Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle (a) mental ill-health and (b) loneliness affecting people with a learning disability following the covid-19 pandemic; and what assessment his Department has made of the extent to which access to day services for people with learning disabilities has changed since the publication of the Government’s COVID-19 Mental Health and Wellbeing Recovery Action Plan in March 2021.

In 2021/22, we provided an additional £500 million to expand mental health services and target groups whose mental health have been most affected by the pandemic. Of this funding, £31 million was allocated to support learning disability and autism services, address the diagnostic backlog as a result of the pandemic and support interventions to prevent children and young people with learning disability, autism or both escalating into crisis.

More than £34 million of the £750 million provided to the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector was allocated to measures to reduce loneliness. In addition, £1.6 million was provided to charities supporting autistic people and people with a learning disability for activities such as virtual peer support and helpline capacity. No specific assessment on access to day services for people with learning disabilities has been made.