Bury’s Lib Dem Councillor Tim Pickstone discusses how to tackle the North West’s increasing suicide rates:

 

In Britain last year 4,700 people committed suicide. Three quarters of them were men, and suicide is the largest cause of death for young people and young men in particular.

The North West has the second highest numbers of suicide rates in Britain. Last year 567 men and 146 women took their own lives in the North West.

Yesterday the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, made an important announcement as part of a major commitment to ensuring mental health services get the same commitment as other health concerns:

Nick Clegg said: “Suicide is, and always has been, a massive taboo in our society. People are genuinely scared to talk about it, never mind intervene when they believe a loved one is at risk.

“This isn’t about blame. It is about doing more in every area of our society to ensure that people don’t get to that point where they believe taking their own life is their only option.”

In some areas of the the USA, health services have managed to get to a situation where there are zero suicides for people receiving healthcare support. Some areas of the UK already have plans in place to achieve this by 2017 (Liverpool, South West, East of England).

We believe this is something that should be tackled in our area, and Lib Dem Leaders across Greater Manchester are writing to the NHS in Greater Manchester asking for this issue to be raised.

You can join our campaign to stamp out stigma in mental health by signing up here.

 

It was reported yesterday that the Tories plan to strip people of their human rights and allow British judges to ignore rulings by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), an essential court used for ensuring that the human rights of all people are being upheld.

Under their plans for a new bill which would replace the Human Rights Act, the Conservatives want to pick and choose who is entitled to human rights.

The Human Rights Act is essential in protecting the rights of the vulnerable and powerless. The Liberal Democrats in Government have refused to support the Conservatives’ plans to scrap the Human Rights Act and their latest plans underline how much they cannot be trusted to protect the human rights of individuals.

Their draft Bill of Rights would mean that illegal immigrants and criminals would be restricted to raising their right to family life in deportation cases.

Under the Conservatives’ plans, suspects and criminals would not be able to use their human right to family life to fight against deportation unless it was deemed an “exceptional” circumstance. In addition, the bill would also ensure that trade union membership in the police could be banned and that rulings allowing prisoners the right to vote could be overturned.

Liberal Democrats believe strongly in individual freedoms and protecting human rights, hence why the party has launched a campaign to say no to he Conservative’s plans to eradicate the human rights act.