice on information sharing with trusted contacts,
whether parents or otherwise, is fully implemented will be a key
focus of the implementation taskforce. The taskforce will set
targets for improvement, which I will come on to.
As I have mentioned, Professor Peck is chairing a new higher
education mental health implementation taskforce, with its
outputs reporting directly to me. It will include bereaved
parents, students, mental health experts, charities and sector
representatives. Of course, where I am able to involve the shadow
Minister, I will be pleased to do so.
Will the Minister give way?
I will in a second, but I have some very important stuff for
families to get through.
By the end of this year, the taskforce will be asked to put in
place an interim plan for better early identification of students
at risk and for delivering the university student commitment as
well as a set of strong, clear targets for improvements by
providers. By May 2024, it should follow with a final report
outlining the next steps, including how the sector will publicly
report on the progress measures over the coming years.
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. We are talking
about a lot of stakeholders, and we are also talking about UK
bodies. I am very keen to understand what engagement the Minister
is having with the Scottish and Welsh Governments. All of us,
wherever we represent, want to ensure that we prevent student
suicides.
Although education is a devolved issue, as the hon. Lady knows, I
will of course work with the devolved authorities—absolutely. It
is absolutely essential to learn from each other. The Labour
party spokesman talked about Wales, for example. There is a lot
that we can learn from.
Turning to the statutory duty of care called for by the petition,
I absolutely get the arguments and hope I have demonstrated that
I share the petitioners’ fundamental aims, which are to protect
those who study at university and to prevent future tragedies. If
creating a duty for higher education providers towards their
students was the right way to achieve that, it would absolutely
have the Government’s backing. There are reasons why we believe
that it may not be the most effective intervention.
My right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire () expressed some important views about bureaucracy.
PAPYRUS, the suicide prevention and mental health charity, says
that one of the risks of the shift from “should” to “must” is
that we already see, most prevalently, a rescinding of energy. My
worry is that if we introduce a framework that says “must”,
people will recoil even further and avoid any natural
intervention that they would ordinarily make. I am worried that
the thing that he wants to happen might create a
one-size-fits-all approach, when we need to look at different
ways of intervening for mental health.
First, the Government’s view, shared by independent legal
experts, is that a general duty of care already exists in common
law as part of the law of negligence. That means higher education
providers must deliver educational and pastoral services to the
standard of an ordinarily competent institution. Recent judgments
failed to find a duty of care in the circumstances of those
particular cases. However, I am aware that the decision in
Abrahart v. University of Bristol is being appealed in the High
Court, so I have been advised that I am not able to comment
further at this stage, although we will look at the issue
carefully.
Secondly, there are already further protections for students in
law. In particular, the Equality Act 2010 protects students with
disabilities, including mental health conditions, from unlawful
discrimination and harassment. It also provides reasonable
adjustments where such students would otherwise be put at a
substantial disadvantage. Providers must also fully observe
health and safety obligations and requirements to safeguard
vulnerable adults, as well as contractual obligations.
Thirdly, setting aside the legal position, we do not believe that
the most effective way to improve student mental health is to
introduce new legislative requirements when the sector is making
progress on a voluntary basis. Although the sector absolutely
could and should do more—I have tried to set out some of the
things that we are calling for—providers are still innovating and
improving, and there is not yet consensus on which interventions
are most effective. That is the point I am trying to explain to
my right hon. Friend the Member for North West Hampshire. It is
no excuse for not doing anything or for inaction, but it does
mean that the one-size-fits-all approach may not achieve the best
results and support for students suffering from mental health
difficulties, which is what we all want to see. As I say, we have
other pieces of legislation already in place on equalities and on
negligence.
I expect universities, as organisations with an obligation to do
the right thing for their students, to rise to the challenge that
we have set for them today. As I have mentioned, if we do not see
the expected improvements I will not hesitate to ask the Office
for Students to introduce a new registration condition on mental
health. It is vital that the whole sector takes this call to
action seriously.
I hope that I have been clear that we are not standing by and
letting things continue as they are. I am determined that all
universities will sign up to the mental health charter and that
Professor Peck’s proposals will be implemented. I will reiterate
those aims when I host a mental health roundtable for sector
leaders. We will also continue to monitor how effectively the
existing law is being applied.
I want to say one thing to everybody who has talked about the
need for more legislation—my hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone
and The Weald cares passionately about this, and I thank her for
all that she has done for her constituents. To be absolutely
clear, I am not closing the door on future legislation if that is
what is required to make students safer. For now, we are seeking
actively to bolster every aspect of the support systems that are
available to students. Absolutely no one should take up the
shining opportunity of a university place—it is meant to be one
of the greatest times of one’s life—only to find that poor mental
health support prevents them from getting the most out of the
experience and the fulfilment of attending that university.
(in the Chair)
I call to make some brief final
comments.
6.16pm
I thank all hon. Members who have come to the debate, and I thank
the Minister for his letter and his comments. I thank all the
petitioners who have come to the debate. I know that they were
hoping for the statutory duty to be put in place. That was never
going to happen today—this is a Westminster Hall debate, and that
does not happen here—but they have heard the Minister’s comments.
He has written to all universities to ask them to sign up to the
mental health charter by 2024, which is obviously a step in the
right direction. If we do not see any improvement in the way that
young people in our universities are treated, we can come back to
the Minister and ask for the issue to be looked at again. I
understand how important the issue is to everybody and that they
will be disappointed that we are not moving as fast as they want,
but the point of these debates is to open a subject up for
debate. We have heard from other charities that do not believe
that the statutory duty of care is the way forward, and they are
the specialists in this subject.
I talk about resilience an awful lot. The Education Committee
heard last month that one in six young people has a diagnosed
mental health issue and seven out of 10 believe that they are
suffering with poor mental health. These young people are going
on to university, where they are away from their family and
friends, who may be in a foreign place, and the universities are
not always doing what they should be doing. We need to look at
why so many young people are struggling with their mental health.
That is such a huge piece of work. It cannot be right that seven
out of 10 children think they have a mental health issue. We need
to grasp and look at that as Members of Parliament, as Government
and as a wider society, because otherwise we will have more and
more tragedies like the families here have had to suffer.
Once again, I thank everybody for taking part in the debate. It
has been a tough debate, but I hope that with the works put
forward by the Government and the continued pressure from the
petitioners, we can get to a point where we start to see those
numbers drop to zero, which is where they should be.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered e-petition 622847, relating to a
statutory duty of care for higher education students.
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