Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has confirmed that mental health services in England will receive £1.25bn in next week’s Budget, mainly to help vulnerable children and young people.

The NHS has been a particular battleground in the run-up to the General Election, with Labour criticising the Government for cutting spending, particularly on children’s mental health services, so Mr Clegg is delighted that the money will be targeted at this cohort.

As he said, there would be an outcry if a child with diabetes was left to cope without support or treatment but that is what has been happening with young people’s mental health services, adding that new mothers had also previously struggled with a “second-class” mental health service.

According to Mr Clegg, the funding will ensure that these mothers get the treatment and support they need to that they can give their children the best possible start in life. In addition the funding will help children with conditions such as self-harming, depression and those at risk of committing suicide.

It will be a boost for therapy sessions, family support work, better training for clinicians and the development of help via websites and online apps as well as early intervention schemes to stop children developing serious and potentially fatal mental illnesses.

Mr Clegg also announced that there will be the first-ever waiting times standards for children’s mental health treatment and said that specialists in children’s speech therapy will be available from 2018.

The Chief Executive of NHS England, Simon Stevens, described the extra funding as an “important boost”, adding that it will kick-start a multi-year upgrade in care for younger people and their families, with NHS nurses, therapists and doctors able to use it to benefit families all over the country.