That this House has considered e-petition 623390, relating to suicide prevention and the national curriculum.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. First, I thank the petitioners—the 3 Dads Walking—for their brilliant campaign; I know that they are here today. I also thank Papyrus, the charity leading the prevention of young suicide in the UK, for its work and the support it has given to 3 Dads Walking. This is something that those dads never thought they would be involved with, or even want to be, but sadly, each of them, along with their families, has suffered immensely through the loss of their daughters. If anything good can come out of three such tragedies, we in this place must do all we can to help.
I will speak about the three dads and their daughters. First, there is Tim and his daughter Emily from Norfolk. Emily was 19 and took her life in March 2020. She was the life and soul of every room, meeting and party—a free spirit and a talented artist. She had struggled for some time and a late diagnosis of autism had not helped. She could not cope with life under lockdown and attempted to take her life. She sadly died five days later.
Secondly, there is Andy and his daughter Sophie from Cumbria. Sophie took her life just before Christmas 2018. She was 29. She was an open, happy young lady with a wide circle of friends. She brought a smile and a sense of fun to everyone she met. No one had an inkling that she was feeling suicidal—everyone said,
“she seemed like ‘normal’ Sophie.”
If she had felt able to share her emotions, everyone would have helped, but sadly, she did not.
Thirdly, there is Mike and his daughter Beth from south Manchester. Beth was 17 and she died in March 2020. She was a leader, including being the head girl at her primary school. She was outgoing, independent and an artist with a record contract. Her dad Mike says:
“Not one single person…saw this coming.”
If she had only known about the many charities, maybe she would still be alive. Those are three tragic stories and three brave dads.
Those three brave dads came together to set off on walks to raise more than £1 million for Papyrus and its HopelineUK helpline and text service, which provide much-needed support for our young people. More importantly, they have raised awareness of a subject that sadly affects many families across the country.
I am fortunate to be able to stand and lead debates in this place, and I hope that many are watching. When leading such debates, I like to not only ask the Government what the petitioners have requested, which I will come on to, but speak directly to the public. Hopefully, I can pass on information that I have learned in my research and in my position as a Member of Parliament. I will therefore start by sharing some guidance on talking about this subject.
The first message is never to say “commit” when speaking of suicide. That is an out-of-date term for people taking their own lives, and one that we should refrain from using. People do not commit a crime when they take their own life. They are obviously in a place of deep unhappiness, and their memory should not be tarnished by poor language. They took their own life or they died by suicide. Let us all try to remember that today.
There are many great charities working hard to end suicide. As well as Papyrus, there are the Samaritans, James’ Place, Mind, the Campaign Against Living Miserably, Mates in Mind, Baton of Hope and many others that do great work in this field. We should pay tribute to them all in this place.
Helpfully, Samaritans has produced some basic rules for discussing or reporting suicide, and we should all take note. The rules include: not reporting the method or sensationalising the act; not referring to a site or a location; and avoiding an excessive amount of coverage and/or speculation in the media or on social media. Those are really helpful tips that might just prevent someone from taking their life. I recommend the information on the Samaritans website and also its excellent Small Talk Saves Lives campaign.
Let me now look at what Andy, Tim and Mike, Papyrus and the 160,000 people who signed the petition are asking for. It is to ensure that suicide and self-harm awareness is included in the national curriculum, specifically in the relationship, sex and health education curriculum, and that it should be age appropriate. Obviously, all three dads have a specific interest because they have each suffered their own individual tragic loss. However, their main aim is to help other families and young people, and to stop the biggest single killer of our young people.
I thank the hon. Member for giving way and he is making a very important speech about this subject, which is not talked about often enough. Some of my constituents got in touch with me about their son, Peter, who sadly took his own life in 2012. They are clear that there has to be more information about suicide and suicide prevention in schools. I know that Scotland has a different curriculum to England, but this is something that we can work on on a cross-party basis to achieve across the UK.
