Mental Health is not a minority issue. 1 in 4 people will experience a common mental health problem.

Please watch my speech in Parliament, where I raise the lack of treatment and support locally and across the country. It is welcome that the Labour Party has committed to additional funding to address these issues.

Thank you very much indeed, Madam Deputy Speaker. At 11:33 yesterday morning this House finished prayers and the first question to the Health Secretary began. Disgracefully, 2 hours and 5 minutes later the Government’s business was done, and Members were told that if they had no further meetings they could go home. This exhausted government had literally nothing left to say or to do and it is therefore hugely welcome that on behalf of the Government in waiting, my Hon. friend from Tooting and my Hon. friend from Ilford North have stepped forward to ensure that today there is a debate on a matter of considerable importance happening.

 

Every week in constituency surgeries I meet parents exasperated that the treatment and support that they know their children need is not available, causing problems to exacerbate unchecked, children missing school – not the odd day, but months at a time, the whole years of their schooling lost and family routines decimated as the entire family steps in to provide the support that an early intervention could have prevented.

 

Mental health is not a minority issue. Every year 1 in 4 people will experience a common mental health problem and this government are guilty of both underfunding mental health services and, through their actions, causing the number of people with mental health problems to rise. We all know that the government have allowed our country’s economy to be in a terrible mess and that money is short but it is welcome and right that the Labour Party and my Hon. friend from Ilford North has been able to secure a commitment to additional funding from Shadow Treasury colleagues, which all of us who sit in front bench positions will know is very difficult, but to pursue the plans that are so desperately needed.

 

I would like to talk about access to services being available locally. Steven Jones, in my constituency, had a child with a mental health crisis which required in-patient treatment. The child was moved to Stoke on Trent, 70 miles away, because there are no child in-patient beds available in the whole of Derbyshire. This isolation that Steven’s child experienced exacerbated their problems and made it harder for the family to support them. So, I want to stress to my front bench colleagues that whilst we realise specialist staff won’t be available in every single village and town, we do need to give real consideration to those specialist services being provided close enough to patients for their families to more easily play their part in supporting patients, particularly children in their treatment and recovery.

 

I am very pleased that my Hon. friend from Tooting focussed on some of the causes of the mental health crisis we have because the Government are quick to talk about the increases in the amount they’re spending, but they’re forced to spend more because there are more and more patients coming forward. If you had a huge expansion in the number of people with cancer you would have to increase the number of cancer doctors. We have far more people with mental health crisis and the Government need to stop for a minute and think about the roles that they have played in causing that increase. From the start in 2010 their pursuit of people on benefits, their targeting of the unemployed and the mentally ill, their approach to Work Capability Assessments, their reduction in Housing Benefit – which led to record levels of poverty and homelessness, all these have played a part in increasing the pressures on people and have in themselves added to the mental health crisis.

 

Now, of course people on the face of it, who are very successful can also have mental health crisis, no one is suggesting that these are the only causes but that expansion in the numbers is something the Government should take very seriously. The pressures on children in this period have also exacerbated those problems. Between 2017 and 2022 alone the number of children aged between 7 and 16 with a probable mental health disorder rose from 12% to 18%. Shockingly amongst those between 17 and 19 it more than doubled from 10% to 25.7%.

 

Finally, Madam Deputy Speaker, I would like to turn to the Government’s disappointing, inadequate and defensive amendment to the Motion. It says everything about their complacency and how lacking in ideas they are that they should try to convince the House that they’ve already acted to reduce A&E stays. In Chesterfield alone, last year 5,254 hours were spent in A&E with people with a mental health crisis. It’s clear from this debate that our nation’s mental health patients are being let down and that the Government has neither the wit, not the will to fix it. I am pleased that Labour will prioritise this crucial area of health and endorse this motion.

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