Diolch yn fawr iawn, Llywydd. I'm very pleased to open this Welsh Conservative debate today on the topic of mental health tabled in the name of Darren Millar. This Sunday, 10 October, is World Mental Health Day. We should take this opportunity to reflect on our own mental health, and that of our friends, and of our family, and what we as Senedd Members can do to promote positive mental health across Wales. It's also a day where we all need to reflect and take time to check up on someone. It's a day when we should drop an old friend a text, have a Zoom conversation with a colleague or meet up for a coffee with a family member. You may never know the difference a small act can make on someone struggling with their mental health. 

COVID-19 hasn't been kind to our mental health. And, regrettably, we've seen a sharp rise in the number of children and adults that are suffering. It would be wrong of me not to start by mentioning the work of a great number of mental health charities across Wales, and the UK, that do great work in all of our communities. Mental Health Matters provide crucial services, such as well-being hubs and anxiety and depression peer support groups, whilst the Samaritans operate a helpline service that is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Manned by volunteers, they are often the unsung heroes who have no doubt saved countless lives and are there for us in our hour of need, and we need to be here for them in theirs. 

In Wales, COVID-19 has exposed existing mental health inequalities under the Welsh Labour Government, with many services stretched to the limit, backlogs rising and fewer people accessing the support they so desperately need. Mind Cymru in their 'Too long to wait' report outlined that even before the pandemic, thousands of people were waiting longer than ever to receive psychological therapy. They found that the target of 80 per cent of people being seen within 26 weeks was not met in any of the 17 months to August 2020. But there's no question that COVID-19 has made the problem worse, because Mind also found that when comparing August 2020 to the same period in 2019, whilst the number of people waiting to start psychological therapies fell from 7,198 to 5,208, the number of people waiting longer than 26 weeks rose by 4 per cent, and those waiting longer than a year rose by 17 per cent. And even that decline in the number of individuals on the waiting list may not be the good news that it sounds. It probably means fewer people coming forward, in the first place, to get the help they need, because of the pandemic.

And, we all, sadly, know the effect that lockdowns have had on our mental health, particularly younger people. During the first lockdown in 2020, more than half of Welsh adults and three quarters of young people said their mental health had generally worsened during the early months of the pandemic. And, although anxiety about the pandemic has generally fallen among UK adults, from 42 per cent, in February 2021, loneliness had risen, from 10 per cent in March 2020 to 26 per cent a year later. And perhaps most markedly, there were more than 10 deaths for every 100,000 of the population in 2020 caused by suicide, and that rate is often three to four times higher amongst males than it is females. 

The next 10-year mental health strategy needs to reflect the significant changes we have seen in a post-COVID Wales. I'm sure we all agree that we're in a very different position today to where we were two years ago, and a new strategy needs to reflect that. So, it's in this light that today's Government amendments really are disappointing. Today, we have a real opportunity to put forward a long-term strategy, to ensure a proper review of mental health services—are fit both for today and the future. So, to see them watered down by the Government amendments are a real, real missed opportunity. What we need are targets, and we need outcomes, and for this Senedd to be able to hold the Welsh Government to account on them. And I'm afraid these Government amendments do not achieve either of those objectives. 

Our motion is constructive. We don't table it today to level criticism at the Government or anybody else. Whilst there were clear problems in mental health services across Wales before the pandemic, we all recognise the last year and a half has put an incredible strain on our mental health services. The solutions to tackle it need to be updated to reflect that, and that's why I call on every Member of this Senedd to back our motion today.