I thank the hon. Member for her intervention and I offer my condolences to Peter’s family. As she said, this greater awareness is something that we want across the entire UK.
As I was saying, suicide is the single biggest killer of young people in Britain. The figures are very difficult to swallow. The latest statistics from the Office for National Statistics show that between April 2020 and March 2021 157 young boys and 72 young girls between the ages of 10 and 19 took their own life. That cannot be right, can it?
At least until my time in this place began, I was one of the many people who thought that talking about self-harm and suicide was not a good idea; I thought that putting thoughts into young people’s minds by discussing the issue openly would only make things worse. However, the many professionals and charities I have spoken to disagree, and a literature review conducted by Cambridge University showed that there is no research to prove that that idea about putting thoughts into young people’s minds about suicide was true. Children are exposed to so much on their phones that they need the tools to help them to deal with the subject. An appropriate curriculum, taught well, could do just that. However, we also need to think and act maturely and responsibly on this issue. If we find that, by discussing this issue, an unintended consequence is that suicide rates among young people increase, we must be prepared to think again.
The professionals who I have spoken to are all agreed that this subject should be included in the curriculum. They also agreed that year 7 and upwards was the best time to start. Furthermore, they agreed that it should not be discussed just in one year of secondary school, which I believe some schools already do, but should form part of each academic year for 11 to 12-year-olds upwards. For those children who are younger, this subject should not necessarily be broached. However, the message to them should be that they have the right to be, and to feel, safe. There should be no secrets and nothing should be kept from parents, on this matter or any other.
I ask hon. Members to stand if you want to speak, even if you have written in. If you have not written in, please stand. It will give you and me an idea of how to proportion the time during the debate.
It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.
Most of all, I thank the 3 Dads Walking for everything they have done to raise awareness of suicide in young people. I have had the pleasure of meeting Mike, Andy and Tim. I am delighted that their petition has led to this debate being brought forward, with 160,000 signatures. That is truly amazing. There could not be a more fitting tribute to the lives of Beth, Sophie and Emily than the passion and dedication that their dads have shown. I also thank Papyrus for its support to the 3 Dads and for all its work to tackle young suicides.
As chair of the all-party parliamentary group on suicide and self-harm prevention, it has been an honour to meet so many inspiring people who, having lost a loved one to suicide, have dedicated so much time and energy to ensuring that other families do not have to go through the same thing. The 3 Dads is the club that no one wants to join, as they say. However, many people who have found themselves in it have carried out brilliant work in the face of great adversity. The Government must do everything they can to match their efforts.
Unfortunately, the issue is touching more and more families. Suicide has recently become the biggest killer of young people under 25. It is estimated that in an average week, four schoolchildren will take their own lives. Although young men are three times more likely to take their own lives than their female peers, the suicide rate for young women is now at its highest on record. We are getting better at tackling the stigma and talking about mental health, but suicide and self-harm is still a taboo subject. As we have heard, people are worried that by talking about suicide, they may say the wrong thing—or worse, encourage it. That is a particular fear when talking to children and young people about suicide.
I thank the hon. Member for her excellent speech, and particularly for the work she is doing as part of the APPG. On the comment that this is a cross-party issue, it has been mentioned that suicide sadly affects many families across the UK. My family is one of those, following the tragic suicide of my brother. Recently, I launched a campaign to have 100 people on Anglesey trained in mental health first aid. Does the hon. Member agree with me that it is absolutely vital that we talk about mental health, particularly with our young people, so we can give them the tools to speak about it and signpost them to the many fantastic organisations and charities that are there to support?
I thank the hon. Member for that intervention, and I offer my condolences to her on the loss of her brother. I, too, have been affected by suicide, so have personal experience of that and know how important it is to share. I certainly agree that it is vital that people talk more about suicide, and about having difficult suicidal thoughts as well. We want to prevent suicide, rather than see it continue. I thank her for that.
