Dr Rosena Allin-Khan
MP for Tooting · Labour · United Kingdom
“I hope my hon. Friend’s mum is making a swift and healthy recovery, and I am sorry to hear that that was her family’s experience. I agree that prioritising care for the frailer, elder population can often be dealt with more effectively before someone comes to hospital.”
“My hon. Friend and I are not performing a double act today, but he leads me on perfectly to the next part of my speech, as I go on to say that “corridor care” is something of a misnomer.”
“We cannot have a debate like this without recognising the terrible inequalities that scar our healthcare service—we have to work to reduce the disproportionate burden of long waits on deprived communities, older patients and people with mental health needs.”
“The hon. Member is right, but I know that the Government care deeply about this. This is not something on which I am in tension with the Government in any way.”
“By healthcare staff I do not just mean doctors such as myself, but nurses, porters, healthcare assistants and cleaners—we are one big family in the NHS, and no one job is more important than any other. We are unable to do any of our roles without all the others, and for that we are truly grateful.”
“As I have just outlined, this unacceptable and dangerous situation is shared not just by patients, but by their families and NHS staff, who are trying to do their best in a difficult situation.”
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“I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. Yes, I wholeheartedly agree that there is definitely space for more research. Adverse childhood experiences are the single biggest driver of mental ill health in children and, later on, in adults. I will touch on that later. I want to know today when the Government will finally get their act together to end the wait for children’s mental health services. We are sick and tired of the same old meaningless platitudes from the Government. I know the Minister: I had the pleasure of working with her in my role as a shadow Minister. I know she is decent, good and kind, and she absolutely wants the best for children. I believe that. I also understand that her hands, regardless of what she might want to do, will be tied.”
“I thank the hon. Member, whom I would like to call my hon. Friend, because we have worked very closely on this issue for a number of years. He speaks not just as a politician, but as a practising NHS psychiatrist and I take my hat off to him. He speaks from a position of authority. We also sat together on a pre-legislative scrutiny Committee for a number of months, where we heard how black people and those with autism and learning disabilities are affected by current policy. We made cross-party, cross-House recommendations, but all of that has been scrapped. The Bill has not been introduced to the House and we are wondering how, with such cross-party agreement, that can be.”
“Tonight, many children will be going to bed cold and hungry. More than 120,000 children will be without a home. Let us think about that for a moment: 120,000 children without a home. Millions more are living in poverty in damp and mouldy houses. Parents simply wanting the best for their families are suffering under the sharp pinch of the cost of living crisis. That is the damning reality of 14 long years of Tory rule.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for her intervention. Absolutely yes, black people are significantly more adversely affected. The work has been done. We sat together and saw the evidence, and the Government have chosen to ignore the recommendations. Experts have been working for years on understanding the drivers and coming up with solutions. Young black men are four times more likely than white men to be diagnosed with mental ill health when they have entered the judicial system, when their life is over and they have already had their cards marked, as it were. What beggars belief is the fact that we had consensus. We had the experts who did the research. They came and presented, yet we have got nowhere. I am fed up, as are many people here, with the same old soundbites and no meaningful action.”
“That means having specialists in schools; fixing the chronic staffing shortages and recruiting more staff; ensuring that patients are getting timely access to treatment and not languishing on long waiting lists, desperately waiting for that letter to come through the door telling them that they have an appointment; and enabling young people to access support in the community. As a country, we have a duty to be bold in our offer and uncompromising in our aims, with mental health interwoven into every decision the Government take.”
“Some 43% of children who are receiving mental health support from Place2Be, a fantastic organisation, are on free school meals. Addressing the mental health crisis in children must go hand in hand with addressing the cost of living crisis and child poverty. Yet, as many families continue to struggle to afford food and bills, the Government have offered little to tackle childhood poverty. It will come as no surprise to Members here that I believe we need a set of policies that bring essential change to young people’s mental health.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention, and he is absolutely right. This is about understanding. As I alluded to earlier, adverse childhood experiences are the single biggest driver of poor mental health in children and then later on in adults. Of course, there are other causes—most definitely—but adverse childhood experiences are huge. That is why, as my hon. Friend articulated so well, it is important to understand that, yes, there has to be money going directly into the mental health pot, but there must also be a wider ambition for our children. There must be an understanding of how we tackle these root drivers that are causing so many children to have poor mental health. Inequality and poverty drive mental illness. We know that children from the very poorest households are four times more likely to develop a mental illness.”
