Women’s Mental Health — House of Commons, 2019-10-03
Topic: Health
Kevan David Jones (Labour, Centre-left): I congratulate the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse) on introducing the debate and welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the hon. Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Ms Dorries), to her new position I welcome this debate because it is another opportunity to talk about mental health. As was said earlier, at one time it would not have been spoken about, but our debates, which have in large part been cross-party and consensual, have changed people’s attitudes. That is the real difference that we have made. The hon. Members for Southend West (Sir David Amess) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) were right that this is the House at its best—disagreeing politely, but ensuring that issues that frankly are not very popular are debated consensually. I welcome that. These debates have made a real difference in changing people’s attitudes to mental health. I pay tribute to the charities that have recently been involved in various campaigns, because eradicating stigma is a big issue that we still need to work on in our discussions about mental health The hon. Member for Bath pointed out in her introduction to the debate that one in five women can at some stage experience a common mental health issue, whether depression or anxiety. Often, they are the ones at greatest risk, especially young women. Although all the evidence suggests that men are more likely to take their own lives, there is an increasing danger among young women of taking their own lives. The statistics have not really budged since 2012, and I think the same is true for the suicide rate among women generally, which at the moment I think is 5.4 per 100,000 of the population. Those rates have remained static for the past 10 years. Some great work has been done on suicide prevention, which led to a slight drop—although I notice that the figures recently went up again—but we need to put more effort into looking in detail at the underlying reason why the suicide rate among women remains static The other issue is that women are more likely to suffer from mental illness because of trauma, such as domestic violence and sexual abuse, and issues around body image, which the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham spoke about and which I will come on to I welcome the work of the women’s mental health taskforce, which reported in 2018. Let me put on record my thanks to the hon. Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for the work she did. She was a great champion not only for women’s mental health but for the entire mental health agenda. Not only was she always available to speak to Members, but I know from speaking to charities and others working in the field that her door was always opened. She listened; she made sure she got change; and she can be proud of the work she did The taskforce’s report touched on something that is quite self-evident, but which we sometimes forget—namely, the clear link between poverty and socioeconomic conditions and women’s mental health. It found that 29% of women in poverty experience poor mental health. Another issue touched on, which was raised by the hon. Member for Southend West, was prisons. The report highlighted the depressing statistics for women self-harming in prison, which are obviously linked to other issues such as poverty, which has already been mentioned, and substance abuse I agree totally with the report’s conclusion that we need to link those issues up and take an holistic approach, but I would go one step further. I have spoken about this before, but we also need to hard-wire mental health and wellbeing into all public policy, whether nationally or locally. We need a system whereby any policy being developed should be tested against a matrix of mental health indicators before implementation, and I would include spending decisions in that. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham talked about spending cuts, and although we might disagree about their effects on Sure Start centres for instance, making what the Treasury might see as easy cuts leads not only to problems locally but to more expense for the taxpayer in the long term. We should certainly look at that when we are spending money, because while the call is often for more money—which we do need in mental health—we also need to ensure that it is spent correctly and joined up. We could achieve a lot more if we took a joined-up approach Let me give two examples of where not having that prerequisite for testing is leading to problems and costing the taxpayer and society more. One is the Department for Work and Pensions and its employment and support allowance assessment. I am clear that people should be encouraged to work, and we all—let us be honest—know that the right type of work is good for people’s mental health. However, we should not have a system that is very blunt in terms of assessment and that takes little account of those living in our communities with long-term mental health problems A constituent in her late 50s came to see me a few months ago, having lived with long-term mental health issues in the community. She went for her ESA assessment and got no points. She was then virtually suicidal. I intervened, although, frankly, it should not have taken me to intervene. She then had a mandatory reconsideration, and her payment was reinstated. If we look at that woman’s history, it is clear that she is not going to work, but the process did not take that into account. If that person had then been sectioned, had gone into hospital or had—let us be blunt—taken her life, that would have been a huge cost to society.