Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps he is taking to ensure that the suicide prevention strategy addresses the needs of LGBT people.

In July 2018, the Government Equalities Office published a report titled ‘Improving LGBT lives: Government action since 2010’ which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/improving-lgbt-lives-government-action-since-2010

That report made a commitment that the Government will take action to improve mental healthcare for LGBT people and, as part of this, the Department will work with the Government Equalities Office to implement elements of its LGBT Action Plan through the National Suicide Prevention Strategy. We will set this work out in a Cross-Government Suicide Prevention Workplan which will be published shortly.