Tessa Munt

I absolutely agree. That goes back to the business of data. We need to have the data, and I ask the Minister to look at that issue as well. I have made several points about data and statistics. If we do not know what is going on, we cannot possibly make an intelligent assumption about anything. Another area—to criticise my own gender—is that of children so often being used as a weapon against men. Again, this is something that I have seen in the groups in which I have been involved and in my work in the past: the use of children, most often—though not always—by women is a shocking indictment. We have not got to grips with that, and we absolutely need to. I have listened to all the comments about education, and I want to make a quick observation about macho male culture. The President of the United States seems to typify what people might think of as an alpha male leader. His version of masculinity seems to see dominance, subordination of others and aggression as desirable and socially valued traits. His politics has been explicitly endorsed by Andrew Tate—I can hardly bring myself to say his name—but in that context, I thank Gareth Southgate. He raised the alarm in his public lecture that young men definitely do not have positive role models, which makes them vulnerable to the influence of online personalities who promote negative ideologies about women and the world generally. The world is not against men and boys, in my view, and people saying that that is the case is unhelpful. That is why we should laud the efforts of Gareth Southgate to rebalance that. I will quickly comment on prostate cancer. One in eight men gets prostate cancer, and black men are twice as likely to get it as those of other colours, so screening for men with the relevant genetic variants is good—but that is for a very small group. Last weekend, I was pleased to be at Wells town hall in my constituency, where the Cheddar Rotary and the Wells Lions club, and a whole group of fantastic health professionals spent the day testing 320 men. The misfortune was that about 38 of them could not turn up, for one reason or another, but it is brilliant when that sort of stuff happens in our communities. That is a start, but we need Government to step up on prostate cancer. I want to talk very briefly about male suicide. Some 14 men a day take their own lives. Again, there are some amazing things that happen. The all-party parliamentary group on men and boys’ issues, co-chaired by the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Sam Rushworth), identified that many men view suicide as a rational solution to life’s events that they cannot solve any longer, whether that is relationship breakdown or financial pressures. Rather than viewing suicide as a clinical condition and a health issue, they see it as a life problem. Here, I pay tribute to the late Derek Mead, who provides a room at the cattle market at Junction 24 on the M5 where health checks for farmers are available. There is also a lady called Susie Wilkinson in my constituency, who is part of the Farming Community Network. Those are people who support people in the community. I will write to the Minister with several things that my party has asked for to promote mental health. There are so many things. There should be an MOT at key points in men’s lives, and in people’s lives generally. In conclusion I think that we probably need to have a Minister for men and boys in the short term.