Speeches by Craft.

“I will come to that point a little later, but that confinement is detrimental to their mental health. It can sometimes be hard to pick apart a co-existing or co-occurring mental health condition from the behaviour exhibited within that environment. This is part of the reason that it is all but impossible for some detai…”

“It is a case of having something that is more bespoke, recognising that, in black women’s experience postnatally, especially in the field of mental health, there are a number of different things interplaying. Would you say something along those lines around people having that awareness and acknowledgement that there wi…”

“Thank you so much. I could talk about this all day, but I am going to hand back to the Chair.”

“Marian, looking at the data, are there any gaps in understanding the drivers for black maternal mental health either being picked up too late or not being treated appropriately? Are there any gaps in the data as to how that drives postnatal mortality?”

“Shanthi, you might be able to speak to this a bit. What kind of incentives could be built into the system to encourage both clinical staff and maybe community‑based approaches to recognise the unique challenges that black women face with their postnatal mental health?”

“Is there a training issue with NHS clinical staff when it comes to mental health support, or is there more of a solution in finding those community‑based interventions, because that trust is so far removed that trying to just train people to recognise differently presenting mental health conditions or late-presenting m…”

“I am quite interested, following along a lot of the discussions, that one of the key issues that black women face is this sense of almost a reluctance to access NHS services, because you feel it is not a safe place to be and it is not the place where you will get the treatment that you need. I wonder whether, in the fi…”

“That is really interesting. I noticed that black women are much more likely to be admitted to inpatient treatment for postnatal maternal care, but also much less likely to access and receive initial mental health treatment. Do you think there is a systematic thing happening where black women are unable to receive the r…”

“I did.”

“On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. In last Wednesday’s Adjournment debate on Essex devolution, the hon. Member for South Basildon and East Thurrock (James McMurdock) stated that it was his understanding that “there have been conversations between local councils about Thurrock joining London.”—[Official Report, …”

“So Sure Start did not do proportionate universalism, because it exclusively targeted people in deprived areas—is that a kind of crude reading of the it?”

“Very briefly, at the local authority level, with constrained finances, it is perhaps difficult to make the case for proportionate universalism rather than targeting those most in need. Is that proving a difficulty?”

“Do you think that the principle of proportionate universalism is generally accepted, or do we still need to make a political case for it?”

“That was a rather good example of proportionate universalism in healthcare, but one thing that struck me is that that still relates to the principle of acute care rather than prevention. When we are looking at early years, we are looking at prevention. There is a very obvious way that you do proportionate universalism …”

“Specifically in early years, if we look at where local authorities have the ability to make decisions on where they target funding, are there examples where they have used the principle of proportionate universalism, even given their funding constraints, to drive improvements on a local basis?”

“So there is currently no specific evidence to speak to proportionate universalism working in early years?”

“You say there is no real way to have a randomised trial, but there is a potential argument that the covid-19 pandemic provided something of a randomised trial in terms of early intervention and the broader early years space, since those face-to-face interventions were not necessarily popular. Do you think that maybe ha…”

“Coventry was the first Marmot city, and it has had broad success in reducing relative deprivation, but not so much in improving early years outcomes. What do you think is the reason for that disparity?”

“If we take it that there has been a drop-off in early years interventions, potentially following the pandemic or maybe even a longer period before, what kind of road to recovery is there? How do you build a service? You spoke briefly about mission-led government. Is there something about pulling together not just one G…”

“2. What steps she is taking with Cabinet colleagues to help tackle violence against women and girls.”