Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, with reference to page 98 of the report, UK Poverty: Causes and Solutions, published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on 6 September 2016, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of the recommendation to ensure that additional investment of £280 million per annum is made in NHS perinatal mental health services, to bring them up to NICE guidance standards.

This Government is committed to improving perinatal mental health services for all women during pregnancy and in the first postnatal year, so that women are able to access the right care at the right time and close to home. The Spring Budget in March 2015 and the Spending Review in November 2015 both recognised perinatal mental health services as a priority area for additional investment, totalling £365 million from 2015/16 to 2020/21.

NHS England is leading the programme of work to transform specialist perinatal mental health services, so that by 2020/21 at least 30,000 more women each year are able to access evidence-based specialist mental health care during the perinatal period. This includes access to psychological therapies and specialist community or inpatient care.