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The BBC strapline says it all: “Streeting orders review of mental health services as welfare bills rise”.

This is not about helping people; it is about finding an excuse to say they are not ill and ignore them.

Here’s the BBC’s actual article:

“Health Secretary Wes Streeting is launching an independent review into rising demand for mental health, ADHD and autism services in England.

“It will look at both whether there is evidence of over-diagnosis and what gaps in support exist.

“It comes as ministers seek to tackle a growing welfare bill – although the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) has stressed this review is running separately to that.

“Led by clinical psychologist Prof Peter Fonagy, the new review’s findings will be published in Summer 2026.

“NHS figures show that the number of adults aged 16 to 64 reporting mental health problems reached 22.6% in 2023-24, up from 17.6% in 2007.

“Rates are higher in the young and among the unemployed.

“It is thought one of the factors in long waits was that people who did not necessarily need treatment were ending up being referred on to waiting list when practical support, such as help with social or financial issues or a short-burst of talking therapy could provide the solution.”

This has the ring of a renewed attempt to deny the mental illnesses suffered by young people as a result of cack-handed handling of their well-being during the Covid-19 pandemic.

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(Before going forward, let’s acknowledge that Peter Fonagy has a reputation for institutional alignment and service reconfiguration rather than grassroots advocacy or patient-led approaches. His involvement signals this is not a review that is going to begin by assuming people are ill because they say they are ill. It sets expectations.)

(Oh, and the “overdiagnosis” narrative was already being used politically, long before the review was even proposed. In other words:

• Ministers want the conclusion
• They have appointed a panel to provide it
• They will then use it legislatively

That sequencing makes a mockery of the claim that this is a neutral clinical inquiry.)

I wrote about this in October this year (2025) after it was revealed that Boris Johnson’s Conservative government – that was in office during the pandemic – had failed to protect children properly.

Those children are now young adults – and many of them are claiming to suffer with the conditions that are to be examined by the review.

Let’s revisit what I wrote in October because it is even more important now:

“[Government] failures caused quantifiable, lasting harm to children and young people who were going through the education system at the time.

“The most visible damage was academic: pupils lost months of direct teaching, and although online learning filled some gaps, it was hugely unequal — children from wealthier families often had laptops, quiet spaces, and support, while poorer children did not.

“The Education Endowment Foundation found that by 2022, pupils in disadvantaged areas were on average six months behind in reading and nine months behind in maths compared with pre-pandemic levels.

“Exam outcomes in 2021 and 2022 bore this out: the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils widened for the first time in a decade.

“Arguably the most worrying legacies are behavioural and attendance problems: persistent absenteeism – missing more than 10 per cent of school sessions – has doubled compared with pre-pandemic levels.

“Suspensions and exclusions are at record highs, as schools struggle with pupils who have missed key socialisation milestones.

“Teachers report an increase in disruptive behaviour, anxiety, and disengagement from learning.

“Many children, especially those with special educational needs, found the return to school traumatic after months of isolation and unstructured time.

“One of the most striking and well-documented effects, particularly for younger children, was a delay in speech and language proficiency: nurseries and reception classes reported marked delays in speech, vocabulary, and social communication after long periods at home; there was a marked increase in referrals for speech and language therapy; and The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists has confirmed that demand for services is still higher than before the pandemic, especially among children who started school in 2020–2021.

“The next few effects are closely linked. Firstly, children fell into screen addiction and sedentary habits. Children’s screen time soared during lockdowns, not just for learning but for entertainment and social contact.

“Public Health England has reported – consequential? – increases in obesity, poor sleep, and reduced physical fitness, with 2021 data showing one in four Year 6 children classed as obese — the highest rate ever recorded.

“The habits established then have proved hard to break: more sedentary behaviour, less outdoor play, and higher reported anxiety linked to social media dependence.

“This leads us directly to what is perhaps the most enduring consequence: mental and emotional illness.

“NHS data show that one in five children aged eight–16 now has a probable mental health disorder — up from one in nine before the pandemic. Waiting lists for CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services) have exploded.

“Many children developed anxiety about illness, separation, or social interaction; others experienced depression linked to loneliness or lost milestones (exams, prom, team sports).

“Teachers report that resilience and concentration levels are significantly lower than before 2020.”

Next came the most important part of my piece – the part that accused the current Labour government of trying to ignore the harm done to these young people – and in so doing, perpetuate that harm:

“Let’s clarify this in the minds of our law-makers: mental and emotional illness caused by pandemic lockdowns is now directly responsible for the surge in sickness and disability benefit claims by people aged up to 22.

“NHS data show that the number of under-25s receiving treatment for anxiety and depression has nearly doubled since 2020.

“The same cohort — those who were teenagers during lockdown — are now the young adults showing up in PIP and ESA claims, often with diagnoses of long-term anxiety, PTSD-type symptoms, or neurodevelopmental issues exacerbated by social isolation and disrupted education.

“So when the current government describes the rise in sickness and disability claims as a “fiscal problem” rather than a public health legacy, it is effectively denying the causal chain that began with state policy failures during the pandemic years.

“These are people who are suffering the direct consequences of being abandoned by government during the pandemic, and the current Labour government’s attitude to them is that it cannot afford the cost of putting them on benefit, and the NHS cannot cope with their treatment requirements (look at the size of the waiting lists) so instead it will legislate that they cannot be ill. That is how the government plans to fix its administrative problem: by denying reality. Isn’t that a worse “dereliction of duty” than Johnson’s?

“The Johnson era’s dereliction was a failure to plan and protect.

“The Labour government’s emerging one – already active in its refusal to give disability-related Universal Credit to anybody aged 22 or under – is a failure to acknowledge and respond.

“Current and recent rhetoric from Rachel Reeves, Liz Kendall and others frames benefit growth as a “crisis of inactivity”, not of health. Yet the data show that:

• Mental and behavioural disorders now account for more than half of all new incapacity claims among 16-24-year-olds.
• CAMHS waiting lists exceed 500,000 children and teenagers, with some waiting more than a year for assessment.
• Adult mental-health services are also at record overload.

“In other words, these young claimants are not malingering — they’re the same children the Covid Inquiry has… described as suffering lasting harm.

“To legislate tighter benefit conditions or “redefine” sickness so fewer people qualify is therefore to re-victimise the very generation already harmed by previous government failure.

“Labour’s current dereliction of duty is worse than Johnson’s because his was failure in the face of uncertainty; Reeves and Starmer’s is failure in full knowledge of the consequences.

“In 2020, children were abandoned because the state had no plan. In 2025, those same children — now young adults — are being abandoned again because the state has no heart.”

Isn’t Streeting’s review intended to “‘redefine’ sickness so fewer people qualify as being mentally ill”?

Isn’t it his plan to “legislate that they cannot be ill” – not only because the government “cannot afford the cost of putting them on benefit”, but also because “the NHS cannot cope with their treatment requirements”?

Don’t you wish he’d just come clean and admit it?

“Sorry, kids, but we don’t want to spend any money on the treatment you obviously need, so we’re going to pretend you’re not sick. Bye!”

And he calls himself a Labour minister.

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