Mental Health Treatment and Support

Andrew Gwynne Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to close the debate on behalf of the shadow health and social care team.

We have had a thorough debate and we have heard some heartbreaking, harrowing and concerning things during its course. The amendment that the Minister has put down in response to the motion is reminiscent of “Alice Through the Looking Glass”, because it does not bear any relationship to people’s lived experiences of the mental health system in England or the contributions made by Members from both sides of the House to the debate.

I pay tribute to all who have spoken today. There have been some incredible speeches. We heard from the hon. Members for Watford (Dean Russell) and for Penrith and The Border (Dr Hudson), from the right hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), and from the hon. Members for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), for Penistone and Stockbridge (Miriam Candidates), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), for Devizes (Danny Kruger), for St Albans (Daisy Cooper), and for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran).

We also heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), my hon. Friend the Member for Bermondsey and Old Southwark (Neil Coyle), who made an extremely powerful contribution, and my hon. Friends the Members for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins), for Batley and Spen (Kim Leadbeater), for West Ham (Ms Brown)—I ask the Minister not to forget her request for a meeting; she is certainly someone to whom it is difficult to say no—for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel), for Sheffield, Hallam (Olivia Blake), for Birmingham, Erdington (Mrs Hamilton), for Halifax (Holly Lynch), for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy), for Wakefield (Simon Lightwood), for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins), for St Helens South and Whiston (Ms Rimmer), for Salford and Eccles (Rebecca Long Bailey) and for Blaydon (Liz Twist). Finally, we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for City of Durham (Mary Kelly Foy); I remind the Minister that she would like a response to her request for an inquiry into issues in her local area.

We are facing a mental health emergency in this country—

[Vicky Ford]

The hon. Gentleman has said that the Government’s amendment bears no relation to the reality of what people are seeing. In my speech I mentioned the creation of a brand-new facility for patients in mid-Essex, which means that people in crisis are not spending many hours in A&E but are going to a bespoke 24/7 centre. That is the sort of provision that I want to support, and it is mentioned in the Government amendment but not in the Opposition motion.

[Andrew Gwynne]

Of course we need facilities in every part of England, but the fact is that after 13 years, too many parts of England are falling behind. We know that the mental health crisis in this country has become worse on the watch of the right hon. Lady’s Government, and she should have a little contrition about the state of mental health services in England.

[Vicky Ford]

rose—

[Andrew Gwynne]

I will not give way. We have heard enough from the right hon. Lady, supporting her “Through the Looking-Glass” amendment which bears no relation to the reality.

As we have heard today, people who require mental health support, no matter where they live—except in the right hon. Lady’s part of England—will be confronted by a system that is buckling under the pressure of 13 years of Tory mismanagement, neglect and incompetence. The right hon. Lady shakes her head, but the figures speak for themselves. Last year, patients suffering with mental health issues waited more than 5.4 million hours in accident and emergency departments. There are 400,000 children currently waiting for mental health treatment, and 1.2 million people are waiting for community mental health care, with some patients being forced to travel more than 300 miles because there are no beds in their local area. My hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth spoke powerfully about that. The Resolution Foundation has found that, of the 185,000 young people who are unable to work, nearly two thirds cite mental ill health as the reason. Suicide is now the leading cause of death in adults under 34, with about 18 people losing their lives every single day. As the cost of living crisis has worsened, we have also seen a knock-on effect on addiction and rehabilitation. Drug-related deaths are at a record high, and last year there were 9,641 deaths in the UK from alcohol misuse, a 27% increase on the year before.

Make no mistake: the emergency in mental health has become a public health crisis, and we need to see action. Our motion calls on the Government to adopt Labour’s plan to recruit 8,500 mental health staff to expand access to treatment, to provide specialist mental health support in every school, and to establish open-access mental health hubs for children and young people. That would be paid for by the closing of tax loopholes, because politics is about priorities, and Labour’s priority is to ensure that those who need mental health support have access to it in all parts of the country. Our priority is to build a Britain where patients start receiving appropriate treatment within a month of referral. I hope that those on the Government Benches will demonstrate that they share these priorities by voting for Labour’s motion today.

Staffing is just one part of the equation. Like any public health issue, addressing mental health requires a holistic approach that recognises its complex nature. That is why Labour has committed to a whole-Government plan to improve outcomes for people with mental health needs and to address the social determinants that drive mental ill health for many people. Our mental health can be influenced by a multitude of different things. Secure jobs, fair pay and good housing are all building blocks for a healthy life, physically and mentally, and unless we improve people’s lives in the round, positive change will remain out of reach.

It is for this reason that the next Labour Government will focus as much on prevention as we do on treatment. We will pioneer a transformative cross-departmental agenda with a mission delivery board at the heart of the Government ensuring that all Departments work to improve the wider determinants of health. We will boost capacity in mental and public health teams so that people can get the support they need before presenting at A&E or turning to substance abuse. We will also encourage the integrated care systems to identify opportunities to join up services within the community. Our aim will be for more patients to have one point of contact for appointments with a range of professionals and services. This neighbourhood team will include the family doctor, carers, health visitors, social prescribers and mental health specialists.

Our vision is to turn the national health service into a neighbourhood health service with the patient right at the heart of it. The benefits of this kind of work will travel far beyond improving the lives of individuals suffering from mental ill health. For instance, in my own region of the north-west of England there were over 140,000 calls to 999 from people in a mental health crisis last year, and in my own constituency local people spent over 6,500 hours waiting in A&E for mental health treatment. If we were to help people before they reached these crisis points, we would drastically reduce pressure on the wider health system and thereby improve patient outcomes right across the board.

The same is true of wider economic productivity. As we have heard in the debate, the Mental Health Foundation and the London School of Economics have estimated that poor mental health costs the British economy £117 billion a year. That is a phenomenal amount of money and a huge loss to our country’s economic power. Improving mental health outcomes is therefore not just a moral imperative—although it is certainly that—but a practical one, and one that is essential if we want the United Kingdom to prosper, as I hope and believe we all do. That is what we come to this House for. We want to leave our country in a better shape for our children than it has been for ourselves.

That brings me again to the motion. All Members of the House have the opportunity today to support a fully funded plan to improve mental health treatment. Those on the Government Benches can choose to put party politics first, but that will not change the fact that this Government have failed people on mental health. No matter what amendments they put before us, that does not change people’s real, lived experiences or the experiences of Members on both sides of the House who deal with the impact of mental ill health in their constituency casework. The system is crumbling and more of the same will just not cut it, so I am enormously proud to be supporting Labour’s motion today and I would strongly urge Members on both sides of the House to back it. It is time to give those suffering from mental ill health the treatment and support they deserve, and I commend our motion to the House.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I reiterate for those who were not here that it is incredibly important that people get back in good time to hear the Opposition wind-up as well as the Government wind-up—that includes Ministers. I would expect anybody who was not here at the beginning of the Opposition wind-up, some of whom are still not here, to write to Mr Speaker to apologise. I take it that people will do that.