International Men’s Day

Debate between Miriam Cates and Yasmin Qureshi

Thursday 17th November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I can take that back to our team for discussion.

Currently, 1.6 million people are on an NHS waiting list for specialised mental health treatment. That is about one in 35 people, or roughly the populations of Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield combined. While an additional 8 million would benefit from support, they cannot even get onto a waiting list. The need for greater Government investment in mental health provision could not be more urgent.

My party would take strong action to ensure access to mental health treatment within a month for everyone who needs it. That is, of course, a distant dream for so many men and women across our country. We would hire 8,500 new staff, so that 1 million new people could access treatment by the end of our first term in office. This would be part of our plan for the biggest expansion of the NHS in history, funded by scrapping the non-dom tax status.

Men’s physical health is of concern, too, because of the disparities in men’s physical health issues. Men have a shorter life expectancy: one in five die before the age of 65. This becomes even more concerning when we compare the life expectancy of men in the most and least deprived areas of the country, because there is a stark gap of 9.5 years. Men are also disproportionately affected by heart disease, and more men than women are overweight or obese, yet despite all this, men are still less inclined to seek help or advice from medical professionals. This lack of engagement can mean that men are often under-supported. Without regular health check-ups, serious issues can go untreated for longer—sometimes when it is too late. This is really concerning; we know just how important early intervention can be in the treatment of male-specific cancers and in overall cancer incidence, which is 24% higher for men than it is for women.

This reminds us how important it is that we have a proper public health strategy for everyone—one that will turn the tide on the rising health inequalities and improve health for men. We need a strategy that is focused on early intervention and ensures that people receive the care and support they need. Instead, we have a Government who have chosen to cut public health budgets substantially across the country. A Labour Government would invest in the biggest-ever expansion of the NHS, as I mentioned earlier. Growing the NHS will also grow our economy and go a long way to rooting out inequalities once and for all.

Of course, one cannot discuss men’s health without looking at boys’ performance in education, which we have touched on in this debate. In basic terms, boys perform worse than girls by the end of primary school, with 70% of girls reaching the expected standards in maths, reading and writing compared with just over 60% of boys. Boys are three times more likely than girls to be excluded from school, something that I know causes tremendous concern to many working families up and down the country.

That gap persists at GCSEs and A-levels. Young women are more likely to apply to university than young men. Those young men who apply are more likely to drop out and those who complete their courses are less likely to get a good degree. The disparity becomes even more acute among those from disadvantaged backgrounds: young women who were on free school meals are 51% more likely to go into higher education than young men. Disadvantaged white boys are the least likely of all groups to go to university, with just 8.9% continuing their studies.

Children have only one chance at an education. Reducing those disparities requires early and sustained intervention, which must be designed to ensure that all children, whatever their background, circumstances or gender have the opportunity to achieve at school and to access university education. Instead, we have seen this Conservative Government systematically shutting Sure Start centres, which provided early intervention support for so many families. There is no sustained programme of education catch-up, something that is so necessary given how many boys and girls are missing out on the support that they need. We want a proper education plan for that. That is why we say that breakfast clubs must be provided for all children as an element of catch-up, but that has not happened.

Whether we are considering issues around physical or mental health or educational attainment, we know that not all men and boys are affected in the same way. Indeed, those issues are often closely connected with other deep-rooted inequalities. The Government’s own suicide prevention strategy from 2012, for example, highlighted that gay and bisexual men are at much higher risk of self-harm and substance misuse. Similarly, a study by the University of Exeter found that men from black and minority ethnic backgrounds experienced a far greater deterioration in their mental health during covid lockdowns than their white British counterparts.

I will wind up in the next minute or so, Madam Deputy Speaker, if you will indulge me. Studies show that black men are far more likely than others to be diagnosed with a severe mental health problem. However, up until the age of 11, black boys do not have poorer mental health than others of their age, so it is quite clear that there are systematic reasons why they experience mental health problems far more than others after the age of 11.

We know that there is a stark divide between children from poorer backgrounds and their wealthier peers, with secondary school children on free school meals being 18 months behind by the time they take their GCSEs. There is no avoiding the fact that white working-class underachievement is symptomatic of a much larger social, cultural and economic inequality, and therefore we must take a holistic view.

Before I conclude my remarks, I want to remind the House that International Men’s Day, which will be marked this Saturday, is just one week ahead of White Ribbon Day, a day on which men across the country are called on to make a promise that they will never commit, excuse, or remain silent about male violence against women. The murder of Sarah Everard by a serving police officer shocked the whole nation. We thought that would be a turning point, but little has changed, as shown by the recent murder of Sabina Nessa in a public park by somebody she did not know. While men are also victims of violent crime, women are overwhelmingly more likely to be victims of severe domestic abuse, which has doubled over the last five years.

[Miriam Cates]

The hon. Lady is making an important point about male violence against women. Does she not agree that it is imperative that we end the proliferation of online porn, which normalises violence against women? Of course there are no excuses for violence against women, and men who commit those crimes should be locked up, but we must recognise that online pornography is driving that behaviour.

[Yasmin Qureshi]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention and agree with her.

At every level, we should all be tackling violence against men and women. We must not consider gender equality to be a zero-sum game or a trade-off. Let me be clear: we can address women’s safety as well as serious issues and concerns for men. Indeed, we must do both.