Government Action on Suicide Prevention

Rosena Allin-Khan Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2022 Westminster Hall

[Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to wind up for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Mr Bone.

I first thank those of you in the Public Gallery. It cannot be easy to be here today, and you are a testament to the love you hold for the ones you have lost. You are incredibly brave, and I want you to know how much we value your presence here and how important you are to our discussion. Part of our fight to make this better for people around the country is thanks to your work and your never-ending belief that things can get better. Thank you so much for being here. We see you. We recognise your pain and we send all our love and condolences to you.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) for securing this extremely important debate and all hon. Members for their thoughtful contributions. Shadow Ministers often attend debates in which we have to make the closing remarks, and we do that because it is part of our job, but sometimes, although people might not know it, we have a personal and deeply vested interest in the subject matter. Today’s debate is of great importance to me for many private and professional reasons.

Many of us were together a few weeks ago in the Speaker’s chambers thanks to the hard work of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol East, who put together a heartfelt event to mark the 42nd anniversary of the death of Ian Curtis. I applaud my hon. Friend for placing the issue of suicide at the heart of Parliament, bringing together parliamentarians, metro Mayors, staffers and musicians, and encouraging people to talk of their own experiences, which is never easy.

I thank my hon. Friend for sharing her personal experience of a loved one passing from suicide last year. We all send our condolences and are sorry for my hon. Friend’s loss. She did not share that experience in order for us to do so, but I would like her to know that we send our condolences.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist)—eloquent and insightful as always—highlighted the issue of self-harm, in a safe and supportive way and rightly placed particular importance on combating stigma around the issue. I thank her for all the work she does in that space.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) was such a powerful advocate for Tom, Philip and their whole family. My hon. Friend the Member for Bradford West (Naz Shah), whom I am proud to call a friend, was so honest about her own experience and emphasised the scandal—that is what it is—of the postcode lottery for people seeking child and adolescent mental health services in Bradford. Unfortunately, the people of Bradford are not alone in what they face because it is rife across the country. That has to be addressed.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) characteristically made many heartfelt points, and we always value his contributions to such debates.

I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) that I would be delighted to visit Paul’s Place, and I will set that up with him at the first opportunity. I thank him deeply for his comments on LGBT mental health, especially as June is Pride Month. It takes a certain bravery for someone to put their head above the parapet and talk about multiple personal experiences in a way that can effect change. My hon. Friend is testament to the fact that we can use the most painful parts of our lives to change the lives of others.

I want to draw on my personal professional experience as an A&E doctor in addressing the point made by the SNP spokeswoman—the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), with whom I love sharing a platform—about addiction and mental health services. I cannot stand to have another night shift in A&E when I yet again have to tell someone who has come in while intoxicated with alcohol or following a drug overdose that I cannot plug them into mental health services because they tick the addiction box. I cannot stand another shift begging the drug and alcohol liaison team to come to see somebody who has also admitted that they have mental health issues. This is a deeply flawed system, Minister. I know her to care about the issue greatly, but it absolutely has to be addressed because lives are being lost as a result.

We have a duty in this place to break down barriers and improve people’s lives, and breaking down the stigma around suicide and mental illness is an area in which there is still so much more work that needs to be done. It is a tribute to people’s hard work that we are hosting events and debates in Parliament to break down the stigma, and we are getting fantastic coverage such as that in NME so as to reach more and more people, but four decades on from the tragic death of Ian Curtis, there should not still be so much work to be done to tackle suicide rates.

Over the past decade, it has been incredibly welcome to see the strides taken to tackle suicide and mental illness at a parliamentary level, to hear talk of parity of esteem and to hear colleagues open up about their own struggles, but since the publication of the national suicide prevention strategy a decade ago, what progress can the Government genuinely be proud of? We are talking about a life or death issue here: we need more than warm words while people are still losing their lives, and there are things we can tangibly do to resolve it.

A commitment was made in 2016 to reduce the rate of suicide in England by 10% by 2020, but by 2020 the rate was almost the same. In 2018, the Health Secretary announced a zero-suicide ambition for mental health patients being treated in hospital. That has still not been met. If the Government are genuinely serious about achieving their zero-suicide ambition, they need to look at the impact that social factors such as debt, employment, housing and benefits have on mental health. It is evident that insecure housing and employment, racism and discrimination, being pushed into debt and poverty because of cuts to universal credit or to other benefits, and loneliness and isolation have a considerable impact on a person’s mental health. We know that and must do something about it.

Three quarters of suicides are of men, and the rates of suicide in England are significantly higher in the north-east, Yorkshire and the Humber than in London. Those figures cannot be ignored. We must have the data to ensure that there is not simply a one-size-fits-all approach. That is a crucial point that must be addressed if the Government are serious about tackling the issues once and for all. I am proud to back the Samaritans’ call for the Government to launch a national real-time suicide surveillance system, in line with what is in place in Wales. We need to understand what is happening now, not two years down the line. How is anyone supposed to tackle a problem that they simply cannot see?

I urge the Government to work with the mental health sector, and consult on what is truly needed to drive down suicide figures. There is a looming mental health crisis in the wake of the pandemic. The backlog for treatment was already huge before covid. Now, with the sheer rise in referrals, the NHS is at risk of being completely overwhelmed and patients are unable to receive treatment.

That is why Labour is committed to improving access to mental health services. We will guarantee access to treatment within a month for all who need it, and expand the workforce, recruiting 8,500 additional staff to ensure a million more people can be seen. Crucially, we understand the need for prevention, reaching people before they hit crisis point. That is why the next Labour Government would ensure that every school had access to a mental health professional, and every community would have an open access mental health hub to ensure that every young person could access the support they need, safely and securely.

It is about offering people respect and dignity in their treatment. As it stands, two thirds of people who take their own lives are not in touch with mental health services in the year before they die. We have heard that this morning. Services need to reach out to people; they have to be accessible and be designed with the service user and families in mind. At a time of economic turmoil and after two incredibly difficult years, it is so vital to have this conversation, but please let us not lose any more lives needlessly to suicide. I urge the Government to act on what has been said today, and make real change in memory of those lives lost.