Dr Lauren Sullivan

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Sojan Joseph) for securing this afternoon’s important debate. As we know, one in four of us will deal with a mental health issue at some point in our lives. As is the case across the country, following the decade of under-investment that has just been referred to, my constituents in Gravesham are concerned about the difficulty of accessing the right support in good time, without waiting on waiting lists for years. We can all agree that mental health is just as important as physical health, and that the strain on the NHS at this moment in time is enormous. The system is very close to breaking point. If the system is close to breaking, so are our young people. The lack of open access to universal provision was, I think, touched upon by the hon. Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans). It is about having a safe place to discuss mental wellbeing so that we prevent those people then needing further additional help. In Gravesham, we are fortunate to have the Elliott Holmes Memorial Fund, a community interest company that aims to give direct access for counselling to young people in Gravesham. At the moment, there are no people on the waiting list, because they are being seen by dedicated counsellors. Based on national statistics, 1,200 young people in Gravesham between the ages of 13 and 19 are struggling with their mental health, but the fund has helped 271 young people since 2022. I would like to place on the record my thanks to the fund for providing a space for young people’s issues to be heard. The fund was set up in memory of Elliott Holmes, who tragically took his own life in 2020 after suffering from mental illness for a number of years. After his passing, his family set up the fund to try to keep other young people from that path. I would like to thank them for that. I know that this Government are committed to addressing the mental health crisis that we are facing, and I am pleased to see that the King’s Speech included specific mention of legislation, in the form of a mental health Bill. In particular, I would be pleased to hear what further things we can do to prevent this deepening, worsening crisis.