Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, how much funding his Department has provided for suicide prevention (a) nationally and (b) locally in each financial year since 2015-16.

Funding for suicide prevention is included in baseline National Health Service funding for mental health services, and is not separately identified.

Between 2019/20 and 2023/24, additional funding of £57 million was provided through the NHS Long Term Plan to embed local suicide prevention activity and suicide bereavement support services in every local authority area.

In addition, the Department provided £5.4 million of funding in 2021/22 and £10 million from 2023 to 2025 through grant schemes targeted at national and local voluntary community and social enterprise sector organisations delivering suicide prevention activity.

A further £550,000 of funding was also provided to the Local Government Association in 2021/22 for a support programme to help local authorities strengthen their suicide prevention plans.

Integrated care boards, previously clinical commissioning groups, are responsible for providing health and care services to meet the needs of their local populations, and it is up to them to decide how much funding to allocate to suicide prevention services in 2025/26.