For years, universities have rightly been encouraged to take student mental health more seriously. Many have done so in good faith, expanding wellbeing, counselling and mental health support services. But while day-to-day practices have evolved, the law has not.
When I led a Westminster Hall debate on 13th January on the ‘potential merits of a statutory duty of care for universities’, the question before us was relatively simple: are the health, wellbeing and safety responsibilities that universities owe to their students sufficiently clear, consistent and enforceable – or does the current legal framework leave too much uncertainty for everyone involved?
Mental health struggles among students are not a new phenomenon. I was at university in the late 2000s and remember the shock of losing a fellow student to suicide. Years later, more deaths followed at the same college.
Between 2010 and 2022, the proportion of students disclosing a mental health condition to their university rose from under 1% to nearly 6%. Student Minds says that at least one in three students experiences poor mental wellbeing, and the Office for National Statistics reports an average of 160 student suicides a year.
Despite data consistently pointing to the need for the well-being and safety of university students to be prioritised, there is no statutory duty requiring universities to take reasonable care to protect adult students from foreseeable harm. Instead, obligations are piecemeal and are based on a mix of equality law, health and safety law, contract law and voluntary guidance. This patchwork approach leaves dangerous gaps.
The consequences of that uncertainty are painfully real. Natasha Abrahart, from my constituency of Rushcliffe, was studying physics at the University of Bristol when she died in April 2018, aged 20. Diagnosed with chronic social anxiety disorder two months beforehand, she died on the day that she was due to give a presentation in a 329-seat lecture theatre. Her parents, Bob and Maggie Abrahart, have since formed ForThe100 which believes universities need to have a legal duty of care for students.
In Natasha’s case, the courts ruled that the University of Bristol had breached the Equality Act but declined to find a general duty of care in negligence. Crucially, the judge said that such a duty was a question of “potentially wide application and significance” – in other words, a matter for parliament to determine.
This point is key. Without legislation, the law will only develop after harm has occurred, through costly and traumatic litigation brought by grieving families. That is neither fair nor sustainable. In fact, it’s a dereliction of duty.
A statutory duty of care wouldn’t require universities to act as parents, nor to provide unlimited services. It would establish a reasonable baseline – that where harm is foreseeable and vulnerability is evident, universities must act with appropriate care and skill. This already applies in prisons, hospitals and other regulated settings.
Far from creating unreasonable liability, statutory clarity could benefit universities by reducing legal uncertainty, helping to focus resources on what strictly matters, and aligning public expectations with legal reality.
The question, then, is not whether there are risks in legislating, but whether the current status quo is acceptable. I do not believe it is. And parliament shouldn’t wait for the next family to suffer before providing the clarity, consistency and accountability that students – and universities – deserve.
Universities, mental health and the law: why parliament must step in
