Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Today’s debate sends a very powerful message, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Croydon Central (Gavin Barwell) on choosing to present such an important Bill. It sends a message about recovery: that if a person has experienced a mental health problem in the past, that does not make the person unpredictable or dangerous, and that there should be no barrier to his or her full participation in public life or, indeed, any part of life. However, I think we also need to issue a call to arms. If we are to make people more confident about coming forward and seeking help at an early stage—confident that they will not be discriminated against later in life—we must ensure that primary care in particular is ready for them: that people who present their doctors with a mental health problem are taken seriously, and are given the support and help they need.

This has been a big week for mental health in Parliament. We have seen the launch of the Government’s strategy on suicide prevention as part of their overall mental health strategy, and we should pay tribute to that very effective strategy, which, again, sends a positive message. We should remind GPs, when thinking about suicide and depression, to ask their patients, “Are you depressed?”, to take the issue seriously and ask patients specifically whether they have had any suicidal thoughts, and then to deliver an effective treatment for them.

To anyone following this debate, I would say the same as my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones): “You will find that people will feel positive about you and will encourage you, so do have the confidence to seek help and tell your friends; and when you have recovered, make sure that you tell other people that you have recovered, and support them so that they too can seek help.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Miss Smith]

I recognise the subject that the hon. Gentleman raises, which he also mentioned earlier. I do not think that today is the right time for me to go into that matter in detail; the cross-party consensus might be affected if I did. We do need to get that process right, as we need to get right many processes of administration and welfare, in its broadest sense, across government. I am sure that my colleagues at the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department of Health will have heard his plea. As a member of the Government, I certainly want us to get that process right, and I will work with colleagues to achieve that.

To build on the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne, we need to work with partners on the mental health strategy. It is not possible for the Government to say, “It shall be so.” We need to ensure that the right outcomes are delivered locally and are driven by good evidence. We must cast the net wide to do that. The challenges are enormous and extremely difficult. That can be seen, on an individual level, when we have conversations on this matter in our constituency surgeries. However, the rewards of getting this right are vast. That is part of the point of today’s debate.

It is often quoted that at least one in four of us will experience mental health problems at some point in our life. What is less often quoted is that about half of people with a lifetime mental health problem experience their first symptoms by the age of 14. That is a startling statistic among the sea of statistics in this debate. By promoting good mental health across society and by intervening early, particularly in the crucial childhood and teenage years, we can help to prevent mental illness from developing and mitigate its effects when it does. Only a sustained approach across the course of life will equip us to meet the enormous social, economic and environmental challenges, and to deliver the benefits to the people who need them, which is why we are here today.

When mental health services work well, they work well with the public sector, the private sector and the voluntary sector, and they help people to overcome disadvantage and to fulfil their potential. Any action on mental health, from a Government or otherwise, is not only a mental health strategy but a social justice strategy. I know that that is what all of us here today stand for.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does my hon. Friend agree that this matter is the responsibility not just of Government, but of non-governmental organisations? Only this week, the Health Committee saw the disappointing example of how the chair of the Care Quality Commission and that organisation sought to stigmatise a member of their own board with regard to what they alleged to be a past episode of mental illness.

[Miss Smith]

My hon. Friend is right that we need to encourage cultural change across a number of organisations. I hope she will forgive me for not responding to that example, because I was not there to see it, but we need to ensure that such stigmatisation is not possible, is not the done thing and is frowned on whenever it is seen or experienced. We need to stand up and speak up for that view, and whenever we can we need to frown on that stigma from a front row seat. One of the six objectives in the mental health strategy was exactly that—that fewer people will experience stigma and discrimination. As the House will know, and as my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon Central set out, the strategy has the full backing and endorsement of the whole Government. My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has a long record of calling for the reform of mental health policy.

For negative attitudes and behaviour towards people with mental health issues to decrease, we need to improve public understanding of those issues and gain more sympathetic treatment of them in our mainstream media. Again, I refer to the excellent work that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne did in June, has done since and will do in future.

I also pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper), for the work that he has done. He has spoken passionately and often on these proposals, and he said in an interview with politics.co.uk in June 2009:

“Mental ill-health is still very much a taboo subject in Parliament as well as the work place and this must change. Mental ill-health affects as many as one in four of the working age population and it is crucial that Parliament leads the way in promoting a better understanding of mental health.”

That is still pertinent today, notwithstanding the steps that we are taking to ensure that the mental health taboo is well and truly broken. Momentum has been building behind the measures in the Bill for some time, as many hon. Members have shown in their comments today and their actions over time both inside and outside the House.

House of Lords Reform Bill

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Monday 9th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I welcome the hon. Lady’s support, hoarsely delivered as it was—she has a cough. It is crucial to wait to hear from the official Opposition what their attitude is to the programme motion. Will they not accept any form of programme motion, or do they have suggestions of their own on the number of days required to deal with the legislation? The Government have been very generous already.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

The Deputy Prime Minister spoke earlier of the need to reform the other place to make it fit for the 21st century. Does he accept that science and technology are very much part of our future? Will he accept an amendment that would mean greater recognition of expert Cross-Bench expertise in engineering, science, technology, maths and medicine? In addition, I am very happy to explain the correct use of the term “lobotomy”.

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

We can have precisely that debate and a multitude of others on the detail of the Bill as long as we make progress on Second Reading and the programme motion this week. As the hon. Lady may well know, the appointments commission envisaged in the Bill will be statutorily required to ensure proper diversity and representation of expertise in the 20% of non-elected peers in a reformed House of Lords.

European Council

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Monday 5th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

The Assad regime is committing crimes against humanity in Syria. Are there any further practical measures that Britain and the EU can take against both China and Russia to help to stop them colluding with this mass murder, or should individual consumers be making choices in boycotting goods from China until they do?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that there is evidence that both China and Russia feel the pressure that their previous veto has brought about. The Arab League is absolutely unified in the view that what is happening in Syria is completely unacceptable, and I think that Arab League countries saying that to China and Russia will have an influence, as well as our saying it. I think that there is a lot of diplomatic pressure to be brought to bear, and I hope that in the coming days we can really make that happen.

G20

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Monday 7th November 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

The more a balloon is inflated, the more it hurts when it eventually explodes. Would it not be better for us to help the Greeks default and devalue now rather than later?

[The Prime Minister]

We have argued very consistently that part of any solution has to be a very decisive writing down of Greek debt, because it obviously cannot afford the level of debt that it currently has. That is the plan that it is being offered. Some would argue that even that is not enough, and that is my hon. Friend’s position, but our view has always been that unless the debts are written down significantly, there will not be a proper solution.

Public Disorder

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Thursday 11th August 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

One of the points of the new e-petitions website is to make sure that if a certain level of signatures is reached, the matter will be debated in the House, whether we like it or not. That is an important way of empowering people. There may be opportunities, possibly through the new criminal justice and sentencing legislation, to make sure that we are better at confiscating things from people when they commit crimes. We must look at all the ways we can of making sure that our punishments are robust.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

As a former police surgeon, I have personally witnessed the great professionalism of our police forces in the face of extreme provocation. This week they have faced extreme violence as well. At all times they have been identifiable and therefore accountable. Is it time for us to make it an offence for anybody involved in rioting and demonstrating to cover their faces, so that they too can be both identifiable and accountable?

[The Prime Minister]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. In my statement I said that we would extend the power that the police have—at present they can do it only in limited circumstances with limited people—so that they have a more blanket power of insisting that people remove face masks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Wednesday 27th April 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

In 2007, the Labour Government implemented the Medical Training Application Service, or MTAS. Junior doctors will remember what a disaster it was. That large-scale, disruptive and untested system had disastrous consequences for junior doctors in training. Is the Prime Minister aware that there are concerns that the current proposals to reorganise medical training and work force planning could have similar unforeseen consequences?

[The Prime Minister]

I must say to my hon. Friend that she is a lot better at getting them to shut up than I am. I think that she is a future Speaker in the making.

I can absolutely guarantee to my hon. Friend that we will not make the mistake that the last Government made in respect of medical training. They created an utter shambles.

West Lothian Question

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Paul Murphy]

Yes, indeed. I very much accept my hon. Friend’s point about the result of the referendum. Devolution is unquestionably here to stay. People accept that devolution is the best way to deal with the issues in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom.

