Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:36 pm on 4 November 2020.
Diolch, Russell. Just to make it clear that any funding that we're announcing now is on top of the annual amount of £700 million that we spend. We must not lose sight of that. We spend more money on mental health than on any other aspect in the NHS, and so this funding is additional to what was already in place. And the funding I've announced today is on top of the funding that we've announced previously during this pandemic. You'll be aware that we already have suggested that we're going to spend more money on tier 0 and tier 1 support, because those are the low-level interventions that save you the money later on. And so that's what this additional funding that we've put in place today—that's some of it. In fact, most of it will be spent on that low-level intervention. You're quite right: that will be available to organisations in Powys and elsewhere. You'll be aware that the person leading on this is the chief executive of the health board in Powys, with whom I had a meeting last week, because she is the lead on mental health for the whole of Wales, and you can be assured that the concerns of rural communities are very much at the forefront of her concerns.