Clegg quizzes Brown

2.26.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 22nd Jul 2008

• ' . . DOES the right hon. Gentleman agree that we now have a two-tier health system in which millions of mental health patients are being left behind?'

[Jul 02] Nicholas Clegg (Party Leader; Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat): . . The Prime Minister this week published yet another Government review of the national health service, but what does it say about him and his Government that, after 11 years, a quarter of all British people now face mental health problems; that, every single day, more than 1,700 children are prescribed anti-depression drugs; and that millions of mental health patients-some of the most vulnerable people in the NHS-still have to wait three years to get help? Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we now have a two-tier health system in which millions of mental health patients are being left behind?

Gordon Brown (Prime Minister; Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Labour): Let me just say that we have increased spending on mental health by 31 per cent. in real terms in the past 10 years. There are now 60 per cent. more consultant psychiatrists working in the national health service, and there are 20 per cent. more mental health nurses. That is possible only because of the investment that we have made in the national health service, which is far beyond what any other party offered or promised at any election, and that is why there are 80,000 more nurses, that is why we are doing 1 million operations, and that is why today, this party, and I believe the whole House, should be proud of 60 years of success in the national health service. I am proud that a Labour Government created it, and I hope that it will have the support of all parties in this House.

Nicholas Clegg (Party Leader; Sheffield, Hallam, Liberal Democrat): The right hon. Gentleman is doing it again: he is confusing a list with an answer, and a review with action. There is a mental health crisis in this country today. Even the new president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists himself said this week that our mental health wards are "unacceptable, uninhabitable, and dangerous." There is no excuse for the Prime Minister's complacency. He once again relies on a promise made in a review, but when will he act to introduce a maximum waiting time and equal rights for all mental health patients?

Gordon Brown (Prime Minister; Kirkcaldy & Cowdenbeath, Labour): The right hon. Gentleman forgets that one of the purposes of our policy is that fewer people are in hospital and more care is provided in the community, but I can tell him that real investment in adult mental health places has increased by £1.2 billion, that we spent more than £5.1 billion on adult mental health services last year, compared with only £3 billion in 2001, and that capital spending on mental health hospitals and on hospital accommodation has been rising. Yes, we want to do more, but we can do more only if we invest more in the national health service as a whole. That is our commitment; it is not clear whether it is the commitment of all parties in this House.