Mental Health Treatment and Support

Toby Perkins Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Commons Chamber

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

I beg to move,

That this House notes with concern the scale of the mental health crisis facing the country with patients suffering with mental health issues waiting more than 5.4 million hours in accident and emergency last year; further notes with concern the mental health crisis facing young people with nearly 400,000 children currently waiting for treatment; recognises the health inequalities within the use of the Mental Health Act 1983; and calls on the Government to adopt Labour’s plan to recruit thousands of mental health staff to expand access to treatment, to provide access to specialist mental health support in every school, to establish open access mental health hubs for children and young people and to bring in the first ever long-term, whole-Government plan to improve outcomes for people with mental health needs.

After 13 years in office, this Government have delivered the worst mental health crisis in our history. We are becoming a brittle, anxious, fractious society, the very bonds of which are frayed and torn. The causes of mental ill health are complex: poverty, homelessness, neglect, loneliness, debt, bereavement, domestic violence and child and adult trauma. Our understanding of mental health is developing all the time. We have moved on in the years since I trained as a doctor. We can now see how interlinked and enmeshed the range of factors is: warm and safe homes, fulfilling work, strong relationships, safe streets, opportunities to learn, fresh air and green spaces are policies for good mental health.

Nye Bevan talked about the serenity in knowing that medical care is free at the point of need. After 13 years of Conservatives, we are far from serene. For many of the families I meet, the future is filled with dark clouds, fear of displacement and debt, and a sense that society is going to hell in a handcart—a Britain where nothing works, where everything is broken and where everything costs more than six months ago. Zero-hours contracts, boarded up high streets, rapacious landlords, rising lawlessness and antisocial behaviour and the long-term effects of covid—no wonder we are in the grip of a mental health crisis.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I am very pleased with the way my hon. Friend has started her speech, because she is absolutely right. Alongside the additional healthcare staff needed and the many measures that my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) and I have been spelling out for the health service, the society that has been created over the past 13 years of austerity has had massive impact on the mental health crisis. I am glad that my hon. Friend has focused on that. It will be the job of the entire future Labour Government to support her and her colleagues to reduce the mental health crisis.

[Dr Allin-Khan]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he is right. I will talk about the need for mental health not to exist in a silo later in my remarks. Frankly, it is the problem of every single Government Department.

One in four people experiences a problem with their mental health each year in England. One in six people experiences a mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression, each week. Three in four people with mental ill health in England receive little or no treatment for their condition. And people with the most severe mental illnesses die up to 20 years sooner than the general population. I ask the House to reflect on that for a moment. Tragically, in 2021, over 5,000 suicides were registered, up by 300 on the previous year. The Government should wear these statistics like a badge of shame.

--- Later in debate ---

[Neil O’Brien]

Those are not figures that I am familiar with or recognise, but I will certainly take this up with the London commissioners because it sounds like an important issue. I have talked about the dramatic increase we have already seen in the mental health workforce, and we are setting out further steps in our long-term workforce plan, but I will take that away and look at it closely with other Ministers.

[Mr Toby Perkins]

One of the issues here is that the demand for mental health services has gone through the roof, from 3.6 million in 2020-21 to 4.5 million in 2021-22. My hon. Friend the Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) was clear in her view, which I share, that the policies of this Government have been a factor in driving up the mental health demand. Does the Minister accept that? If not, what does he put it down to?

[Neil O’Brien]

I was just coming to that, but on the point about prevention and the social origins of these things, we are in agreement about tackling the origins of these things. In terms of financial security, that is why we are providing financial help worth £3,300 per household, one of the most dramatically generous packages anywhere in Europe. The question of good housing was raised earlier. We have the Social Housing (Regulation) Bill and we are taking action to extend the decent homes standard to the private rented sector.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

At 11.33 yesterday morning, this House finished Prayers and the first questions to the Health Secretary began. Disgracefully, two hours and five minutes later, the Government’s business was done and hon. Members were told that, if they had no further meetings, they could go home. This exhausted Government had literally nothing left to say or do.

It is therefore hugely welcome that my hon. Friends the Members for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) have stepped forward on behalf of the Government-in-waiting to ensure that today there is a debate on a matter of considerable importance. Every week in my constituency surgeries I meet parents exasperated that the treatment and support that they know their children need is not available. That can lead to the unchecked exacerbation of problems and children missing school—not the odd day, but months at a time. Whole years of their schooling are lost and family routines decimated as the entire family steps in to provide the support that an earlier intervention could have prevented.

Mental health is not a minority issue. Every year, one in four people will experience a common mental health problem. This Government are guilty of both underfunding mental health services and, through their actions, causing the number of people with mental health problems to rise. We all know that the Government have allowed our country’s economy to end up in a terrible mess and that money is short, but it is welcome and right that the Labour party and my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North have been able to secure a commitment for additional funding from shadow Treasury colleagues—all of us who sit in Front Bench positions will know that is very difficult—to pursue the plans that are so desperately needed.

I want to talk about access to services locally. Stephen Jones in my constituency had a child with a mental health crisis that required in-patient treatment. The child was moved to Stoke-on-Trent, 70 miles away, because there are no child in-patient beds available in the whole of Derbyshire. The isolation that Stephen’s child experienced exacerbated their problems and made it harder for the family to support them. I stress to my Front-Bench colleagues that, while we realise that specialist staff will not be based in every single village and town, we need to give real consideration to providing those specialist services close enough that families can easily play their part in supporting patients, particularly children, in their treatment and recovery.

I am pleased that my hon. Friend the Member for Tooting focused on some of the causes of the mental health crisis. The Government are quick to talk about the increased amounts they are spending, but they are forced to spend more because there are more and more patients coming forward. If we had a huge expansion in the number of people with cancer, we would have to increase the number of cancer doctors, and yet we have far more people with mental health crises. The Government need to stop for a minute and think about the role they have played in causing that increase.

From the start in 2010, the Government’s pursuit of people on benefits, their targeting of the unemployed and the mentally ill, their approach to work capability assessments and the reduction in housing benefit, leading to record levels of poverty and homelessness, have all played a part in increasing the pressures on people and have in themselves added to the mental health crisis. No one is suggesting that those are the only causes—of course, very successful people can have mental health crises, too—but the Government should take that expansion in the numbers seriously.

The pressures on children in that period have exacerbated the problems. Between 2017 and 2022 alone, the number of children aged between seven and 16 with a probable mental health disorder rose from 12% to 18%. Shockingly, among those aged between 17 and 19, the figure more than doubled, from 10% to 25.7%.

Finally, let me turn to the Government’s disappointing, inadequate and defensive amendment to the motion. It says everything about their complacency and lack of ideas that they should try to convince the House that they have already acted to reduce A&E stays. Last year in Chesterfield alone, people suffering a mental health crisis spent 5,254 hours in A&E. It is clear from the debate that our nation’s mental health patients are being let down and the Government have neither the wit nor the will to fix it. I am pleased that Labour will prioritise this crucial area of health and I endorse the motion.