“However, our children are being failed by a lack of prevention and early intervention, by long waiting lists, by a lack of funding, by an overstretched system and by a Government who are simply not concerned with children’s mental wellbeing. We simply cannot allow our children’s future to continue to be squandered as a result of more inaction. The Minister may challenge me on this point, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating. It is no longer time for warm words; they have to be backed up with resources and ambition for our children. I hope we will hear something new from the Minister today, and I thank everybody for attending the debate.”
“Of course, all projects, interventions and ambitions for our children and their parents are important, but right now we have a children’s mental health epidemic. That is why it is important that we talk about these things during Children’s Mental Health Week next week, and beforehand in this debate. As a country, we have to be bold in our offer and have mental health interwoven in every decision the Government make. That goes to the point made by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), having been early years Minister, about the importance of having mental health not in a health silo but across Departments, from local planning applications to Bills taken through this House.”
“I thank the hon. Member for his intervention and for highlighting something that we so often forget. When we talk about mental illness and children’s mental health, we often do not talk about the early years—the early attachment-forming part of life that is so important for positive mental health. He is right that healthy mental health in a mother is essential for positive mental health in a child. I would pick him up slightly on some of his points, because if we look at health inequalities, the groups that I have been talking about, who are most adversely affected with their mental health, are the ones who struggle to access any of the support available. The numbers speak for themselves.”
“Let me point out two things. First, 12,140 children are on waiting lists at my ICB, an increase of 18.15% on last year. Secondly, the Minister spoke about 1.63 million people accessing mental health services and said that 38% of them were children, but that is actually up on the 25% that I cited. She used that figure in her argument about the amount of money that has been spent on children’s mental health services. She was incorrect, and all she did was highlight that the situation is getting worse, rather than arguing against my point that only 8% is being spent on children. She did not address that point.”
“I thank all Members, including the Minister and my hon. Friend the shadow Minister, for their contributions. Disappointingly, I have not heard anything about the scrapping of the Mental Health Bill, which the Minister conveniently avoided.”
“Although we are all on the same page in the sense that this is an issue we all care about, regardless of how we vote, where we live or what our socioeconomic background is, this Government still lack ambition for children in this country and for their mental health. Let me again, on the record, thank all the organisations that work so tirelessly in this space. Question put and agreed to. Resolved, That this House has considered Children’s Mental Health Week 2024.”
“The Minister talked about the fact that there are many new referrals. There are many new referrals, but she did not mention that in so many parts of this country, and even in parts of this city, it is a postcode lottery. In some places, up to 50% of referrals are closed before the person has even been seen. While I welcome the fact that efforts are being made—it would be churlish of me to suggest that they are not—the fact remains that they are not good enough, they do not reach far enough and they are not ambitious enough. Even on the £2.3 billion, I know for a fact that the head of mental health services in the NHS asked for more, and that was before covid. I thank everyone for being here and for their contributions.”
“No, I will continue. The Minister had ample opportunity to respond to a direct intervention, and she chose not to. That Bill was a great piece of cross-party work that would have improved the lives and outcomes of so many people in our country, particularly minority groups. The Minister did not address the fact that only 8% of funding is spent on children’s mental health services, but she highlighted that the need is greater than ever. The £2.3 billion was promised before covid. We have heard multiple arguments today that the situation has got worse post covid. There has been no money to make up for the increased need related to covid, and no assessment of how we are going to deal with the fact that adverse childhood experiences and poverty are contributing so greatly to our nation’s mental ill health.”
“Every parent’s worst nightmare is watching their children starve and suffer, yet in Gaza living hell is being realised, with innocent children eating weeds and 1,000 children having lost one or more legs, with many of them having to have them amputated without anaesthesia or pain relief. I am sure the Prime Minister will agree that this is inhumane, so will he please publicly call for unhindered access for food and medicine to reach Gaza, and tell Israel to stop attacking healthcare facilities?”
“As many of us go home tonight and kiss our children, parents in Gaza will be searching for body parts to recognise their children and burying them. Families broken; futures stolen. Is the Minister comfortable with over 18,000 innocent Palestinian civilians being killed, many of them children? When will he do the right thing and call for a ceasefire?”
