Mary Glindon
Main Page: Mary Glindon (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne East and Wallsend)Department Debates - View all Mary Glindon's debates with the Cabinet Office
(12 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Deputy Prime Minister
I strongly agree with my hon. Friend. I hope he has noticed that the operating framework recently published by the Department of Health for the NHS in England sets out priorities for the NHS that, for the first time, stipulate the expansion of access to psychological services as part of the overall commitment to the full roll-out of the improving access to psychological therapies programme by 2015. I know that the Minister of State, Department of Health, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Burstow), has dedicated a lot of time to this. I say to Members on both sides of the House who spoke in that very moving debate recently on mental health that they played a remarkable role in breaking down some of the taboos by speaking about an issue that afflicts one in four people in his country and which has often been kept in the shadows, leaving people to suffer in silence. It is finally being talked about in a more grown-up and open way.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
T2. The Deputy Prime Minister wants the House of Lords to be more accountable, yet his Government are giving new dictatorial powers to elected mayors to veto decisions made by elected councillors. Will he say where the accountability is there?
The Deputy Prime Minister
I do not think they would be dictatorial powers in the hands of someone who has been democratically elected, but perhaps the hon. Lady sees some consistency between that position and defending unelected Members of the other place. I do not.