Taking Fair Deal to the Political Party Conferences

Representatives from the Royal College of Psychiatrists attended the three main national party conferences in July and September and briefed MPs and external stakeholders on the Fair Deal campaign.

The activity was led by Dr Ian Hall, the Chair of the Westminster Parliamentary Liaison Committee (WPLC), and organised by Neil Balmer, the College’s Public Affairs Manager.

We held a series of one-to-one meetings with Parliamentarians, spoke in fringe meeting debates, and attended round-table discussions.

Alongside general briefings on the campaign  and the College’s key priorities, we concentrated on lobbying on a number of key areas.

These included:

Discrimination: Equality Bill.

The College produced a joint briefing with Rethink on the key issues in the forthcoming Equality Bill. In particular, we focused on the issue of age discrimination in mental health services.

Recovery: Welfare Reform Bill

We briefed Parliamentarians on our key priorities for welfare reform and the forthcoming Welfare Reform Bill. Read the briefing document.

Recovery: Debt and mental health

We used the Party Conferences to highlight the work that the College is carrying out on debt and mental health, as part of our Recovery priority in the Fair Deal campaign.

Dr Ian Hall was able to discuss:

• The College’s involvement in the development of the Money Advice Liaison Group ‘best practice' guidelines.
• The work the College in providing the research and evidence for Mind’s 'In the Red' campaign.
• The College’s 'Final Demand' booklet, which was funded by the Finance and Leasing association and developed in a partnership between service users and our researchers. This has been distributed to approximately 25,000 mental health professionals. It provides basic 'first aid' advice on dealing with patient debt.

The meeting was also an opportunity for Dr Hall to raise the College’s ongoing work in reviewing the scientific literature on debt and mental health.

At the Liberal Democrat conference, we jointly sponsored a fringe meeting with the Finance and Leasing Association and Money Advice Trust on ‘Mental Health and Debt’. See background briefing.

Dr Ian Hall spoke at the meeting alongside Vince Cable MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor (pictured, above) and Sandra Gidley MP (pictured, left). The event was well attended by key mental health and financial services stakeholders and interested Conference delegates.

In addition to this meeting, Dr Hall also took part in a Mind round table discussion on debt and mental health at each of the party conferences, speaking alongside Mark Hoban MP (Con), Doug Naysmith MP (Lab), and Jeremy Browne MP (Lib Dem).