The issue that affects us at the moment, with regard to the West Lothian question, is the so-called English question—the question of English issues. Should Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish MPs vote on what are termed to be specifically English issues in this place? I maintain that there are no such things as absolutely English issues. In the first instance, the money that comes to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is decided by Parliament, which is overwhelmingly English—85% of MPs are English. I quote, for the convenience of hon. Members, the Kilbrandon commission, which met, as many will know, in the 1970s:

“any issue at Westminster involving expenditure of public money is of course of consequence to all parts of the UK, since it may affect the level of taxation and indirectly influences the level of a region’s own expenditure”.

Every time the Barnett formula is used, in each public spending round, the amount reached depends on the amount of money spent in England on public services that are devolved to the other countries. If health spending in England goes up, or education spending in England goes down, that has complete consequences for the budgets of Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Financially, there is no such thing as an English issue—they are British issues.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

On that point, would the right hon. Gentleman accept that English constituencies feel that there is great unfairness? We feel under-represented but over-taxed. For example, we wonder why we are subsidising university education for Scottish pupils, and free prescriptions.

Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I shall not give way to him, because there is very little time for debate. I accept that that might not be his intention, but none the less it might be the result of such a thing.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I ought to give way, in fairness, to one of the hon. Ladies opposite.

[Dr Wollaston]

Does the hon. Gentleman have any threshold at which he thinks we would be completely without any validity at all? Perhaps he would like to suggest a threshold.

[Chris Bryant]

I was actually trying not to suggest a threshold. The hon. Lady is right in one sense, of course. I hope that this might appease my hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton as regards some of what he said. There is a complexity about the referendum that we might have next May, because we might have very differential turnout in Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and England.

If, for instance, there were to be a very low turnout in England that returned a no vote and a very high turnout in the other places—there is a Scottish parliamentary election, in Northern Ireland there are two other sets of elections and in Wales there is the Assembly election at the same time, and in Wales and Scotland those feel in many senses like general elections—returned significant yes votes, people might start to question the validity of what we were doing. This is all the more important because the referendum is not just an advisory referendum—as referendums have always been in the past—but an implementing referendum. In other words, if there is a yes vote, it comes into law. It happens, and the next general election will be held on the basis of the alternative vote.

I am not convinced by the arguments that are being advanced in favour of thresholds. I personally will be voting yes in the referendum. I do not believe that there should be a referendum, but there is a legitimate argument that others might want to consider about whether the fact that we are combining the polls will produce a differential turnout in different parts of the country that might make a necessity of a threshold.

Public Bodies Reform

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Thursday 14th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Maude]

In government, you have to look very carefully at the costs and accountability. Ministers have not been convinced that setting up an independent overarching body of that nature is essential to the proper delivery of this important national function.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I am looking forward to warming my hands in front of the bonfire of the quangos, with 192 on the flames. Can my right hon. Friend confirm how many quangos were abolished under the last Administration?

[Mr Maude]

I have learned to treat the claims made by the last Government with some scepticism, because they often claimed to have got rid of things, but on closer scrutiny they turned out to be merely resting, not defunct. I do not know whether this is a bonfire or, in the term used by the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), a damp Sunday afternoon barbecue, but we should not knock barbecues.

Political and Constitutional Reform

Sarah Wollaston Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I of course agree that as far as the referendum is concerned, it is purely on the issue of the electoral system. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, however, that there is somehow no link at all between the electoral system by which Members are voted to this House and the size of different constituencies. In a sense, it seems to me that both these measures are complementary; they work hand in hand to deal with a fundamental unfairness whereby votes in some areas are frankly disregarded while in other areas the worth of someone’s vote is much greater than elsewhere. These measures taken together seek to remedy that.

[Dr Sarah Wollaston (Totnes) (Con)]

I welcome the opportunity for the electorate to have a chance to vote on AV, but does the Deputy Prime Minister share my concern that it gives a second bite of the cherry to minority parties such as the BNP?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I think that the alternative vote system, were it to be introduced, would not be susceptible to the dangers of some other electoral systems of fostering and allowing extremist parties to get a foot in the door of mainstream politics. If it were susceptible to such dangers, I would be as concerned as she is.