Mental Health

Alison Seabeck Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Alison Seabeck (Plymouth, Moor View) (Lab)]

It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). She has great personal and professional experience in this field. I congratulate the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on securing the debate, and I apologise to her for missing her opening speech as I mistimed my arrival in the Chamber. I will read it in Hansard, however.

This is a very important debate. Mental health problems stigmatise. We have heard harrowing stories from colleagues on both sides of the House about how mental health issues affect our constituents—and also Members of Parliament. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for his brave speech; he will now only have greater respect. It was interesting to hear how his experience made him stronger. The hon. Member for Totnes made that point, too, from her own experience. The hon. Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) made a speech that managed to be entertaining despite the seriousness of the subject under discussion, and all I have to say in response is “rock ’n’ roll.”

Mental health problems are met with intolerance and discrimination, and sometimes fear. When I was growing up, the terms used to describe people with mental illness included lunatic, nutter, headcase and maniac, all of which have associations of dangerous or unpredictable behaviour. No real effort was made to understand or support. The usual solution chosen was to lock people away, or to stay away from them.

Many people, especially men, are reluctant to admit they have problems or that they are feeling depressed or are hearing voices. Some people do not understand that their lives are being affected by the state of their mental health. We find in our surgeries that people sometimes start talking about one problem, but when we dig we find layers of issues, including mental health issues. About 60% of the people I see have an underlying mental health issue, ranging from severe stress to serious psychotic conditions, and I do not think my constituency is unusual in that regard. Teasing out what support they have, or have not, sought can require great sensitivity, and very few MPs are trained counsellors or therapists. At times, however, we find ourselves taking on that role and doing our best.

Plymouth has a number of organisations that work with people across the full range of conditions; the Samaritans and Plymouth Mind are excellent. Mind has been in touch with me to express serious concerns that, at a time when more people are struggling, money is a huge problem, relationships are failing, young men and women are returning from war and housing pressures are intolerable for some, the main provider of mental health services, Plymouth Community Healthcare, is no longer structuring mental health as a specifically defined directorate of health care and appears to be shifting resources from mental health to generic health services. My right hon. Friend the Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), on the Front Bench, talked about bringing mental health closer to acute care, and that is obviously a better approach. Mind is concerned that in Plymouth the limited funds are being shifted away from mental health support. The charitable sector, too, is struggling as a result of a reduction in resources. There are some truly excellent support groups in Plymouth, and I pay huge tribute to the staff and volunteers at those, many of whom have come through mental health illness themselves. There are far too many of them to name, but I just wanted to put that on the record.

I have mentioned housing pressures. How many of us have constituents who are living in desperately overcrowded situations? We encounter pressure on parents because their children have turned up, perhaps with their grandchildren. A woman who came to my surgery is sleeping on the sofa in her front room while the rest of the house is taken up by her children. These people are clearly struggling. Many of them are on antidepressants or more powerful medication, and some are suicidal. Our caseworkers also deserve enormous credit for the way in which they sometimes have to support people in those circumstances.

Equally, housing officers often cannot manage the tide of human misery that they face. People with mental health issues are much more difficult to deal with. A housing officer can understand someone who has a physical disability, as it is often obvious—it is there in front of them and it is not invisible—and they can offer adaptations or a possible move. Things do not work in the same way for people with mental health issues, and it is much more difficult to deal with those.

As we have heard repeatedly, mental health cuts across every area of our society. We have heard a great deal about the need and support for our armed forces and the excellent work done by organisations such as Combat Stress. We have heard about the iniquitous treatment of people at the hands of Atos and about problems faced by those in the criminal justice system, but there are other areas to address. The hon. Member for Totnes touched on the issue of young women, who clearly often need support both before and after childbirth. Midwives are potentially very important in that scenario, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister on what guidance and training they specifically receive on supporting women in those circumstances.

Work is also being done to address the needs of children. The Minister mentioned the work of YoungMinds, but we are still failing very many young people. Recent media reports on suicides highlighted just how difficult it can be for young people who are being bullied or are struggling through other personal issues. Tragically, schools and other responsible adults have failed to recognise what was going on in their lives. I pay tribute to the incredibly well-informed speech by the hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), which specifically dealt with those issues. YoungMinds, which was praised by the Minister, is concerned by the service cuts and reductions in provision for child and adolescent mental health. We also have to address an issue about the transition from support in that area into adulthood. That area needs a lot more attention, and I hope that the Minister will address some of these specific issues in his correspondence with us.

Finally, I wish to offer my support to the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) in his attempt to make significant changes on the whole issue of stigma. Intolerance or discrimination in employment, and preventing people from holding public office because they have been sectioned, is wholly unacceptable. He is right to say that this archaic piece of legislation needs to be binned, and I welcome the support that he has received from the two Front-Bench teams. I also welcome the fact that we will have a further opportunity to debate some of these crucial issues and just get it out there.

[Several hon. Members]

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