Oral Answers to Questions

Luciana Berger Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dunne]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising baby loss awareness week. I am sure that, along with other hon. Members, she will be participating in the Backbench Business debate on that later this week. In February the independent maternity review, Better Births, made a number of recommendations, including on neonatal critical care. We are studying those recommendations and are due to report initial findings from our work in December.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

I listened very closely to the Secretary of State’s comments earlier on mental health. On 9 December he stood at that Dispatch Box and said that

“CCGs are committed to increasing the proportion of their funding that goes into mental health.”—[Official Report, 9 December 2015; Vol. 603, c. 1012.]

However, my research shows that 57% of clinical commissioning groups are reducing the proportion they spend on mental health—yet another broken promise. When will we have real equality from this Government for mental health?

[Mr Jeremy Hunt]

I will tell the hon. Lady what this Government have done. We have legislated for parity of esteem for mental health. We are treating 1,400 more people every single day for mental health conditions compared with six years ago. We have a new plan that will see 1 million more people treated every year by 2020, including a transformation of child and adolescent mental health services. That is possible because we are putting into the NHS extra money that her party refused to commit to.