Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Mearns Excerpts

Wednesday 11th October 2017 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Q1. If she will list her official engagements for Wednesday 11 October.

[The Prime Minister (Mrs Theresa May)]

This morning I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Ian Mearns]

The Prime Minister will know that yesterday was World Mental Health Day. Mental health problems affect one in four people, but only £1 out of every £8 in clinical commissioning group budgets is spent on mental health services. Newcastle Gateshead CCG is set to cut its budget by a further 1.1% next year, bringing the total spend for mental health to less than 10% of its entire budget. If parity of esteem for mental health is to be achieved, the Government will have to match their words with more strong and stable, ring-fenced funding. With those cuts and with increasing demand, when will the Prime Minister end the talking and promise to increase and ring fence funding for mental health and specialist psychological services?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the importance that we should attach to mental health. Giving that parity of esteem is an important step that this Government have taken, but we are also doing much more on mental health. In fact, more money overall is going into mental health. More people are able to access NHS talking therapies and receive treatment for their mental ill health, but we also need to look at the issue more widely. That is precisely why I have set up a scheme to train staff in schools to ensure better awareness of mental health problems and to enable them to know how to deal with individuals in schools who are suffering from mental health problems. There is more for us to do, but this Government are putting more money in and are taking more action on mental health than any previous Government.