Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment his Department has made of the potential merits of extending the Breathing Space initiative to people accessing mental health services; and if he will hold discussions on that matter with the Chancellor of the Exchequer.

HM Treasury ran a consultation ‘Breathing Space – a call for evidence’ from 24 October 2017 to 16 January 2018. The consultation sought to gain further insight from the debt advice sector and creditors about how best to design, implement, administer and monitor a six-week breathing space scheme and statutory debt management plan.

The call for evidence covered the following, broad, topics:

- how to access and then enter a six-week breathing space;

- how a breathing space could work for creditors and debtors; and

- how to best design a statutory debt management plan.

The consultation also asked about the characteristics of who should be able to access a Breathing Space scheme.

We will consider the responses to the consultation and it will be published in due course.