Social media companies should be forced to pay a windfall tax to fund mental health services amid a growing crisis in child suicide, experts have said.
Former Children’s Commissioner Anne Longfield and Steve Chalke, the founder of Oasis charity - which oversees more than 50 schools - said they have “never known a generation that is struggling as much with mental health problems” in their 40 years working with children.
They said “there is no doubt that it is fuelled and amplified by the dominance that social media now has in children’s lives”.
The two children’s campaigners are now pleading with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt to commit to a social media levy in the budget next Wednesday.
They want to use it to fund a £1billion package, which they have estimated is needed to boost the quality and effectiveness of mental health care.
Roughly, this would include £500million to extend mental health teams to all schools in England and £250million to improve waiting times and treatment.
It would also allocate £150million to develop community based drop-in mental health centres and £100million to fund sessions in sports, arts, music, drama and other activities for children and young people.
Social media’s impact on children and young people gained huge attention with the tragic case of 14-year-old Molly Russell.
An inquest found the schoolgirl died due to a depressive “act of self-harm” after being "exposed to material that may have influenced her in a negative way”.
Andrew Walker, the coroner, said the "particularly graphic" content she saw "romanticised acts of self-harm", "normalised her condition" and focused on a "limited and irrational view without any counterbalance of normality".
He said it "sought to isolate and discourage discussion" with people who could have helped her, and instead "tended to portray self-harm and suicide as an inevitable consequence of a condition that could not be recovered from".
One in six children and young people in England now have a diagnosable mental health condition, according to official NHS statistics.
Latest figures show that there were 734,000 children referred to the NHS’s child and young people mental health services in 2021-22 - a 47% increase from the previous year and an enormous 84% increase from 2018-19,the last year before Covid.
Average waiting times between a child being referred and starting treatment also jumped up by 25% in the last year.
It went from a 32-day wait in 2020-21 to 40 days in 2021-22, according to analysis published this week by the current Children’s Commissioner Rachel de Souza.
Speaking exclusively to the Mirror, Ms Longfield and Mr Chalke said: “Children attempting to take their own life, and in some cases succeeding, is no longer exceptional in many schools and colleges, particularly since the Covid pandemic.
"Children are falling into crisis, mental health services are overwhelmed, and on current trajectories there won’t be support teams in every school until at least the end of the decade.
“We believe we need emergency support for children’s mental health and that it is only right that social media companies, who are contributing to the problem, help to provide some of the cash to solve it.
“Just as the Government has introduced a windfall tax on energy companies to tackle one emergency, we believe that it should now introduce a levy on social media companies and mobile phone providers to help pay for the children’s mental health emergency.
“The foot-dragging reluctance of the tech giants to take proper responsibility for the impact they have on young minds is palpable.
“It is time they paid their fair share towards funding a children’s mental health system that can help children stay well and which starts to turn around the crisis in young people’s mental health. Ultimately it will even save lives.
“We urge the Chancellor to be bold and to introduce a levy now. Millions of children and parents will thank him for it.”
The Online Safety Bill is expected to return to parliament this summer.
If passed, it will make social media companies legally responsible for keeping children and young people safe online.
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