Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps his Department is taking to tackle higher levels of mental ill health following the covid-19 outbreaks.

We have committed to invest at least £2.3 billion a year by 2023/24 to allow an additional two million people to access National Health Service mental health services, supported by an additional 27,000 mental health professionals. In 2021/22, we provided an additional £500 million to target groups whose mental health have been most affected by the pandemic including those with severe mental illness, young people and frontline staff. The Government has also launched a public call for evidence to support the development of a new cross-Government 10 year plan for mental health, which is open until 7 July 2022.