To conclude, I want to share a message from Daniel’s family, who often say,
“We taught Daniel to tie his shoe laces, and how to cross the road safely—but we never spoke to him about how life can throw things at you that you need some help to deal with. It is not a sign of weakness to reach out for help.”
Just like Daniel’s family, our schools teach our young people all about road awareness, online safety and many other vital lessons necessary to keep them safe, but today one of the things that is most likely to take the lives of our young people is our young people themselves. By talking more openly about suicide, we can save more young lives and prevent families like Daniel’s, Beth’s, Sophie’s and Emily’s from going through unimaginable pain.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) on his excellent and powerful opening speech. I am humbled to follow the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), who does excellent work in the all-party group.
The debate is one we all wish was not necessary. Sadly, it is, but I am relieved that we have a thoughtful and compassionate Minister in place who I know will look at the issue in great detail, as he does so many things, and will try to come to a speedy decision for the benefit of everyone. I had not met them before the debate, but I pay tribute to 3 Dads Walking, who have done a phenomenal amount to raise awareness. We can all agree that that is something that no parent ever wants to do, but they have powerfully put across that personal story. I pay tribute to Papyrus, which continues to campaign on the prevention of young suicide, and other national and local charities that continue to support those with suicidal tendencies and the family members who have been left behind.
As local MPs, we are often approached by constituents with some of the most tragic and challenging circumstances, and we do our utmost to support them and provide the right advice. However, being approached by a parent whose child has taken their own life is utterly heartbreaking, and I suspect it leaves most of us struggling to find the right words of advice and support. I am sorry to say that I have learned of too many suicides in and around my constituency. Each and every one is a tragedy. Each and every one is a person with a unique story. Each and every one is a life taken too soon.
Nationally, the statistics speak for themselves. In 2021—the last date available—5,583 people took their own life, three quarters of whom were men. While there is a specific concern about middle-aged men, we are seeing a worrying increase in the number of school-aged children taking their life, with figures suggesting over 200 a year. That could and should be reduced through better institutional and individual awareness, as well as a better functioning mental health support system.
As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank the hon. Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing this petition to us.
My constituent Mike Palmer’s daughter, Beth, died by suicide on 28 March 2020, in the first week of lockdown. She was just 17. She was a talented singer, with a vivacious personality. She was deeply loved by friends and family—a great character who belonged on stage. Indeed, Beth was the last person anyone would have thought would take her own life. She had so much to live for. Sadly, as my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist), the chair of the APPG, said, this is far too common: suicide is the biggest killer of under-35s in the UK, with around 200 school children each year taking their own lives.
Mike felt Beth’s loss so acutely that he was plunged into a suicidal spiral himself. A complex grief is left behind for families. The facts show that around 135 people are affected by one suicide and that those closest to the individual lost are 80% to 300% times more likely to take their own lives. However, through that despair, fate was to play a part. Mike was to team up with Tim and Andy, the fathers of two other beautiful young women, Emily and Sophie, who were also sadly lost to suicide, and so 3 Dads Walking was born.
For these men, a simple walk between their homes, raising funds and awareness for the charity Papyrus, which is dedicated to the prevention of young suicide, has turned into a life mission to prevent other families from going through the same lifelong agony that they face. Walking in 2021 and 2022, they covered over 900 miles and were on the road for 46 days. During the walks, Mike, Andy and Tim were joined continuously by other bereaved parents and those affected by suicide. Through conversations with those individuals, the same messages kept coming through: if our children had only known how to reach out, and had had an awareness of how to keep themselves safe, they might be here now. 3 Dads Walking believes that, if our young people’s greatest danger is themselves, we as a society should tell them and teach them, in an age-appropriate and sensitive way, how to keep themselves and others safe.
I put on record that many of my constituents in Weaver Vale have been inspired by 3 Dads Walking, and the clarion call to ensure that suicide prevention is integrated into the curriculum and that there is greater regulation. The call for greater regulation of online harm has come from my constituents who have been affected by suicide in their family.
