Draft Mental Health Bill

Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Stevens of Birmingham

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a very important point from his own experience. I thank him for all his engagement and for educating me on what happens in the community. We must be careful because often, these issues are not simple or binary but are multi-faceted, and we then have different initiatives from the Government, which overlap. There is probably an incredibly complex Venn diagram of who is responsible, where the funding pots are and at what level you get the funding—is it local government, national government or philanthropy networks, for example? I would love to make it easy—but will I be able to?

Also, whenever you have change there are often winners and losers. Often, those who lose out because of change are very concentrated and make their voices heard, while the winners are dispersed and we do not hear them saying, “This is a great change.” Therefore, we must be very careful with any change in funding. However, the noble Lord makes an incredibly important point. We must ensure that we are not squeezing out civil society and pulling people in many directions, and that it is much easier to access finance. The noble Lord, Lord Glasman, made the point that as a Labour Peer, he is incredibly proud of 1945 and the welfare state, but that he worries that in doing such things, sometimes the state squeezes out local community groups and breaks the bonds in local communities. We must ensure that we get the right balance.

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, I welcome the draft mental health Bill. Prime Minister Theresa May was right to ask Sir Simon Wessely to develop these proposals, which command wide support across the sector. It was pleasing to hear the Minister commit to the Bill’s passage through Parliament before, and hopefully well before, the next election. However, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out, to will the end is to will the means. The Minister will know that the Royal College of Psychiatrists and others, in the impact assessment for this draft legislation, have shown that to make this work in practice will require more people working in mental health.

To that end, if the Minister does not mind me banging a familiar drum, it is surely paradoxical that UCAS is reporting that only 16% of applicants for undergraduate medicine and dentistry got an offer this year. We are turning bright and brilliant young people away at precisely the time when the NHS, and indeed our mental health services in the future, will need their services. Deans of medical schools report that this year is the hardest in living memory to enter undergraduate medicine. Can the Minister give us a date by which the Government will declare their hand on the needed expansion of undergraduate medicine?

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

I am sure the noble Lord is aware that one of the things we found when looking at the shortage of doctors—even though we have more doctors than ever before—was that some people are likely to stay close to where they were trained. That is why, for example, we have opened the new medical schools, and we are bringing more doctors into the system. Clearly, that will not happen overnight, since training to be a doctor takes a very long time.

We are also looking at what else needs to be done at that level. There are other pathways, such as nurses becoming doctors after a certain amount of time. Clearly, international recruitment plays an important role there. Our aim is to have an additional 27,000 mental health professionals in the NHS workforce by 2023-24. We are investing money to achieve that, but again, it is a question of how long it takes for the money to get through. At the same time, we must ensure that by having this additional workforce in the NHS, we are not squeezing out the voluntary sector but ensuring that we are working in partnership with it.

Health and Care Bill

Debate between Lord Kamall and Lord Stevens of Birmingham

Lords Hansard - Part 1 & Report stage
Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health and Social Care (Lord Kamall) (Con)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 2, I will speak to Amendments 57, 78 and 109 in my name. We have heard impassioned and compelling arguments here and in the other place for the need for greater emphasis on mental health in the Bill. We have listened and, as a result, have taken action. The result is the package of amendments brought before the House today. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to the many noble Lords across the House who have contributed to the development of these amendments and the advice we have received.

Let us first turn to defining health. I assure your Lordships’ House that this Government remain fully committed to delivering parity of esteem between physical and mental health. We want to support everyone’s mental health and well-being. We are very aware of the impact that the pandemic has had on a number of individuals and communities, particularly the impact on mental health and mental health services.

Amendment 109 removes any potential confusion as to whether references to health within the NHS Act 2006 include mental health. We have made it absolutely clear with our amendment that references to health includes mental health as well as physical health. I know noble Lords will acknowledge that it was our view that the current references to health in the Act would have included mental health, but this amendment is important because it sends a strong signal that health must not just be associated with physical health. Mental and physical health are equally important, and our legislation reflects that fully.

On the transparency and accountability of mental health funding, the Government remain committed to our ambitions in the NHS Long Term Plan to transform mental health services in England. The NHS Long Term Plan committed to increase spending on mental health services in real terms by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023-24. For each year of the current spending review period, the spend on mental health will increase as a share of the NHS budget. This is in line with the Government’s ongoing commitment to grow investment in mental health services faster than the overall NHS budget. Our amendment seeks to bring added transparency to this commitment and will better enable Parliament, stakeholders and the public to hold the Government to account for meeting this commitment.

The Secretary of State will be required to publish and lay before Parliament, before the start of each financial year, a document setting out the Government’s expectation on mental health spending for the year ahead. This document, a Written Ministerial Statement, will set out whether the Secretary of State expects there to be an increase in the amount and proportion of expenditure incurred by NHS England and integrated care boards, taken together, in relation to mental health, with a supporting explanation. There will also be requirements for NHS England and ICBs to include in their respective annual reports information about such spending to clearly demonstrate performance against expectation.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Stevens, as well as the noble Baronesses, Lady Hollins, Lady Merron and Lady Tyler of Enfield, for supporting amendments related to transparency and accountability of mental health funding in Committee, and for their constructive engagement since. I hope I have reassured noble Lords that this Government are committed to delivering parity of esteem between physical and mental health. I hope that our amendments address the issues and concerns previously raised and that the House will pass them today. I beg to move Amendment 2.

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

My Lords, continuing the outbreak of consensus, a large number of mental health stakeholders welcome the fact that the Government have accepted these amendments, which draw heavily on amendments a number of noble Lords brought forward in Committee. I think I said at that point that they would represent a spine-stiffener for the Government in their commitment to ensure that mental health sees a growing share of the growing NHS budget and an accountability booster for the NHS. I think they do that.

However, before the Minister concludes on this item, will he say whether, when setting the mandate for NHS England for the financial year ahead—the mandate that will therefore be laid at some point within the next 30 days—the Government might set the mental health waiting time standards, the very welcome consultation on which concluded last week, in a way that other amendments in this group would look to advance? None of that should detract from the fact that these amendments have wide support outside this place and will make a real difference to mental health in the years to come.