Another Day at Westminster

Liz Twist MP, Chair of the AAPG on Suicide and Self Harm listens as we speak

We were in London again yesterday as we had been invited to speak at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Suicide and Self Harm. This APPG is chaired by Liz Twist MP, we had met Liz several times and knew her to be a tirelessly campaigner on all this related to suicide prevention.

 As well as speaking at the APPG meeting we made good use of our time. Andy’s MP, Dr Neil Hudson managed to secure a meeting with Maria Caulfield, Health Minister whose brief covers suicide prevention. We had a very constructive discussion with Maria, she reassured us that the 10-year suicide prevention strategy that Sajid Javid announced when he was Secretary of State for Health continued to move forward with a new strategy to be published later this year.

With Maris Caulfield MP along with Dr Neil Hudson, Andy’s MP

We also discussed the need for suicide prevention to be seen as cross-government and we reassured to learn that Maria and her team we talking to Gillian Keegan at the Department for Education as well as colleagues from DEFRA and the Department of Work and Pensions.

We left the meeting encouraged that various parts of the government machine was coming behind a coherent suicide prevention strategy.

Whilst waiting to go into the committee room for the APPG meeting we were intercepted by Sajid Javid. Mike and Tim had met him at the PAPYRUS London office last year when he announced the suicide prevention strategy. Once he discovered that we were attending this APPG meeting he went out of his way to find us.

He told us that he was keeping a very close eye on the review of the suicide prevention strategy, was still engaged with the process and would do whatever he could to ensure the new strategy was fit for purpose.

Talking to Sajid Javid in the corridor before joining the APPG meeting

At the meeting itself we spoke about our girls and how we had come to be campaigning to get suicide prevention added to the school curriculum, Lisa Roxby from PAPYRUS talked about the lifesaving work of the charity and Mark Foster & Tom Marsh told us about the brilliant work being done by Ellie’s Angels, in particular the wonderful app, better u, designed by young people, for young people and aimed at supporting their mental health.

The meeting was well attended by members of the House of Commons and House of Lords along with people from various organisations across the country, all with an interest in suicide prevention. We had a wide-ranging discussion covering many aspects of concern – the critical point made was that doing nothing wasn’t and option.

After the meeting we had the opportunity to speak to many of these inspirational people, more connections in the ever-growing network were forged, we walked out of the committee round with a sense that voices were being heard and steps taken towards a society where discussions about suicide prevention were the norm.

We are back in Westminster next week when we will be at a meeting at the Department for Education which is part of the process of gathering information for the review of the RSHE curriculum.

We will be asking one simple question –

If suicide is the biggest killer of young people in the UK why aren’t we talking to them about it?

We will keep going until changes are made – together we can make a difference.