“This was a King’s Speech lacking in ambition and failing to address the problems faced by people across the country on a daily basis; a King’s Speech that is truly a testament to broken Britain and the Government who caused it. We now need a Government willing to give Britain its future back. We need a Labour Government.”
“They are waiting in pain for a hip replacement, worried their cancer might spread, or stuck in a bay for many, many hours in A&E, where I do shifts. Back in 2010, patients waiting more than 12 hours in A&E were pretty much non-existent, but that was the sad reality for 44,000 people last month alone. In 2010, when Labour left office, doctors like me were not having to perform intimate exams in cupboards and patients were not having to line the halls waiting to be seen, lying on the floor. With yet another Health Secretary coming into post, nothing will change and Tooting people will continue to be let down by the Government.”
“Speaking of safety, talk to people across Tooting and they will tell you of their worries about antisocial behaviour and crime, with multiple incidents of children—children—being mugged after school and of drug dealing not being addressed. Why? Because the police are under-resourced and overstretched. My local police teams are absolutely incredible. Local police teams do their best and I pay tribute to their efforts, but we all know that most low-level crimes go unsolved, and they are often a feeder for the most serious stuff, such as drug dealing. This the direct result of real-terms budget cuts and a cut to safer neighbourhood teams. The Government are record breakers, but it is not something to be proud of. Waiting lists for NHS treatment have reached a record high of 7.7 million people. That includes many people from across Tooting.”
“Across Tooting, whether they live in a council house, rent privately or are a homeowner, the Government have failed everyone. Not content with selling off over 20,000 council homes in Wandsworth, leaving thousands of children homeless each winter, the Conservatives then made it impossible for people to get on the housing ladder. Average rent in Tooting for a two-bedroom flat is £2,300 a month, with bills. In what world is that feasible or even acceptable? Homeowners are no better off either. After the previous Prime Minister crashed the economy, which Conservative Members all supported, homeowners across Tooting are having to pay hundreds of pounds more on their mortgages. Everyone deserves the security and safety of their own home.”
“Poor standards of social housing, the cost living crisis, the decimated benefits system and growing job precarity are the social ills driving the mental health crisis we now face. Those ills have been intensified by a Conservative Government who have underfunded our NHS and public services. That is the hallmark of a Government who simply do not care. This Government do not care if children languish on waiting lists. They do not care if parents have to give up their jobs to sit at home on suicide watch because their children cannot get the help they need. They do not care about people in all our communities. Health is something that bridges the economic divide and the class divide. It is a factor that matters to every single one of our constituents in some way or form. But the failures are not just in health.”
“Many had to unpick painful, traumatic experiences, and did so willingly so that no other person would have to endure the same. That would all be for nothing. Trauma relived for nothing. Recommendations made for nothing. The Government never even bothered to respond to the Committee’s report. Black people are five times more likely to be sectioned. More than 2,000 people with learning disabilities are held in mental health hospitals, of whom 200 are children. That is the reality of the Mental Health Act in modern Britain. All that is set amid years of Tory failure on mental health. Waiting lists are through the roof, standards of care are falling and staff are burnt out.”
““A profound betrayal”, “An insult”, “Incomprehensible”, “A major breach of trust”, “A huge blow”, demonstrating “what little regard the current UK government has for mental health”, having “broken its promise to thousands of people”—not my words but those of mental health experts in response to the Government’s scrapping of the reform of the Mental Health Act. Back in 2017, there was hope of real change when the Government pledged to reform the Act. Six years later, and after much posturing from Government Ministers, that promise has sadly been broken. I sat for many months with colleagues from across the House on the Joint Committee of the draft Mental Health Bill. We took evidence from experts and those with lived experiences.”
“When atrocities take place, we have a duty to call them out. When Hamas murdered and kidnapped innocent civilians, we rightly called it out, and when Putin targeted innocent Ukrainians and Assad targeted hospitals, we expressed our horror in this House. Now we also have a duty to speak on behalf of innocent Palestinians who are being collectively punished, starved, and indiscriminately bombed in their homes by Israeli forces. Children’s bodies are lying in the street. It is wrong, and it is why we need a ceasefire. Will the Secretary of State convey that to his Israeli counterpart?”
