Suicide: Reducing the Stigma

Chris Vince Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Westminster Hall

[Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for bringing this really important debate to the House, and I join other Members in paying a massive tribute to her constituent Philip for the incredibly positive work he has done in the wake of an unspeakably devastating event. I thank him so much.

I pay tribute to Members on both sides of the House who have spoken in the debate. I want to say to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury) that the world is a much, much better place because he is part of it, but I know how mental health works, and I want to say that if he ever feels that it is not and wants someone to speak to, he can come and speak to me. However, it works both ways, and I would also appreciate that.

According to the 2024 health and wellbeing report commissioned by Harlow council, the suicide rate in Harlow is 16.3 people per 100,000, which is higher than the Essex average of 12.6. Suicide is a significant issue for my constituents, and I am aware that Harlow Mill station in my constituency is one of the biggest blackspots for suicide in Essex, as I have previously discussed with Greater Anglia staff.

I join the hon. Member for Richmond Park in calling for a national campaign to tackle the stigma of mental health, specifically by talking about suicide. I also join the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) in thanking my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Mr Charters), who spoke about his personal experiences of mental health in PMQs today. That is so important.

As many Members on both sides of the House have said, it is important that people do not suffer in silence and feel confident to talk about their struggles with others. It is also important for their friends and family to have the confidence to ask the question, “Are you all right?”, sometimes several times—we must feel that we can check on each other. I hope that hon. Members will appreciate from my opening remarks that they can always ask me that if I look like I need to be asked.

This seems a strange point to make, but I want to talk about 28 November 2011—I am glad there are two Welsh MPs in the Chamber today. I woke up to the news that one of my footballing heroes, Gary Speed, had taken his own life, and it really shocked me. I was shocked again this morning when I read that he was the same age as me when he took his own life: 42 years old. Gary Speed was a hero to me, and I think he was the greatest Welsh footballer who ever lived—although I am sure some would argue with that—so when I talked about mental health to a class of mine, I spoke about him.

What was particularly shocking about the news was the fact that the very morning that Gary took his own life, he was on television as a pundit talking about a football match. Anyone watching that had no idea that he was suffering from mental health issues or that he was going to take his own life. It is important to recognise that people suffering from mental health issues or potentially suicidal thoughts do not have a badge that tells other people that. It is not necessarily obvious; in fact, there may well be no external sign that that is the case.

I realised this morning when I was writing this speech that it is a year this month since a friend of mine, Matt Parsons, took his own life. He was one of the many people I used to talk to at Harlow Town football games. He had an encyclopaedic knowledge about “Doctor Who” and “Neighbours”, which is why we got on so well. It came as a huge shock when Matt took his own life. Every life lost to suicide is one life too many, and I often reflect on what I could have done, or whether there is anything that I or others could have said, to prevent that happening. I wanted to reflect on that, pay tribute to Matt and mention him in this place.

The hon. Member for Upper Bann (Carla Lockhart), who is no longer in her place, mentioned social media. It is fair to say that social media has its part to play, and it is important to reflect on some of its dangers. Only recently, I spoke about the dangers of the glorification of drug taking on social media. The hon. Member for Strangford mentioned the terrible videos about how to take your own life, which is absolutely awful—I am as shocked as he is about that. There is also a place for social media to be part of the solution, and I hope the Government will consider that when we look at a public health campaign on the stigma of suicide and talking about suicide.

I also pay tribute to groups in my constituency. We have talked a lot about farming, so I want to pay tribute to YANA—You Are Not Alone—which is a farming charity that offers mental health support and is based partly in my constituency. I pay tribute to Harlow men’s shed, Hatfield Heath men’s shed, Mind in West Essex and the Young Concern Trust, which provides counselling for young people. I declare an interest because I am one of the trustees there. I also pay tribute to Butterfly Effect Wellbeing, Roots to Wellbeing and many more. There are so many good people in my constituency and across other constituencies who want to support people suffering from mental ill health. I pay tribute to what they do. As the hon. Member for Richmond Park said, it is incredibly powerful when people who have suffered such devastation —we have one such person in the audience today—turn that into a force for good, so I thank them for that.

The Labour Government have committed to recruiting 8,500 extra mental health professionals, improved infrastructure and improved training. Will the Minister talk more about that and about the substantive point, which is ending the stigma of talking about suicide and potential suicide thoughts? Finally, I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park again for securing this important debate. I hope the honesty with which Members on both sides of the House have spoken will help to challenge that stigma, and I hope we can continue to do more.