I thank my colleague for his intervention. I am sure that the Education Minister will have heard that fully. I know the Minister to be an extraordinarily honourable man who takes the education of our children seriously, as I previously shadowed him in the post for a number of years.
We should talk about mental health in schools more, building the awareness and coping mechanisms that will foster more positive mental wellbeing and resilience in young people and helping to lay the foundations that will keep young people safe and reverse the tragically high rates of young suicide. Mike tells me that some of the most powerful stories that the 3 Dads hear on their walks are from those who have experienced severe mental health episodes, and in some cases have attempted suicide, but who have overcome those struggles and are now living happily, with full lives. Those stories show that hope is always possible and that people, especially with support, can make different choices and overcome the worst mental health struggles. Is an alternative outcome for families affected by suicide not worth fighting for? Surely the testimonies starkly demonstrate what is at stake if we do not act and what we can offer if we do. By providing life-saving knowledge to our young people, we can give them and their families an alternative path—a path to hope, a path to a happy and full life for them and their loved ones. That is a path that everyone deserves.
It is indeed a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for introducing the debate, and the petitioners, the 3 Dads over there in the Public Gallery—Andy, Tim and Mike—who are doing a fantastic job.
I also thank my good friend, Graham Lynk, who is sat in the Public Gallery. He lost his son, Sean, to suicide in December last year. Graham is a brave man. He is a hard man and a gentleman. Like me, he is an ex-coal miner—we have done many a shift down the pit together. He is one of the bravest men I have come across in my life, but the loss of his son has broken him.
Sean Lynk was a brilliant young man. He was 30 years old when he took his life. He was a big, strong, confident, good-looking lad. He was a handsome man; he had his mother’s looks—and his mother’s brains, I think, Graham. He was a lovely young man. When he walked into a room, he lit it up. Everyone wanted to be around him. Everybody liked Sean.
We all loved Sean. I was drinking with him in the Dog House pub just a week before he took his own life. I never saw it coming. He was such a lovely young man; his death shocked the whole community and left many of us asking why. I would sit with him at weekends with his mum and dad, swapping old stories about our mining days. Sean would be sat there laughing and giggling with us. We never knew; he must have been in pain. On the face of it, he was a happy man. He was a good footballer and loved his sports. He loved his family and friends. He always surrounded himself with great, loving people. There were no signs, but something must have been wrong.
Sean’s dad, Graham, believes that Sean was using the dark web and looking at things that he probably should not have looked at. He was tapping into this dark, horrible web, which was giving him dark thoughts. But who knows? The police still have Sean’s phone, so we are yet to get to the bottom of that. I know the internet can be a dangerous place and can target people with the algorithms and do some horrible stuff—it can target vulnerable people. I am glad that the Online Safety Bill is going some way to address that, but we need to go further.
It is humbling to be called to speak in today’s debate. Every step breaks taboos; every mile tells a story; every day hearts are joined in grief and healing as sons and daughters are mourned and celebrated. But the void they have left is beckoning with not only questions but answers. As three dads are traversing our nation, they are tearing down the stigma of suicide that too many are wrestling with. They are creating safe spaces to talk; they are ensuring that Sophie, Emily and Beth are heard. They have brought us to this place, through their petition to seek change.
Andy, Tim and Mike, we are indebted to you. Today, it is their pleas that must be heard, and I sincerely thank them for all they are doing. Having had the privilege of meeting them last week, I know how much this debate means to them. I am sure that the Minister and shadow Minister will not only listen, but advance their calls. Their mission is to reduce the number of young people who take their own lives, by shattering the stigma surrounding suicide and equipping young people and their communities with the skills to recognise and respond to emotional distress. Across our nation, people are struggling with their mental health. Let us be honest, we all do, in different ways and at different times. For some, the night passes quickly, while others spiral into a dark and enduring place, where the echoes of despair resonate louder than any hope.
