Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to support charitable organisations providing mental health services to those in need.

The Department recognises the valued contribution that mental health and suicide prevention voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations make in supporting people with their mental health.

During the pandemic, we provided £10.2 million of additional funding to support mental health charities, including Samaritans and the Campaign Against Living Miserably, and over £34 million to organisations supporting people who experience loneliness.

More recently, we announced that 79 organisations across the country have been allocated funding through the £10 million suicide prevention grant fund. These organisations, from local, community-led organisations through to national, are delivering a broad and diverse range of activity that will prevent suicides and save lives.

We have also announced that £8 million is being made available for 24 early support hubs across the country, a number of which will be run by voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations.