If we want to improve mental health, first we need to tackle poverty | Dawn Foster

Mental health discourse welcomed an unexpected participant this month. Prince Harry, the fifth in line to the throne, spoke publicly about seeking counselling following his mother’s sudden death in his pre-teen years. Rightly, mental health charities praised his intervention, highlighting as it did that even extreme privilege cannot shelter us from depression, anxiety or any other psychiatric illness. Our bodies are fragile, and our minds equally so: this message is increasingly accepted as people with mental health problems, campaigners and medics alike have fought to end stigma by building a national conversation on mental health.

Removing the stigma around mental health is important but does little alone. Without services, treatment is still inadequate, and feeling less judged for your health issues means little if you’re faced with a lack of access to talking therapies and nonexistent community support. But the conversation on mental health also needs to examine how the structures of society cause and perpetuate poor mental health.

Poverty, poor housing and debt all have a detrimental impact on the mental health of children and adults. Money can’t buy happiness, but poverty can practically secure stress and misery. For children in particular, the impact of poverty early on increases the lifetime risk of long-term mental health problems. The National Child Development Study found children from the lowest-income families are four times more likely to display psychological problems than children from the richest families. Homeless children are four times as likely to experience mental health problems as settled families.

Across the UK, both women and men in the poorest fifth of the population are twice as likely to be at risk of mental health problems as those on average incomes, according to the Mental Health Foundation. Poverty increases the likelihood of developing mental illness, and mental illness increases the risk of poverty: combating only one factor does nothing to end the poverty cycle – the two are inextricably linked. Being as wealthy as the royals doesn’t preclude you from experiencing mental health problems, but it does lower the likelihood, cushion you in certain aspects and allow you access to a better standard of care more quickly.

Failing to address childhood mental health linked to poverty is like scrimping on a car repair only to crash into a wall

Refusing to recognise the link between socioeconomic deprivation and mental health creates a preventable drain on the public purse. Advocates for austerity argue that every penny counts, that “we are all in this together”, to borrow a famous phrase from George Osborne, heir to a baronetcy.

This is the ideological reasoning behind cutting the benefit cap to £20,000 outside London, implementing the bedroom tax, removing council tax benefit and forcing women to fill in forms confirming they were raped if they wish to claim child benefit for more than two of their offspring. But it makes no economic sense: these policies make rents unaffordable and increase homelessness, which contributes heavily to the deterioration of millions of people’s mental health. The Institute of Education found that poor mental health in children alone costs the UK £550bn in lost earnings. Children who experience poor mental health in childhood, disproportionately linked to poverty, earn less in their lifetime, requiring more financial support from the state, as well as seeking more medical assistance. It is akin to scrimping on a minor car repair only to crash the vehicle into a wall.

But even if economic arguments do not sway the government, the humanitarian, emotional argument should be recognised. Social policy can actively lower people’s risk of experiencing depression, anxiety and other disorders.

Austerity is an economic choice: it’s a foolish one that saves nothing and harms millions. Any campaign on mental health should champion combating poverty to stop more people experiencing entirely preventable problems.

If we want to improve mental health, first we need to tackle poverty | Dawn Foster

Dawn Butler stood up for deaf people. But we need more than gestures | Letters

The Labour MP Dawn Butler made an unprecedented contribution to parliament last week by asking a question in sign language (Why I stood up for British Sign Language in parliament, 17 March). Demonstrating so publicly that the views of deaf people should be represented in the Commons is a valuable act in itself.

However, the rights of deaf people do not simply start and end with a single signed question. Deaf children all too often fall behind their hearing peers in school because of insufficient support. Councils are cutting vital services that deaf children rely on. The government’s NHS reforms have left audiology services uninspected and unaccountable. And as Butler rightly points out, British Sign Language – an indigenous language that has been in use for centuries in this country – does not have its own legal status in Britain. So while it is an important step for deaf people to see BSL being adopted by our parliamentarians, it also shines a light on how much work lawmakers still have to do to support the deaf community in the UK.
Susan Daniels
CEO, National Deaf Children’s Society

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Dawn Butler stood up for deaf people. But we need more than gestures | Letters

Why I stood up for British Sign Language in parliament | Dawn Butler

Yesterday I made history by becoming the first member of parliament to ask a question in the House of Commons using British Sign Language (BSL). I have always fought for equality for all, and am pleased to have been able to help raise awareness of BSL. But recognising one struggle should not detract from recognising another – it is important to focus on equality for deaf people and those who are hard of hearing.

I have submitted an early day motion, which I hope will speed the way towards a BSL Act

Tomorrow will be the 14th anniversary of the official recognition of BSL as a language in its own right. But my request yesterday was that BSL be given full legal status in this country, which is why I asked the minister to bring forward a BSL bill. It’s a big concern for a large part of our society. There is a significant BSL community in the UK with an estimated 151,000 BSL users, 87,000 of whom are deaf. A British Sign Language act would give BSL the same status that other languages have in the UK. Deaf people deserve the right to communicate and live their lives with their preferred language.

BSL has been used in the Commons before – but never to question the government. That’s why, as an ambassador for the Brent and Harrow United Deaf Club, in north-west London, I invited some members to watch proceedings from the House of Commons public gallery. I have a level two qualification in BSL, but to deliver a question under that kind of pressure was something else entirely – I was pretty nervous about getting it wrong!

However, I felt it was hugely important to raise this question using BSL, not only so that many deaf people and those hard of hearing could understand what I was asking, but also because it signifies the seriousness of the issue at hand. The MP Rosie Cooper, whose parents are deaf, helped me to rehearse, and Rachael Maskell, another Labour colleague, started signing to me when I sat next to her, which was a nice surprise.

We need to make parliament representative of wider society. One important part of this is to make parliament as open and accessible as possible. Some great steps for equality have been taken in the house, helped by the efforts of our modernising Speaker, John Bercow – but there is still much more to be done. So I’m delighted that asking my question in sign has raised awareness for this cause.

Tomorrow’s 14th anniversary of the official recognition of BSL was a hugely significant moment, and is a date to celebrate with great pride. It gave deaf people the basic recognition they deserve. But we must also acknowledge that there is still a way to go until BSL is equal under the law. The only way to give the deaf community the equality and recognition they deserve is to bring a British Sign Language bill before parliament to address all these issues. Such a law would surely garner support from all sides of the house.

Legal status would ensure that British Sign Language is protected. Information and services would be produced in BSL, therefore giving equal access. It could put BSL on the national curriculum and ensure that it is offered in schools, as other languages are. This would enable BSL users to access education in their first language.

Many won’t even realise that we are currently in the middle of #SignLanguageWeek, with charities raising awareness of the importance that BSL has on hundreds of thousands of lives – hopefully my question can help that cause. Earlier this week I held an event in the Speaker’s apartments to promote the UN international day against race discrimination (for which I will be leading a debate in Westminster Hall this coming Tuesday) – and I invited staff from St Michael’s Nursery, in Brent, who are unique in that they teach their children, aged four and five, sign language. All schools should follow that example and teach basic sign language.

I have submitted an early day motion, which I hope will speed the way towards a BSL Act. And I hope many more MPs will pledge their support to this important campaign in order to enshrine these rights into law. I know that colleagues from the Labour party will support this cause, but in order for such a law to pass, we need the government to get on board too. I hope that it will.

Why I stood up for British Sign Language in parliament | Dawn Butler