Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, if he will make an assessment of the effect of the covid-19 outbreak on levels of (a) domestic abuse, (b) personal mental ill health and (c) excessive alcohol consumption.

Domestic abuse helplines have reported significant increases in calls during lockdown and the police have also reported an increase in reported domestic abuse incidents based on provisional data, a 6% increase in the four weeks up to 5 July compared to the same period last year.

We are working with the National Health Service, Public Health England and other key partners to gather evidence and assess the potential longer-term mental health impacts of the COVID-19 outbreak, and plan for how to support mental health and wellbeing throughout the ‘recovery’ phase.

Public Health England has published an online monitoring tool to track behavioural changes, including alcohol consumption. The findings on alcohol consumption throughout the COVID-19 pandemic are that intake across the population as a whole remained about the same during lockdown. Those aged 18 to 34 were more likely to report consuming less alcohol each week than before and those aged 35 to 54 were more likely to report an increase. There was an increase in the proportion of ‘high risk’ drinking between February and June 2020. The monitoring tool is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/wider-impacts-of-covid-19-on-health-monitoring-tool