Contribution
I have spoken many times in this House about mental health because I see the impact of poor mental health every day in Blackpool—in our communities, our families and, tragically, our children and young people. Today I want to focus the House’s attention on them. As a mental health advocate and former chairman of an award-winning mental health charity in Blackpool, I have witnessed a growing and urgent need to support our young people. Now as the MP for my home town, in the midst of a severe mental health crisis, desperate parents come to me every day asking for help.
A mother recently contacted me about her 14-year-old daughter. In just four months, her child attempted to take her own life three times by overdose. The minimal support they had was hard fought for, and it was inconsistent and incohesive. The family are on constant high alert in case their daughter tries to take her own life again. As a new parent, I cannot comprehend how they must be feeling day to day. No family should be left in that situation, let alone have to fight for the help that should be there from the outset.
Earlier this month, I sat down with young people, parents, teachers, community leaders and the police to discuss the links between bullying and mental ill health. Among the brave young people who shared their stories was Elsie. She spoke about how bullying about her appearance began in primary school and intensified in secondary school. She became anxious and depressed and eventually stopped going to school. She was moved from top to bottom sets, and her academic attainment plummeted. She told me she hated herself, but because she was seen as one of the ones that was acting up, she was punished by the adults around her—she was seen as the problem. The real problem was that no one listened, and the painful truth is that her experience is far from unique.
When young people speak up about their mental health, our job is first to listen and then to act. That is why this Mental Health Bill matters. It delivers on the Government’s commitment to modernise the Mental Health Act and give people greater autonomy to ensure that everyone is treated with dignity and respect during their care. It strengthens the voice of patients, gives statutory weight to their rights to be involved in decisions about their treatment, increases scrutiny of detention and seeks to limit the use of the earlier Act to detain those with learning disabilities.
The most recent NHS figures show around 135 hospital admissions of 10 to 24-year-olds in Blackpool due to self-harm in the year to March 2024—a sharp rise from about 100 the year before. That is more than double the national average. Child in-patient admissions for mental health conditions in Blackpool are also significantly higher than the national average. Children in care, care leavers, young carers and those living in poverty are especially vulnerable and too often are the ones failed most severely. This inadequacy extends to detention. We know that people living in deprived areas are more than three and a half times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act than those in more affluent parts of the country. That is a staggering and unacceptable disparity and the sad reality for my constituents in Blackpool South.
The Bill takes a much-needed step forward, introducing a 28-day limit on detaining people with a learning disability or autism who do not have co-occurring mental health conditions. I support the reform, but it cannot come into effect until we have sufficient community services, which my community is crying out for. In that context, I welcome the plan to expand community-based support. The Government have committed to walk-in mental health hubs in every community, more accessible support workers and a specialist mental health professional in every school—all desperately needed in Blackpool. Those essential steps must be backed by funding, urgency and clear timelines, because right now our youth mental health services are stretched beyond capacity. Young people in Blackpool and across the country are too often placed on adult wards, sent far from home or left to fend for themselves until they reach crisis point.