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Mundell. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) for securing this hugely important debate. I thank all the Members who have spoken today, especially the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Josh Newbury), who was vulnerable and honest, which can be difficult in a public forum. His example will help a lot of people to understand that no matter what job we do and how much support we have around us, people still have these kinds of thoughts.

Many people know that I was involved in a mental health charity that offers support to the veterinary profession. Vets have a suicide rate about four times the national average. It is a tiny profession, so everyone knows everyone, and everyone has lost friends and colleagues to suicide. Vets have challenges similar to farmers, another demographic who we know struggle quite a lot.

I pay tribute to Mr Pirie for being here today. The most difficult and emotional conversations that I have had since becoming an MP have been with parents who have lost children to suicide and wives who have lost husbands. Amid the frustration and anger that they all experience, they feel that if they had just known how much someone was struggling they could have done more to support them. Even worse are the cases where someone was actively trying to access support, but did not get the right type of support at the right time and so fell through the net.

I think about my own friends, Sarah Brown and David Bartram, two vets who were also trustees of a veterinary mental health charity. When we lose people, it is important that the memory of their life is not defined by how they died. Sarah was one of the funniest people I have ever met. She never missed a night out. David was an ultramarathon runner and one of the best speakers I have ever seen giving lectures. He was a hugely engaging person. It is a real shame that people get remembered for the way they died and not the positive contribution and the fun and happiness that they brought when they were here.

As a mental health spokesperson, I get really concerned when I hear people from other political parties, specifically Reform, belittling mental health issues and saying that it is the new back problem, it is over-diagnosed or people should man up. Are they seriously saying that farmers, who are some of the toughest people we could ever meet, working all hours in all weathers and earning a living in the hardest way possible, and veterans, who have experienced situations that most of us can only ever imagine, are a bunch of snowflakes who need to man up and toughen up? Mental health is a real problem that can affect even the hardest people on the planet, and no one is immune to those sorts of challenge.

Other Members have talked about 2023 having the highest rate of suicide for 25 years. That rate, thankfully, is slightly declining. It is interesting that the World Health Organisation states that depression is the No. 1 global disease. It affects people in all countries; it is a very prevalent issue. We are much better than we used to be at talking about depression and mental health issues, but suicide is the one aspect of such issues that still carries a lot of stigma. People still do not want to talk about suicidal thoughts, or sometimes there is shame in having a relative who died from suicide. It is not talked about as openly as it could be.

I thank the Minister for his diligent work over the last year on the Mental Health Bill. We have all worked closely on that, including the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans). It is fantastic work and I know the Minister cares very much about this issue. I also welcome the £3.6 million over three years provided under the men’s health strategy specifically for suicide prevention, although I am concerned that it is very much less than the previous £10 million-a-year suicide prevention grant fund for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations. How will the £3.6 million be targeted? Will there be scope to support in other ways the many organisations and charities, such as the Samaritans, that have contacted me to say that the grant is a significant part of their funding to deliver their services to help prevent suicide?

There are so many amazing community groups all over the country. I meet some quite regularly. The Farming Community Network, the Bishop’s Waltham men’s breakfast, the men’s sheds that are everywhere—we have one in Alresford and one in Hambledon—and Winchester Youth Counselling do brilliant work bringing people together. We must do everything we can to keep those organisations viable, running and thriving. It is so much more economic if people are prevented from heading down the route of depression, with a good social network and a lot of community support, than if they end up needing to engage with clinical services.

I also thank all those on the frontline: the clinical staff, the nurses, the counsellors and the carers caring for people who are struggling with mental health issues. The mental health of carers is another huge issue.

[Chris Vince]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dr Chambers]

I will—the hon. Gentleman caught me two seconds before I finished.

[Chris Vince]

I apologise for that; it happens to me a lot as well. The hon. Gentleman mentioned carers. That is particularly important because tomorrow is Carers Rights Day. I worked for a charity that supports young carers and we have seen an increase in the number of young carers supporting people with mental health issues. There should be recognition of carers, including young carers, so I thank him for mentioning them.