Papyrus knows better than any charity the scale of the problem, and I sincerely thank them for their work. Our mental health services cannot cope. Child and adolescent mental health services are struggling, and with mental health receiving just 8.6% of the health budget, there is no parity of esteem to speak of. We know that with early intervention only a few would ever need to call on the NHS for care. That is the call that must come out of this debate. Young people talk extensively about mental health, but when the moment gets hard—in the silences—it is the toxicity of TikTok that is sucking them into the algorithms of despair, drawing them to make the wrong choices. From self-harm to suicide, children are accessing content that takes them down some very dangerous paths. As adults, parents, teachers, youth workers and politicians, let us acknowledge that, and take the necessary steps to keep our young people safe.
I thank the hon. Member for giving way, and my hon. Friend the Member for Don Valley (Nick Fletcher) for bringing forward this very important debate. As my hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) was saying, the internet has some dark places. Surely, in schools we must be warning about online harms, and we must also make those platforms take more responsibility. I welcome the Online Harms Bill, but should we not also be addressing the platforms on this?
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The professionals said that ideally this subject should be taught by external providers who are specialists in it and that after each session there should be a follow-up session to talk to any children who are concerned. They also said that both parents and teachers should be trained in how to deal with children who were struggling; in how to better spot any signs that something might be wrong; and in being proactive in starting conversations. We cannot place the responsibility on the shoulders of our young boys and girls to come forward and talk. It is our responsibility—in fact, our duty—to keep our eyes and ears open at all times. Mental health first aid training might be one way of achieving that.
I have concerns about bringing external providers into schools, as I have seen some highly inappropriate content on other subjects within RSHE, and parents are kept in the dark about what is being taught. If we are to use such providers, the content must be shared with parents. If a parent has concerns, their voice should be respected. I am sure the Government will take that on board.
Last week, I was delighted to receive a letter for the 3 Dads and I from the Secretary of State for Education. It said that the Government will include suicide prevention as a key priority area in their forthcoming review of RSHE. I greatly welcome that move; it is a real step forward. I am hopeful of a good debate today where we all have one aim: stopping our children and young people taking their own lives. Their lives are so precious. As a dad, my children are my life and my greatest joy; I cannot think of anything worse than losing them. I ask the Minister to do what we can to stop this. The Government are good, and they can—and do—do good things. Let this be the next good thing they do.
Sadly, this issue is already in the lives of so many young people, as demonstrated by work carried out on online harms. In a recent Samaritans study with over 5,000 participants, over three quarters of them said they first saw self-harm content online before the age of 14. Several studies have suggested an association between suicidal ideation and accessing relevant content online. Better online safeguards are a must, but we must also equip our young people with the skills and knowledge to deal with the unique pressures that they currently face.
It has been my pleasure to work with the local organisation If U Care Share, which has been delivering suicide prevention workshops to school pupils across the north-east for over 10 years. The charity was founded by the family of Daniel O’Hare, who was just 19 when he took his own life in 2005. Its dedicated team, which includes Daniel’s brother Matthew, is primarily made up of young people who have lost a loved one to suicide. The team speak to primary and secondary school children about their own stories, and how the children can be open about their emotions and mental health. Research carried out by the charity found that 19% of young people would go to a friend if they needed help, compared to just 6% who would approach someone at their school.
Suicide prevention training equips pupils with the skills and confidence to help each other as well as themselves. If U Care Share is one of many fantastic voluntary organisations that are working with young people to prevent suicide, but currently those organisations are picking up the pieces left over from the incapacity of statutory services. They often rely on short-term grants to carry out their vital work.
I am delighted to be able to say that If U Care Share has just been awarded funding from the National Lottery to support its suicide bereavement multiple death response programme over four years. Multiple deaths refers to a situation where more deaths occur by suicide than is normally expected at a certain time or place—or both. That can sometimes be as a result of contagion, whereby one person’s suicide influences another to engage in suicidal behaviour. Such suicide clusters are a rare event, but schools can be a setting in which they occur.