“Over 1.8 million people languishing on mental health waiting lists, black people five times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983, and over 2,000 people with learning disabilities detained in hospital, all while the Government are dragging their feet on mental health and suicide prevention. You will be interested to know, Mr Speaker, that we had cross-party support to tackle these burning injustices through the draft Mental Health Bill, yet since the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill published our report in January we have heard nothing from the Government, so will the Minister today commit to including reform of the Mental Health Act in the King’s Speech?”
“The acts of terror that were committed by Hamas were horrifying, and our prayers go out to everyone affected, both in Israel and across the world, and those who are here in the House today. Israel is seeking justice, but innocent Palestinians must not collectively pay the price. I urge the Prime Minister to seek guarantees from the Israeli Government on four crucial points: first, that incendiary weapons will not be used in civilian areas; secondly, that hospitals and medics will not be targeted; thirdly, that food, water and electricity supplies must be immediately restored; and, finally, that we must not see military occupation and annexation of Gazan land.”
“Will he also tell us the average number of staff per shift at Wandsworth prison and the number of staff forced to take “payment plus” overtime shifts? Sadly, this escape is not the only significant challenge that the prison has faced recently. In November, it was without water for six days. Prisoners could not wash and had to rely on bottled water. There is an endemic problem throughout our public services owing to 13 years of Tory mismanagement. School buildings are crumbling, our prisons are overstretched and falling apart and our NHS is under-resourced. When will the Government get a grip and sort it out?”
“People in Tooting are alarmed that someone could escape from what is supposed to be an extremely secure prison. A few months ago, I raised the issue of low staffing levels with the Justice Secretary because I had concerns after speaking to Battersea and Wandsworth trades union council. My parliamentary question revealed that, shockingly, only seven prison officers turned up for a night shift last December to cover 1,500 inmates. That is unworkable and unsafe. Staff are having to do double shifts, with officers facing violence and abuse and struggling with their mental health. That makes staff retention impossible. In those circumstances, mistakes will happen. Will the Secretary of State list the meetings that he has held with the prison leadership since I raised the alarm many months ago?”
“As my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton) highlighted, all too often, children are stuck on long waiting lists for treatment. In West Yorkshire, 30,000 children are currently stuck waiting for mental health treatment, and more than 9,000 people have had their mental health referral closed without accessing treatment. Does the Minister find that acceptable? If the answer is no, what will her Government do about it? This picture is not unique to West Yorkshire, but replicated across England. This Government are letting patients down. When is the Minister going to act to tackle the crisis in mental health services?”
“I would be interested to know what work the Department is doing to encourage uptake in the communities that are most in need. While many of us will agree that public access to defibrillators will be a fantastic step towards saving lives, we must not forget that our country also deserves a well-funded, well-resourced and well-supported NHS. It is heartening that there is widespread, cross-party support for publicly accessible AEDs. I hope that the Government will build on the support from across the House and do what is needed to ensure that access is available.”
“The Government also committed last year to £1 million of funding to provide an estimated 1,000 public access defibrillators across communities in England. I note that the Department re-announced that policy just last week, so has there not been any progress on that commitment? Will he update us on how the application process is progressing and whether any PADs have been installed, and if they have, in which communities? It is crucial that they are placed in communities where the need is greatest to tackle growing health inequalities, which we have heard about extensively today. It is really important that health inequalities are not allowed to widen any further through a lack of access to equipment that could save lives. That has to go hand in hand with training people in how to use them.”
“In a category 1 scenario, every second is the difference between life and death, and longer ambulance waits are costing lives. Sadly, after 13 years of Conservative governance, patients can no longer rely on an ambulance arriving in time. At the end of last year, one in 10 urgent cases waited over 11 hours for an ambulance. How can we in all conscience say to people who lost loved ones in such cases that their loss could not have been avoided, when we know full well that it could have been? Last year, the Government committed to funding a defibrillator in every state-funded school in England by the end of the academic year. As the academic year is nearing its end, will the Minister outline what progress has been made on that commitment?”
“When the heart stops beating, every second counts, and a person’s chance of survival decreases by approximately 10% with every minute that defibrillation is delayed. That speaks to the importance of everyone knowing where the AEDs are. With our NHS in crisis and emergency care at breaking point, lives are being endangered. In December last year, the average ambulance wait for category 1 patients had increased to 10 minutes—the worst performance on record. Those stats make a very clear argument: the painful fact is that people are dying as a result of not being able to get the shock they need from a trained person, whether they arrived in an ambulance or came from an AED in the vicinity. Category 1 patients are the most serious and life-threatening cases, including cardiac arrest.”
