International Men’s Day

David Linden Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2017 Westminster Hall

[David Linden (Glasgow East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. I approached today’s debate with mixed feelings. When I was walking to Westminster Hall, on the way to the debate, there was a group of young schoolkids, and I observed a young girl looking at the statues that are all the way along St Stephen’s Hall. That reaffirms the point that sometimes in this House every day is men’s day. None the less, I welcome the opportunity to take part in the debate and want to use my speech, however brief, to talk about men’s health, both physical and mental, the important work done by Men’s Sheds, and locker-room banter. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) on initiating the debate.

Last week, alongside Councillor Michelle Ferns, I had the pleasure of visiting Shettleston Men’s Shed in my constituency. It is run by William Smillie, who clearly has a passion for the project and has invested considerable effort and time in getting it off the ground, in conjunction with Shettleston Housing Association. The Men’s Shed supports approximately 60 guys, who come together twice a week to play darts and pool and do woodwork, among other activities.

During my visit on Friday, I met Billy Thomson, who was attending the Men’s Shed for the first time. Movingly, Billy told me about his struggles with poor mental health, and the support afforded to him by Parkview health centre, which signposted him to Shettleston Men’s Shed. I was struck by Billy’s candour when he said that, just three weeks ago, he was in a very dark place and was considering whether he even wanted to be alive any more. Fast forward three weeks and Billy is sitting in a Men’s Shed, talking openly about his mental health. That is very powerful.

However, there is a legitimate point to be made about the funding for such groups, because it is often sorely lacking. I do not want to be a politician who simply pays lip service without banging the drum for more funding, particularly to support the running costs of an excellent project that is undoubtedly saving money for the national health service. I think that that should be put on the record.

I want briefly to address what has been dubbed locker-room banter, which has been a topic of conversation in recent days as light has finally been shone on this building with regard to the abhorrent way in which some men view, talk about and act towards women. We know all too well the comments made by President Trump in 2005, when, in talking about women, he said:

“Grab them by the pussy.”

Later, when trying to defend the indefensible, he suggested that that had been just “locker-room banter”—a soft phrase that seeks to play down the seriousness of a conversation that would rightly turn the stomach of most men. As legislators and leaders in our communities, we all have a responsibility to challenge the culture of locker-room banter that still exists, not least within this building, as events in recent days and weeks have shown.

In the time remaining to me, I want to talk about mental health and suicide. I am particularly grateful to Craig Smith from the Scottish Association for Mental Health for providing me with an excellent briefing and some statistics, which make pretty distressing reading. Much has been said in this debate about suicide, and I want to offer a few thoughts from a Scottish context. In 2016, 728 suicides were registered in Scotland, compared with 672 in 2015. That is the first increase in deaths by suicide for six years, which is absolutely shocking and should cause real alarm to those of us who are Scottish politicians and, indeed, to the Scottish Government.

When it comes to general health and wellbeing, we know that, in one year, more than twice as many females as males consulted GPs for depression and anxiety. That is why I was pleased to learn that SAMH, in partnership with the Scottish Professional Football League and Hibernian football club, has recently launched a new programme, The Changing Room, to promote men’s mental health and wellbeing. The aim is to increase the social connectedness of men in their middle years and to deliver a programme of activity that will reduce loneliness and ultimately improve their mental health and wellbeing. That is a good thing and should be commended in the House of Commons.

I want to conclude with a personal story, Mr Austin, so I hope that you will indulge me for a moment. A couple of weeks after being elected to the House in June, I got a phone call from my mother to tell me that my older brother had been admitted to the psychiatric unit at Wishaw General Hospital. My brother is five years older than me and considerably better looking. He and I have always had quite a jovial relationship; I must confess that, perhaps because of the age gap, we have never really had the kind of relationship that provokes deep emotional conversations. I left Westminster and flew home to Scotland, and as I was driving to Wishaw General Hospital, I was pondering how to approach Ross, how to talk about the situation. I thought to myself, “Should I just retreat to the comfort zone of the jovial, humorous approach of telling him to man up and just get on with it, or should I step out of my comfort zone and actually have a conversation with him about our feelings and thoughts?” I am glad to say that I did the brave thing and we had that conversation. It was very brief, but it was probably the most significant conversation that we brothers have ever had in our lives; and in retrospect it shows that, for men, it is important that we sometimes step out of our comfort zone if we are truly to step up.

For fear of getting emotional, I want now to conclude by saying that, after my visit to Shettleston Men’s Shed and what happened in the summer, I was drawn to a piece of scripture in the Old Testament that says:

“As iron sharpens iron,

So a man sharpens the countenance of his friend.”

Those of us in this House would do well to read and reflect on that.