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 adequacy of the level of funding for mental health services in the context of the proportion of people living within mental health conditions.

It is the responsibility of integrated care boards (ICBs) to make available appropriate provision to meet the health and care needs of their local population, and we are supporting them to expand mental health services through the NHS Long Term Plan, which commits to increasing investment into mental health services by at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 so that an additional two million are able to access National Health Service funded mental health support.

A Written Ministerial Statement made on 23 January, set out that the allocation of funding for mental health is expected to increase to 8.92% of NHS funding for the coming financial year, 2023/24. This is to ensure better transparency as part of the Government’s commitment to parity of esteem, ensuring that patients are able to access services which treat both mental and physical health conditions equally and to the same standard.