Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, if he will make an assessment of the potential correlation between ill mental health and loneliness.

In June 2022 we published qualitative and quantitative research showing that there is a bidirectional link between loneliness and mental ill health. Our research found that people who experienced prior mental distress were 4.2 times more likely to experience subsequent chronic loneliness than those who did not experience earlier mental distress. Furthermore, those who reported prior chronic loneliness were 3.7 times more likely to experience subsequent mental distress than those who were not previously lonely. We continue to work closely with the Department of Health and Social Care to determine how we can prevent and tackle loneliness.