Mental Health

Debate between Peter Bottomley and John Pugh

Thursday 14th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh]

I think that the expression used nowadays is “issue”.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The hon. Gentleman and I would probably agree that it is an experience.

[John Pugh]

We will settle for “experience”, then.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan) on introducing the debate, although she omitted to mention the Mental Health Act 2007, over which the House laboured long and hard to, I hope, some good effect.

In the 18th century, it was possible to cross the river to Bedlam and gawp at people gesticulating, ranting, performing odd rituals, talking to no one in particular, exhibiting delusory beliefs in their own power, or expressing paranoid fears about their foes. The nearest 21st-century equivalent is probably Prime Minister’s Question Time. [Laughter.] That is not an entirely facetious point. The dividing line between robust mental health and mental illness is, in fact, a fine one. Statistics show that the bulk of people of working age who either report or are diagnosed with mental health problems are not, in general, those who suffer from the terrible scourge of schizophrenia. The hallucinations and delusions often associated with that disease currently affect less than 1% of the population, and are treated more benignly and more effectively than ever before. Moreover, numbers are not substantially on the increase.

Most mental health problems occur when the anxieties, the fears, the stresses and the dark moods to which we are all prone become insupportable, prolonged and disabling, and the individual is no longer able to cope in any ordinary sense but breaks down and loses control, social capacity and, sometimes, insight into his or her condition. That is on the increase: it is the major mental health challenge that we face.

Mental health is a genuine continuum. The mentally ill do not have viruses, germs, cellular patterns or physical impairments that the well do not have. They have the same gamut of emotions that we all have—often exaggerated, accentuated or uncontrollable, but in no way unique or uncommon. We all possess a shared vulnerability to mental health issues which could be described as a tendency to neurosis, managed with differing degrees of success at different times in our lives. That is why I took issue with some of the comments made by the hon. Member for Loughborough.

There is a nugget of truth in the American belief that we could all benefit from an element of psychiatry. As I have said, we share a common vulnerability, and for a variety of reasons—fairly complex in many cases—one in four, or one in six, citizens falls victim to that vulnerability. We have learned not to be too judgmental about those who do, and not to stigmatise them. We recognise that the vulnerability they display is often a product of circumstance, and that it is as frequently related to desirable traits—empathy and sensitivity, for instance—as to undesirable ones such as self-obsession or lack of self-control. However, although that recognition is now widespread, it does not eradicate stigma, nor does calling everybody “service users” as if they are some kind of consumer, and nor does saying mental illness is just the same as physical illness, because it is not.

The big problem for those with a record of mental health issues—particularly, perhaps, in respect of the workplace or getting off benefits and back into the workplace—is the bias of the wider world in favour of those who have not illustrated our common vulnerability. That bias is rather like having a—rational—preference for people with a stronger immune system. There are other vitiating factors at play, of course. People who suffer from mental illness often suffer from a lack of confidence, for example. There is also the fact, which has not so far been acknowledged, that a mental health diagnosis can sometimes be misused for employment and benefit reasons. The big problem is this bias and discrimination, however.

There are only two real remedies for that. One is better public education about what mental health actually is and what mental illness and frailty actually are. I would put more faith in the second remedy, however: having a public mental health campaign that is geared in positive directions, as described by the hon. Member for Loughborough. Having said that, we must acknowledge that the active pursuit of mental well-being is a bigger and more significant task than we currently recognise. Corporate Britain, business Britain and every public service in Britain needs to be seriously engaged with the Layard agenda and to accept that we need to promote well-being at work—including here in Parliament. We must create a wholesome workplace, and therefore bother about the happiness of the workplace and the individuals in it.

We may need to tackle a huge fallacy, however: the idea that we either have mental health or we do not, so we are either employable or we are not. That ignores the fact that many people in employment—in senior jobs, even—have mental health issues, some of which might not always be diagnosed. Sometimes they work them out in the office and the workplace in a wholly unsatisfactory way, and sometimes to the detriment of their colleagues—although not always, in certain professions, to the detriment of customers and profits. Sometimes people mask their symptoms and problems through alcoholic self-medication.

There was a time when employers would have walked away from considering issues such as personal safety at work, and there was a time when they would have walked away from issues of employment legislation and the rights of people at work. Nowadays, however, most employers are keen to stick “Investors in People” logos on their notepaper to show that they are a good employer in that respect. The next, and most obvious, stage is the pursuit of the wholesome workplace, in a move beyond the “Investors in People” initiative. That must be encouraged by public health bodies and by large public and corporate organisations. Indeed, to some extent it already is encouraged: 41% of large companies now have a mental health policy. That represents appreciable progress.

For most of us, work is where we spend most of our time, and it is where our feelings of self-worth are either confirmed or demolished—that is certainly true of this place. It is where people find meaning to their lives—although we do not always succeed in doing that here. Indeed, we in Parliament cannot honestly say our working environment is wholly conducive to good mental health.

Let me conclude by reiterating my key point: we cannot help people with mental health issues without making it manifestly clear that in everyday work and everyday life mental health is everybody’s issue.