“From my professional experience in the emergency department, I know how important quick access to treatment is for patients in cardiac arrest. There can be no doubt that patients who are admitted to hospital after having received prompt treatment with chest compressions or, even more effective, a defibrillator have far improved chances of making a recovery. There is also an economic benefit, because the people whose chances of recovery are worse may spend a long time in an expensive intensive care bed, often not surviving at the end of it. That makes the argument for giving people a better outcome in the first place, which prevents those protracted stays in intensive care and saves money in the long run.”
“This critical technology must be accessible to work. With my medical hat on, I will take a moment to explain how it works. CPR works to send the blood around the body to take oxygen to the tissues as a holding measure, but the AED is required to shock the heart and try to restart it again so that it can pump the oxygen around the body. Imagine somebody providing non-stop CPR for hours on end. Not only would that be far too long and the person would be brain dead at the end, but without an AED—without that shock delivered to the heart—CPR is actually pointless. We must be clear: AEDs are simple, safe and effective. They are portable, have plain instructions and the user cannot give a shock accidentally or hurt somebody.”
“As we have heard, in the UK one person dies every three minutes from heart or circulatory disease, and 60,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests occur every year. Take a minute to think about that. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead quoted research published by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, which found that just over 8% of people suffering a cardiac arrest outside hospital survive—just 8% of the 60,000 out-of-hospital cardiac arrests. The same research found that the odds of survival increase to 32% if a bystander has access to a public AED, and some studies place that figure even higher. It is simple: AEDs save lives. According to the British Heart Foundation, the low cardiac arrest survival rate in Britain can be attributed to a lack of access to defibrillators.”
“The Community Heartbeat Trust, the Oliver King Foundation and SADS UK are just some of the organisations that are doing brilliant work to provide education and information about automatic external defibrillators, AEDs, and to ensure that more defibrillators are easily accessible in public spaces. The British Heart Foundation’s Circuit project has ensured that thousands of defibrillators and their locations are registered online, but, as we have heard, that work needs to go further. People who experience the very worst in the heart of their communities need to know that they are able to find and access an AED when they so desperately need it. The Premier League defibrillator fund will provide AEDs to grassroots clubs, which is very welcome and will ensure that lifesaving treatment can be rolled out to even more stadiums.”
“It is a pleasure to close for the Opposition with you in the Chair, Sir Charles. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) for bringing forward this debate. She never ceases to bring the voice of her constituents right to the heart of this place, and today is yet another shining example her doing her community incredibly proud. It is welcome that there is such unity and consensus on this issue. As we have heard, tremendous progress has been made towards making defibrillators accessible to the public, thanks to the many incredible charities and people who have been working hard to do so.”
“Next week marks the 75th anniversary of the NHS, and it has never been in a worse state. The country is clear about who is to blame. It is not nurses, it is not junior doctors, it is not consultants, and it is not paramedics; it is this Conservative Government. They have lost control of the NHS, they have lost the confidence of NHS staff, and they have lost the support of the British people. The only ballot that we need now is a general election.”
“When we look at the planned national investigation into in-patient services that they will conduct alongside the Health Services Safety Investigations Body, we see that, yet again, there is no mention of working with patients and their families. Where is the learning? Where is the focus on what staff need in these settings? Are the Government looking at additional training needs, given that mental health care relies on staff and not simply on shiny equipment? Let me turn briefly to the planned consultants’ strike, about which the Health Secretary has said absolutely nothing. Yet again he has been missing in action. For my consultant colleagues to have voted to strike is extraordinary, and the risk to patients of seven days of strike action is intolerable.”
“The Secretary of State has announced that urgent mental health support will be made available through 111, but 1.6 million people have been left languishing on waiting lists for mental health treatment, their condition deteriorating and reaching crisis point. It is welcome that we will finally see the publication of the rapid review today—better late than never—but Labour has been calling for in-patient mental health settings to be reviewed in the light of these serious failings, and any rapid review should have had patient voices at its centre rather than being simply the data exercise that the Government commissioned.”
