Conservative response to Labour’s comments on mental health

Thursday, 8 November 2018 00:01

Responding, Jackie Doyle-Price MP, Minister for Mental Health, said: “Our balanced approach to the economy means mental health funding is now at record levels, meaning we are able to deliver thousands more mental health staff over the next two years. “We are providing over £1 billion for young people’s mental health services and as part of our record £20 billion funding boost for the NHS we are ring fencing a further £2 billion for...Request free trial

Responding, Jackie Doyle-Price MP, Minister for Mental Health, said:

“Our balanced approach to the economy means mental health funding is now at record levels, meaning we are able to deliver thousands more mental health staff over the next two years.

“We are providing over £1 billion for young people’s mental health services and as part of our record £20 billion funding boost for the NHS we are ring fencing a further £2 billion for mental health care.

“Labour don’t know how to handle the economy meaning there would be less to spend on our public services like the NHS.”

ENDS

Notes to editors

· We are providing an extra £20.5 billion for the NHS by 2023-24. A part of a historic five-year budget settlement, we are providing £394 million extra a week for the NHS. This is an average real terms increase of 3.4 per cent a year to 2023-24 (The Andrew Marr Show, 17 June 2018, archived;Prime Minister’s Speech, 18 June 2018, link).

· We are investing a record amount in mental health services. Mental health funding has increased to a record £11.86 billion in 2017-18, with CCGs now required to increase their spending on mental health services each year (Hansard, Vol.646, 4 September 2018, link; Hansard, Vol.639, 19 April 2018, link).

· We are focusing on services for young people. We are providing an additional £1.4 billion up to 2020-21 to improve access to mental health services for children and young people, and an additional £300 million over the next three years to deliver the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Green Paper (Hansard, WQ125663, 7 February 2018, link; Hansard, WQ170687, 10 September 2018, link).

· The Chancellor confirmed in the Budget that £2 billion of the £20.5 billion NHS funding boost will be spent on mental health services.Mental health funding will grow as a share of the overall NHS budget over the next five years (The Guardian, 29 October 2018, link; HMT, Budget 2018, 29 October 2018, link).

· Our mental health workforce plan aims to increase the workforce by thousands. The mental health workforce plan for England, published in July 2017, sets out our ambition to deliver thousands of new posts (both professional and allied) across the mental health system, with the majority filled by NHS staff (Hansard, WQ171694, 7 September 2018, link).

· Labour’s manifesto contained £1,000 billion of spending commitments, wasting over £11 billion billions on debt interest payments and leaving less for the NHS. Analysis shows that Labour’s spending pledges would cost £1,000 billion, which would see our debt interest repayments soar by £11.6 billion (The Sun, 25 October 2018, link).