Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the availability of helium gas on suicide rates.

The Department has been working with stakeholders over a number of years, including the British Compressed Gases Association, to assess the availability of helium and suicide risk and is considering options for addressing this risk. The Office for National Statistics collects and monitors deaths relating to gases, including helium. The number of deaths in England relating to helium, including self-inflicted deaths, increased between 2007 and 2016 from three in 2007 to 57 in 2016. The mortality rate relating to helium (per one million population) increased from 0.2 in 2008 to 1.0 in 2016. Mortality rates are not calculated in an individual year where the number of deaths is below 10.