Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the implications for his policies are of the data from the Office for National Statistics on the disproportionately high rate of suicide among women in the culture, media and sport sectors; and if he will make a statement.

The data published by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) on 17 March builds on our knowledge of groups at high risk of suicide and where this may relate to their occupation, which we set out in the Cross-Government National Suicide Prevention Strategy in 2012.

Alongside the ONS data, Public Health England published suicide prevention and postvention toolkits for employers. Reducing the risk of suicide: a toolkit for employers and Crisis management in the event of a suicide: a postvention toolkit for employers are attached.

Departmental officials have been working with Public Health England to assess what impact this new data will have on our policies and we will continue to do that as we implement the National Strategy.

We published the updated National Suicide Prevention Strategy in January which set out how we will strengthen its delivery in key areas, including better targeting of high risk groups. Within the updated strategy we stated we will be working with industry to share best practice with other sectors such as Network Rail and the construction industry. We will provide further updates on developments through our annual suicide prevention progress reports.