We must do more to ensure that suicide prevention work is placed on a stable footing. Currently, all funding supporting local areas’ core prevention plans is set to cease in 2023-24. We need continued ring-fenced funding across three years to support local areas to deliver targeted, non-clinical support services to prevent suicide. That would allow local authorities to commission long-term services from our best organisations, and empower them to support the most at-risk groups.
We must also do more to ensure that children are able to access help when they reach out for it. NHS figures show that children suffering mental health crises spent more than 900,000 hours in A&E last year. Between July 2021 and July 2022, referrals to child and adolescent mental health services increased by 24%. It is still important that we work to prevent suicidal ideation in young people, and promote mental wellbeing. It is also important that we ensure there are systems in place to support them in the most acute crises.
Making suicide prevention an essential part of the curriculum is another step towards ensuring that statutory, long-term support is in place for our young people whenever they may need it. But it must be backed up by the funding to ensure that all school pupils are able to access those life-saving workshops, such as those delivered by If U Care Share, and many other organisations. It must take the form of sensitive and thought-out content, delivered by people with the experience to make it count. Crucially, it must be built in as part of the curriculum, as the petitioners request, so that every student is supported.
Today I want to focus on two recent lost lives, and I do so with permission from their parents. I thank them for having the courage and strength to share their experiences with me and, importantly, their thoughts on what steps are necessary to potentially prevent other parents and loved ones from experiencing the loss of a child. In both cases, they were boys at secondary school.
It was just over a year ago that Ryan’s body was found. He had gone missing from his home in Eccles, a small close-knit village that neighbours my own. I found myself quite affected by Ryan’s disappearance. He had a connection to my son’s football club, and the CCTV footage of Ryan on the night he went missing was from my street. I quietly joined others in looking for Ryan and found myself doing regular walks along the river when it became clear that that was where the police were focusing their efforts.
Ryan’s disappearance and subsequent recovery was absolutely heartbreaking for Eccles and Aylesford. I know his school well. I know of his friends and I know his teachers. I confess that, when his dad emailed me, I did not know what to say. What do you say? What would I want someone to say to me? Ryan was 17, and it turns out that he had made a passing comment at school. Although there is certainly no blame cast, with better awareness could something had been done? Ryan’s dad said:
“Whilst we will never know why Ryan did what he did, and we will also never know if having suicide spoken about openly at school might have saved him, we are keen to see suicide awareness and prevention in schools progress. If it saves just one person now and again it will be worth it”.
Ben Ambrose was 15 when his mum, Cathryn, found him lifeless in his bedroom. There is currently a legal case regarding Ben, so I should be careful what I say, but Cathryn felt and still feels very let down by the institutional failures in education and mental health services. We met and spoke for a very long time about the deep lack of awareness and understanding of mental health issues in some schools, and how their policies and procedures on paper do not necessarily reflect their practices. In my eyes, Cathryn is a phenomenal woman. She is not only fighting for Ben, with support from Irwin Mitchell, but she wants to help stop this happening to others. She is very pro suicide education and awareness, and like me wants there to be more conversations in schools about it. She wants to talk to students about mental health; she wants to be part of the prevention programme.
Cathryn is not alone. Pre covid, I was on the cusp of trialling a few talking sessions in schools with boys about mental health. The idea had come from a question and answer session at a local boys’ school, where mental health was mentioned more than once. It also came from another mum who lost her adult son to suicide, and, coincidentally, from a man who, having experienced his own brush with suicidal thought, was keen to talk to others, particularly young boys, about mental health.
Covid scuppered it all, and the plans have not been revived, in part because it is scary to go and talk about these things without qualifications and proper guidance. I get why schools might be nervous about having conversations, and why Ministers might be nervous about allowing them to be had, but by working with the right people in the right way, we can create a useful tool that would work.
