Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the potential merits of making (a) psychotherapist, (b) counsellor and (c) therapist protected titles.

Statutory regulation and the protection of professional titles should only be used when the risks to the public cannot be managed in other ways. We keep the professions subject to statutory regulation under review and on 6 January 2022, we published a public consultation on the criteria for determining when statutory regulation of a healthcare profession is appropriate. We will consider the findings of this consultation which closes on 31 March 2022. However, we have no current plans to regulate psychotherapists, counsellors or other therapist roles.