Part of 1. Questions to the Cabinet Secretary for Finance – in the Senedd at 2:10 pm on 14 November 2018.
I thank Helen Mary for that important question. I think it's been a shared ambition right across this Chamber during the devolution period that we do more in Wales to recognise mental health needs and then to try and supply services to meet them. One of the reasons why prevalence figures are changing, you might hope, is because the stigma previously associated with mental health is reducing, and people are more willing to come forward and make their needs known. We spend £675 million in the current financial year on mental health services. It's the single largest item in the budget controlled by my colleague Vaughan Gething. We will provide £20 million more for mental health this year and £20 million on top of that again next year, as part of the budget agreement between your party and my party. And as patterns of need change, so I would always be willing to work with the Cabinet Secretary responsible to make sure that we find the money necessary to align with the pattern of need, in physical and mental health, in the Welsh community.