3. Business Statement and Announcement

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:10 pm on 4 December 2018.

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Photo of Julie James Julie James Labour 5:10, 4 December 2018

Jack Sargeant, as usual, makes a series of very good points. It does take a whole community to ensure that people feel supported enough within it, and we all know that having somebody to listen to us, whether they're a trained counsellor or not, can be very, very helpful in terms of our just general feeling of well-being and, obviously, mental health. 

We have reconfimed our commitment to providing mental health, generally, by positioning it as one of the six priority areas in the national strategy, 'Prosperity for All', and we take every opportunity to raise awareness of mental health issues, even when they might seem at first to be tangenital. So, Members will have heard me, for example, talking about the This Is Me campaign, which is anti gender stereotyping. Unfortunately, sometimes, it's thought to be aimed at women but, actually, of course, it's aimed across the piece, because we know that men suffer very badly from having gender stereotyping, feeling that they have to live out the role of breadwinner or family support, or whatever, and they can find it very difficult when that isn't working well for them. So, I absolutely agree with Jack Sargeant that we need to have a holistic and whole-society approach to this, and it's something, Deputy Presiding Officer, that we all need to take account of in our everyday interactions with another, to make sure that we also listen to what other people are saying to us.