Government Action on Suicide Prevention

Debate between Kerry McCarthy and Paul Blomfield

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government action on suicide prevention.

As always, it is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Mr Bone.

Three weeks ago today, I hosted an event on mental health and suicide prevention in Speaker’s House. We heard from two members of the band Joy Division/New Order because the event took place on the 42nd anniversary of the death by suicide of the singer, Ian Curtis. I want to take this opportunity to thank Stephen and Bernard from the band for coming along, because if it had been just me speaking about this subject, not as many people would have listened, although I am sure a mass audience is hanging on to my every word today.

At the event, we also heard from Simon Gunning, chief executive officer of Campaign Against Living Miserably, or CALM, whom I thank for meeting me yesterday in advance of the debate. I also thank Mr Speaker, who spoke movingly about his daughter’s suicide and the recent loss of his brother-in-law. We also heard from the leader of the Labour party and the Minister. I thank the Minister for speaking at the event, but I hope she will forgive me for seizing the opportunity of securing today’s debate to press her further on some of the issues we discussed then. It is good to talk, but it is even better to see action.

I am sure the Minister will remind us that the Government are consulting on their 10-year mental health plan, which will also be used to inform a refreshed national suicide prevention plan—the previous one is 10 years old. I am a little concerned that the issue is being bundled up within the one consultation and that there are only passing references to suicide in the consultation overview, which is what most people will read. In fact, suicide is not mentioned at all in the chapter on crisis, which is where I would most expect to find it, and people have to go to the mental health and wellbeing plan discussion paper to find any detail. I hope that that does not mean that suicide is being treated as an afterthought.

We are told that the details of the suicide prevention plan will be set out in due course, but given that suicidality is recognised by the Government as needing its own separate strategy, I do not understand why it does not warrant its own consultation. The latest coroners’ statistics show that deaths by suicide are at a record high, and it is obvious that the Government have not met their target of reducing suicide by 10%. Clearly, a better strategy is needed.

I accept that setting any kind of target is complex. We saw a spike in suicides after the 2008 financial crash; we are now emerging from a pandemic that has taken a terrible toll on people’s mental health and the cost of living crisis is starting to bite. A lot of factors are not in the Minister’s control, but as is often said, what is measured is what gets done, so there has to be something to aim for. To help us to get there, several organisations have raised with me the need for real-time data. The Government are developing a national real-time suicide surveillance system, so perhaps the Minister will update us on progress with that.

As the British Psychological Society has explained, suicidal behaviour cannot be understood from any one perspective alone. Suicidality is best explained as a complex interplay between risk factors across domains. Not everyone who experiences bereavement or relationship breakdown, or who is under massive pressure at work or is struggling financially, will feel suicidal. There is often an accumulation of pressures and events, sometimes stretching back to adverse childhood experiences and exacerbated by adult trauma, although sometimes it is just that something bad has happened.

It is difficult to unpick all that, but Professor Louis Appleby has suggested some priority areas for the suicide prevention plan: where rates are high, such as among middle-aged men; where rates are rising, even if they are quite low, which relates to children and young people; where there is proximity to prevention, such as among current mental health patients; and where there is public concern, such as for university students. Professor Appleby also suggests, for political reasons, that the north should be a priority. That might also be because he is based at Manchester University and he is perhaps pushing his home turf, but as part of levelling up. Economic aspects such as poverty and unemployment can be big factors.

[Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

In 2017, my constituent Jack Ritchie took his life at the age of 24 as a result of gambling addiction. I am pleased that his mother and father are in the Gallery with us today. It is estimated that there are more than 400 gambling-related suicides each year. The national suicide prevention strategy recognises high-risk groups, and my hon. Friend has highlighted the comments from Professor Appleby. Does she agree that as gambling-related suicides account for almost 8% of all suicides that group should be recognised in future strategies as high risk?

[Kerry McCarthy]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I know there was a very good debate in this Chamber yesterday morning, which unfortunately I could not attend, where such issues were raised. There are some discrete areas where a specific intervention suggests itself, such as gambling addiction, alcohol abuse, post-natal depression, or veterans’ mental health. I certainly feel that such risk factors ought to be reflected in the suicide prevention plan.