Sadly, as I am discovering, there is no definitive parenting manual out there. There is no guidebook that tells a parent how to react—or, indeed, how not to react —when their child is struggling with mental health, or starts to self-harm or look at harmful websites. The natural reaction might not be the right reaction. That is why I truly believe that we all need better awareness and much more access to support for mental health, whether it is our own, our friends’ or, most worryingly, our children’s.
In our formative years, because of the amount of time children spend in education, teachers become incredibly important figures in our lives. I understand why some have concerns that we are asking our educators to do so much more than teach maths, English, science and so on, but if we are to take a more holistic approach to addressing mental health, they need the right tools and training. If targeted interventions and teaching at the right age can help people identify mental health conditions and suicide thoughts they or others are experiencing, could that help those suffering there and then or later in life?
I will leave the final words to Ryan’s dad:
“The devastating and lasting effect that this has had on everybody is very difficult to compare to other bereavement we have experienced. One minute our happy and brilliant son is with us and in the blink of an eye he has gone.”
I know the Minister understands how difficult it would have been to write those words; they are hard to speak and hard to hear. If there is one thing that the tragedies of Ryan, Ben, Emily, Sophie, Beth and many others have sparked, it is an awareness of suicide and mental health among their peers and teachers, but we need that to remain long after their friends have left school. That is why I support the petition to put suicide prevention on the national curriculum. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.
I thank the charities and support groups that are helping young people who have dark thoughts. In my patch, we have a charity called Enlighten the Shadows, which was set up by a young man called Rory Green, who had some dark thoughts himself. He and his partner lost their baby through a miscarriage. He felt hopeless and worthless—he felt like ending it all. He was in a really bad, dark and horrible place, but he got through it and he set up a support group online through Facebook and social media, and it had a website. He was absolutely astounded by the number of young men contacting him who had dark thoughts and suicidal thoughts. He reached out and got some other people on board, and he talked to men on a regular basis. He tells me that they have probably saved about 100 lives so far just through men talking to men. I know it is a big problem with young ladies and schoolgirls too, but the vast majority of suicides I have come across have been young men. There is no rhyme or reason for it.
Keeping quiet is not an option. People have to talk about this. It is all well and good telling people that they must talk, but they have to have somebody to talk to. At the moment, it can be very difficult for people from poorer families in more deprived areas, because a lot come from broken families so they do not always have great family support and people to talk to. Make no mistake, this is an epidemic, but it is not a means-tested epidemic. It does not matter whether a person is rich or poor, whether they are successful or unsuccessful, whether they come from a council estate or a country estate. It goes for anybody; it can affect anybody in any walk of life. I give a big shout-out for Rory and his group for doing that great work.
Probably everybody in the Chamber has been affected by suicide—my family has—but we do not talk about it. I travelled down with Graham this morning, and we had a long conversation. We MPs do not see inside our friends’ heads, and what goes on in their minds. Graham goes to bed every night and thinks about his son, but he thinks about his son with a rope around his neck—that is what goes through his mind. I cannot get my head around that: for a man to watch a little boy grow up from a baby, be his pride and joy, and then take his life in that way. Graham feels broken, he probably feels guilty, and he feels hopeless. I am here today to tell Graham that he is none of those things. He is not guilty and he is not hopeless. Graham is working with the Enlighten the Shadows suicide charity, and he is going to raise thousands of pounds for it. He is going to cycle 1,000 miles in 10 days, and he is doing some running as well. He has the support of the whole community. Graham wholeheartedly supports the idea of putting suicide prevention on the school curriculum, helping people and getting people to talk to save some lives.
I ask the Minister to please look at the families in the Public Gallery. They are broken people. We need to see less of those families coming to this place. We need to intervene, we need to get this subject on the school curriculum and we need to save lives.
As we have heard, suicide is the biggest killer of under-35s in our country, with over 200 school-age children taken every year.