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Health and Education

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I wish that I had not given way, because she has stolen my thunder; that point was in my peroration. I can give her the assurance she seeks. Of course, all these measures take money. Earlier this year, the shadow Secretary of State talked about £28 billion more going into health under the Tories, but we have not heard what will happen. We have not heard whether they would match the spending that we announced on Monday in 2010-11. I would be interested to hear about that before the end of the debate because the spending is important, if we are to do all the things that we want to do on mental health and other issues. Before I gave way, I was going to say, ““And the suicide rate has fallen to its lowest level since records began in 1848.”” That will teach me. One in four people will experience an episode of mental illness at some point in their life. Mental illnesses such as depression are one of the leading causes of disability in this country, and 42 per cent. of people on incapacity benefit are on it because of a mental health problem. Until recently, access to psychological therapy was limited, even though, as the hon. Member for South Cambridgeshire said, it is widely acknowledged as the most effective way of treating mild to moderate depression. As recently as seven years ago, only 9 per cent. of people with depression or anxiety were offered psychological therapy by the NHS. In October 2007, I announced that there would be a rapid expansion of access. The 13 new psychological therapy pilots that I launched a year ago have treated 17,500 people. This month, 35 primary care trusts launched their services; that is 15 more than we had anticipated. By 2011, we will have recruited 3,600 therapists, who will have helped to treat 900,000 people. Those are just some of the many developments that led the World Health Organisation in October to describe mental health services in this country as the best in Europe. In schools and children's services, there has been similarly dramatic progress.