[Dr Chambers]

I thank the hon. Member for intervening just in time. I reiterate how pleased we were that the Minister looked at the amendments to identify children of mental health patients. Sometimes those children are essentially carers as well, and it is really important that we know they exist and that they get the support they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Kinnock]

There are 11 premier league clubs that have signed up so far. The most visual way in which the partnership will manifest itself is through the advertising hoardings, which will be given over for periods of the game to advertise our Every Mind Matters campaign. That will offer talking therapies and an online mental health tool that we have developed. Anybody in the stadium—often there are 50,000, 60,000 or 70,000 spectators—can see that information flashing up. In some stadiums, there will also be mental health experts—wearing visible materials to show who they are and what they do—who people can come and talk to. The scheme is quite devolved, so each club will do things in a slightly different way. The Premier League is covering all the costs, so this is an entirely Premier League-funded partnership, with us providing the content, the steering and the opportunity to engage with the programmes, and the clubs are looking after the rest.

[Chris Vince]

That is a really exciting initiative. Is there scope for it to be extended beyond premier league clubs to lower-league clubs, down to Harlow Town? If it is successful, will the Minister talk to the English Football Association about lower-league clubs taking part?

[Stephen Kinnock]

Absolutely—we believe the sky is the limit. As I mentioned to my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly, we are clear that we see this as the first step. Clearly, premier league clubs are high profile, so hopefully people will look at the partnership, learn from it and say, “Yes, that is something that we can do.” Fingers crossed that it takes off.

As part of the men’s health strategy launch, we also announced the suicide prevention support pathfinders programme for middle-aged men. The programme will invest up to £3.6 million over three years in areas of England where middle-aged men face the greatest risk of suicide. It will support new ways of embedding effective, tailored support for middle-aged men and create clearer, more joined-up pathways into existing local suicide prevention systems. For over a decade, middle-aged men have faced the highest suicide rates of any age group. They account for around a quarter of all deaths by suicide in England. That is a shocking statistic, and it is why middle-aged men are identified as a priority group in the suicide prevention strategy for England.

It is important that we do not simplify the picture. The national confidential inquiry into suicide and safety in mental health found that of men aged 40 to 54 who died by suicide, 67% had been in contact with health and partner agencies in the three months before they took their own life, and 43% had been in contact with primary care services in the three months before they died. That tells us something vital: a significant proportion of men do reach out, presenting an opportunity to make the most of every interaction with men who may be at risk of suicide. Our responsibility as a Government is to ensure that when men take that step, the services they encounter are accessible, joined up and genuinely equipped to meet their needs. That is what the pathfinders programme will do.

By improving engagement with healthcare and improving access to the right support, we can begin to dismantle the stigma that continues to cost too many men their lives. In April this year, NHS England published its “Staying safe from suicide” guidance, which strengthens the approach to suicide prevention across mental health settings. It promotes a holistic, person-centred approach, rather than using stratification tools to determine risk. The guidance directly aligns with the aim of our suicide prevention strategy and reflects our commitment to continually improving mental health services, particularly by identifying risk assessment as an area where we must go further.

The implementation of the guidance has been supported by a new NHS England e-learning module, which launched in September, to help ensure that staff across services are confident and equipped to apply the guidance in practice. The NHS medium-term planning framework, published last month, states that in 2026-27, integrated care boards must

“ensure that mental health practitioners across all providers”

undertake the e-learning

“and deliver care in line with the Staying safe from suicide guidance.”

The Minister with responsibility for women’s health and mental health, who sits in the other place, wrote directly to crucial stakeholders across the sector—including the chief coroner, the Charity Commission, the Professional Standards Authority for Health and Social Care, and the British Psychological Society—to promote the guidance and the e-learning module, and I am pleased to say that the response has been overwhelmingly positive. By way of example, the Charity Commission circulated information about the e-learning to around 5,000 charities involved in suicide prevention or mental health support—an encouraging demonstration of the sector’s commitment to improving safety and support for those at risk.

More widely, we are improving mental health services so that people are met with the right support. We recognise that expanding and equipping the workforce will take time, but I am pleased to say that we have hired almost 7,000 extra mental health workers since July 2024. Mental health remains a core priority for the NHS. That is why we are investing £688 million to transform services, including £26 million to support people in mental health crisis.

As part of the 10-year health plan’s commitment to transforming how the whole health and care system works, we are introducing neighbourhood mental health care for adults, which will bring community, crisis and in-patient care together in a single, seamless offer. Six neighbourhood mental health centres are already operating 24 hours a day, seven days a week, offering open-access support to anyone who needs it. Co-delivered with primary care, the voluntary and faith sectors, and local specialist services, the centres make it easier for people to seek help in their own communities, without judgment or barriers.