Oral Answers to Questions

Josh Newbury Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2026 Commons Chamber

[Pat McFadden]

People want to stand for my party, but people want to leave the hon. Lady’s, and they are doing that day by day. We want to give hope to young people. That is why we have put the youth guarantee in place and we are changing the apprenticeship system: she could have done those two things while she was in office, while the NEET numbers were rising year on year, but she utterly failed to do so.

[Josh Newbury (Cannock Chase) (Lab)]

T2. My constituent, Julie, a single mum of two, had a successful career in marketing, but had to quit after battling with depression, stemming from undiagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Julie has been stuck in a cycle of struggling to get treatment and diagnosis on the NHS and having to go back to work before she is ready—a story that is sadly echoed among many of my constituents who struggle with fragmented mental health services and a lack of employment support due to cuts made by the previous Government. Will the Minister update the House on the work that she is doing with her counterparts in the Department of Health and Social Care, to ensure people struggling with mental ill health can recover and get back to work?

[The Minister of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Dame Diana Johnson)]

I meet my colleagues in the Health and Social Care Department regularly, particularly because of the important work that the joint work and health directorate is doing to get people into work and to support people with health conditions in work, including those with chronic mental health conditions. Our employment advisers in talking therapies specifically target people with mental health conditions.