“I have repeatedly called on the Secretary of State to give the Essex inquiry statutory powers, and I am pleased to see that he has finally listened to our calls, but why were families left in the lurch for so long? Following months of scandals in in-patient mental health hospitals, public confidence is falling. More than one in three people say that they do not have faith that a loved one would be safe if they needed hospital mental health care, but every patient must be treated with dignity. I have repeatedly asked Ministers whether they have visited failing trusts. The Minister refused to answer, so will the Secretary of State commit himself to greater transparency?”
“The grieving families I have spoken to have told me about the pain and anguish they have felt during their fight for answers, and that has only been compounded by an inquiry that lacked the necessary powers to seek the truth. I must pay tribute to those families for their tireless campaigning and effort. In particular, I thank Melanie Leahy, who has fought for too long to achieve the announcement that has finally come today. I hope that Melanie, and every other family, will now start learning the truth. Dr Strathdee has been a powerful advocate for the Essex inquiry, and we want to express our thanks to her for the work that she has already put in. The next inquiry chair must continue her work, and hold the confidence of the families who have been impacted in Essex.”
“I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement. However, it beggars belief that it has taken the Government so long to address the House on this matter. It seems that every month there are new scandals regarding needless loss of life and dehumanising behaviour in in-patient mental health settings. That must be stamped out now—these are people’s lives. That brings me to the subject of Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust. I welcome the announcement today that the inquiry will be given vital statutory powers, because for several years families who have lost loved ones at the trust have been calling for the inquiry to be given those powers.”
“After 13 years of Conservatives, we are far from serene. For many of the families I meet, the future is filled with dark clouds, fear of displacement and debt, and a sense that society is going to hell in a handcart—a Britain where nothing works, where everything is broken and where everything costs more than six months ago. Zero-hours contracts, boarded up high streets, rapacious landlords, rising lawlessness and antisocial behaviour and the long-term effects of covid—no wonder we are in the grip of a mental health crisis.”
“After 13 years in office, this Government have delivered the worst mental health crisis in our history. We are becoming a brittle, anxious, fractious society, the very bonds of which are frayed and torn. The causes of mental ill health are complex: poverty, homelessness, neglect, loneliness, debt, bereavement, domestic violence and child and adult trauma. Our understanding of mental health is developing all the time. We have moved on in the years since I trained as a doctor. We can now see how interlinked and enmeshed the range of factors is: warm and safe homes, fulfilling work, strong relationships, safe streets, opportunities to learn, fresh air and green spaces are policies for good mental health. Nye Bevan talked about the serenity in knowing that medical care is free at the point of need.”
“I beg to move, That this House notes with concern the scale of the mental health crisis facing the country with patients suffering with mental health issues waiting more than 5.4 million hours in accident and emergency last year; further notes with concern the mental health crisis facing young people with nearly 400,000 children currently waiting for treatment; recognises the health inequalities within the use of the Mental Health Act 1983; and calls on the Government to adopt Labour’s plan to recruit thousands of mental health staff to expand access to treatment, to provide access to specialist mental health support in every school, to establish open access mental health hubs for children and young people and to bring in the first ever long-term, whole-Government plan to improve outcomes for people with mental health needs.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention; he is right. I will talk about the need for mental health not to exist in a silo later in my remarks. Frankly, it is the problem of every single Government Department. One in four people experiences a problem with their mental health each year in England. One in six people experiences a mental health condition, such as anxiety or depression, each week. Three in four people with mental ill health in England receive little or no treatment for their condition. And people with the most severe mental illnesses die up to 20 years sooner than the general population. I ask the House to reflect on that for a moment. Tragically, in 2021, over 5,000 suicides were registered, up by 300 on the previous year. The Government should wear these statistics like a badge of shame.”
“I will take no lectures from the hon. Member, because he proudly sat as a Member of a Government who oversaw hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths. Families are still feeling the ongoing mental effects of losing loved ones because of the mishandling of the pandemic by his then Government. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer), the Leader of the Opposition, launched Labour’s mission for health in May. He said: “Suicide is the biggest killer of young lives in this country, the biggest killer. That statistic should haunt us, and the rate is going up. Our mission—must be and will be—to get it down.” He is right. Across the House, we are increasingly hearing brave, moving and revealing testimonies about our own experiences and struggles.”