Mental Health Treatment and Support

Dean Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Before I begin, I will rip up my unwritten 50-minute speech.

I have previously said in this Chamber that, if suicide were a virus, we would be on the hunt for a vaccine; if loneliness were a disease, we would be looking for a cure. I welcome the debate today. I know that it is politically charged, but that is the nature of this Chamber. Any opportunity that we have to talk about mental health and to tackle the stigma around mental health must be welcome.

Of course, we are talking today about the support that is available to people, but one area on which I wish to focus is mental health in the workplace, which is a passion. We spend most of our lives in the workplace; we spend time with colleagues. We are perhaps not always truthful to ourselves about how we feel. Engagement in the workplace is essential to prevent mental ill health. One challenge is to ensure that there is parity across physical and mental health. I have argued about that in this place before, and received support from all parts of the House. I welcome parity around things such as first aid; that is essential.

I have been very pleased with the engagement that I have had with Ministers, especially the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Sussex (Mims Davies), the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Corby (Tom Pursglove), and the Minister on the Front Bench today. I have also engaged with other Ministers in the Departments of Health and Social Care and for Work and Pensions. They have all been open to looking at how we can get better services and better support for colleagues in the workplace.

One challenge we face is stigma. I say gently and respectfully to Members in the Chamber today that, while of course these issues are politically charged and that we will all have a very strong view on this and on the need to make sure that services are in place, we are careful about the words that we use. When we talk about people not being able to get support, it might put off somebody from seeking and getting support. When we talk about some of the statistics, I ask Members to please be mindful about how they are used. We could deter a person in crisis from seeking help, because they might think that that help is not there, which could be dangerous.

I appreciate that we have a long way to go with mental health, but we have come quite a way. The support over the past few years and the change in stigma around mental health have been transformative, but we still have a way to go for the situation to be transformed. That means that, as politicians, chief executives of businesses and community leaders, we must ask ourselves whether we are doing enough. Are we talking about this enough? Are we looking at those solutions enough?

[Dr Evans]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech about raising awareness. Yesterday, I hosted members from the NFU, who candidly said that, a few years ago, they would never have been speaking about these kinds of issues. We know that rural communities and farmers in particular suffer when it comes to asking for help. Is it not exactly those organisations coming forward and speaking about the problem that allows us to have this debate?

[Dean Russell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his important intervention. This morning, I was fortunate to host the Royal College of Psychiatrists. We had a roundtable discussion with different charities, organisations and leaders in this space about what we need to do and what that looks like. It looks like more funding—there is always an argument for that and rightly so; it means ensuring that we support people who have gone through crises, and that we look at that long-term support; but it is also about how we shift the conversation. For me, it must be about parity between physical and mental health. A few years ago, an amendment was tabled that would have introduced more parity of funding. As a Government, we need to look again at that amendment. Other important steps would include a mental health Bill. I appreciate that we need to move forward with that as soon as possible, and I echo the calls for such legislation, but we should not be damning everything that has been done so far, because huge strides have been made, especially in relation to extra funding.

When I was a councillor many years ago, I worked with local schools to look at what support was in place. I wanted to know whether the children as well as the teachers were aware of the support that was available. If we were to do the same survey today, we would find that the situation is far better than it was 10 or 15 years ago, but, as I have said, there is still a way to go.

I want to finish on a few brief points. When we consider the challenges around mental health, we must understand that the problem is not mental health alone. There is always some sort of comorbidity and there is always some impact on physical health. When we talk about parity, we are not just saying, “one person with mental ill health and one person with physical ill health must be seen equally”. That, of course, is important, but we must also be mindful of the fact that if somebody has a mental health condition it may affect their ability to work. On the flipside, a physical health condition may impact a person’s ability to get out of bed in the morning and their ability to do exercise. All those things are essential.

I hope that my words, from the Conservative Back Benches, will echo across the House: we want to get to a position where mental health is a priority across all of society. Both the Government and our communities play a part in that, and how we talk about this matters. I hope that we can talk civilly about the opportunities that are available. I urge colleagues to talk about what support is out there as much as, quite rightly, challenging Government and all of us to do more.