A quick win would be to obstruct people from accessing the means to die by suicide, with obstacles placed in their way. A lot of suicides are opportunistic. For example, the British Transport Police is very good in terms of how it polices stations and watches out for signs that somebody might be thinking of jumping in front of a train, and helplines can be flagged up at places such as the Humber bridge and the Clifton suspension bridge, but there are also physical measures that would make suicide more difficult. People might say, “Well, perhaps people will just go somewhere else,” but it does not always happen like that. If the moment is lost, there is a good chance a life will be saved.

Will the Minister tell us a little bit about the plans for the revised suicide prevention plan? Will it have clear priorities, with an evidence-based, tailored plan in each case for how we will bring rates down, and then targets set on that basis? One organisation described the current approach as very much a “throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks” approach. We need a far more tailored approach.

Will the Minister also tell us where the boundary falls between what is in the remit of the Department of Health and Social Care and work that requires action by other Departments? We have already talked about gambling, and the debate yesterday was answered by the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the hon. Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston). The Online Safety Bill is another example of where another Department is taking the lead, and I am worried that the Government will not fully seize that opportunity to crack down on sites promoting suicide and self-harm. I gather there is a bit of a difference of opinion between the two Departments, which is particularly disappointing given that the current Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), was the first Minister for Suicide Prevention. Does the Minister agree that we need to strengthen the Bill’s provisions on this issue, or has she lost the battle with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care? I hope not, and I hope that, if the Bill is not strengthened in Committee, we can improve it on Report.

The review of special educational needs and disability is another potential missed opportunity. It is meant to be a joint effort by the Department for Education and the Department of Health and Social Care—there is a joint foreword—but there is very little in it on child and adolescent mental health services. Given the overlap between children struggling at school who cannot get the right diagnosis and cannot get a timely education, health and care plan and children who end up in the mental health system, joint working is really important.

Obviously, it is not just children with SEND who struggle. One in six children are now said to have a probable mental health condition, up from one in nine in 2017. More than 400,000 under-18s were referred for specialist mental health care between April and October last year. These are children at the more severe end of the spectrum—those who presented with suicidal thoughts, self-harming or eating disorders. The number of attendances at A&E by young people with a diagnosed psychiatric condition has tripled since 2010.

We know that CAMHS is at breaking point. There are huge waiting lists, and severely mentally ill children are being cared for in inappropriate settings or being sent hundreds of miles away from home for treatment. It is said that half of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14, rising to 75% by the age of 24. If we do not want today’s children to be tomorrow’s suicide statistics, we need to do much more, much faster, to help them now, and I just do not see that sense of urgency from the Government. This consultation is all wrapped up in a 10-year plan, but we need a 10-day plan. We need action now.

One issue we discussed at the event in Speaker’s House was how schools could better nurture children’s creativity and give them an outlet for their emotions through music and art. We also talked about whether the current trajectory of education, with schools very focused on grades—someone described them as “exam factories”—places undue pressure on children. I agree with that to a large extent and worry about cuts to things like music education, which mean that creatively inclined children do not have that outlet. It is not plain sailing for the other 50%, the academic ones, either. Just because a child does well in education does not mean that they are set up for success in the wider world, whether that means higher education or the world of work.

I am sad to say, as a Bristol MP, that Bristol University has become known for the number of student suicides in recent years. It is obviously not the only university to have experienced this, but it has come to particular attention. There needs to be a constant process of reflection and review. We have just had the court ruling in the tragic case of Natasha Abrahart. She was a very able student at Bristol University, but she suffered terribly from social anxiety and just could not handle the oral side of her course and having to do presentations. Rather than trying to force all young people into one model of what success and achievement look like, institutions need to adapt to them. I hope that Natasha’s parents will be able to pursue their campaign to ensure that that happens in the future.

I have also spoken to various groups about data sharing, which I appreciate is a complicated area. When should parents of university students, who are adults, after all, be informed? What are the boundaries of patient confidentiality? Some students might be deterred from speaking to mental health services at uni if they think that their parents might be told, particularly if they are grappling with something like their sexuality or if they have become involved with drugs. There are all sorts of things that young people would not want their parents to know about. Some might come from abusive family backgrounds and their parents would not be helpful or supportive, but in many cases the parents would have desperately wanted to know that their child was struggling to the extent that they were.

Steve Mallen from the Zero Suicide Alliance thinks that more could be done within data protection laws to protect students, and I hope that that is under active consideration.