Thank you, Deputy Presiding Officer. So, thank you for the opportunity to hold a debate on this petition today. This petition was submitted by Laura Williams, having collected 5,159 signatures. It calls for increased funding for mental health services and improvements to crisis care, and follows a previous petition that Laura submitted to our committee, which also sought to improve access to mental health support. The Petitions Committee published a report on that previous petition in 2019. In it, we made a number of recommendations to the Welsh Government, particularly aimed at improving referral pathways and timely access to crisis support.

In submitting the petition before us today, Laura has expressed her view that not enough genuine progress has been made in improving access to mental health services since that time. She is especially concerned about the impact that the pandemic and lockdowns have had on people’s mental health and well-being and the ability of services to respond to people's needs in a timely manner.

Now, these concerns are not a new issue for this Senedd and, as we heard during a debate last week, the Health, Social Care and Sport Committee has recently published its own report into the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on mental health and well-being. So, I believe that Laura, and the thousands of people who supported her petition, would endorse the recommendations that the health committee has made in light of the detailed evidence that they have taken during their inquiries.

However, during the remainder of my contribution this afternoon, I will focus on several specific issues that the petition asks us to consider. Before I do so, I want to briefly note that the Petitions Committee has not yet received a response to this petition from the Government, though we did request one in late November. Nor is this the first time that this has been the case in relation to a petition about mental health services. You can imagine how disappointed we as a committee feel. No doubt, the petitioners will feel the same.

The committee recognises, of course, the challenges that have faced the Welsh Government over the last year, and the need for resources to be prioritised. However, I do think that it is important that I note the challenge to us in properly scrutinising the Government and providing an adequate response to members of the public who do submit petitions if responses are not forthcoming in a reasonable time period.

Moving on to the specific requests made by this petition, Laura has highlighted her concern about the impact that COVID-19 has had on people’s mental health, particularly through the impact of lockdowns and social isolation. She remains concerned about the availability of appropriate services to people who need them, especially the extent to which these are provided in a timely way to people at times of crisis.

A recent experience that Laura relayed through her comments to the Petitions Committee raised concerns regarding a lack of available services, referral or follow-up when mental health concerns were raised during a visit to an accident and emergency department. The petition also refers to waiting times for treatment and therapy, and what Laura sees as a need to improve the capacity of services to respond to the demand that exists within our communities.

As we all know, these are long-standing concerns about the capacity constraints that there are within mental health services here in Wales, but they have perhaps been bought into even sharper focus by the circumstances of the past 12 months. Services that were oversubscribed in many cases previously have seen the numbers of patients increasing, just as their ability to provide services, particularly face-to-face, has become more restricted than ever.

Mind Cymru has noted its own concerns about access to mental health support, stating that last summer nearly a quarter of people had reported being unable to access the support they need. And last week, when introducing the health committee's debate on this subject, our colleague Dai Lloyd MS noted that more than half of adults and three quarters of young people feel that their mental health has worsened during this lockdown period.

I believe that this is an issue that we must all be seeking to address as a priority. As Wales, we hope we can continue to emerge from this pandemic, but we must do all that we can to avoid a further mental health pandemic in future.

To conclude, Deputy Presiding Officer, mental health has been the subject of a great deal of work and discussion throughout this Senedd. It has certainly been a regular theme of petitions referred to our committee over that time. That highlights both the fact that many of the members of the public consider that more could and should be done, as well as the importance of getting services right, a point I think we can all agree is particularly important right now. Thank you very much. Diolch.