Dean Russell, MP for Watford, visited our Branch in October. On 17 November, International Mens Day, he mentioned his visit in a debate in Parliament. This is what he said:
'I will start to conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker—I am conscious that there will not be many more speeches, but I will not speak for the full hour that we have left, although you know that I probably could. I want to mention a couple of important points about suicide, which has been discussed. Men are invariably more likely to take their lives than women. That is a saddening statistic, and it is the same around the world. In the UK, we have to try to stop this. It is not just about speaking to people, but about making sure that the network exists. Also, for those who have gone through that process and have, sadly, got to the point of perhaps trying to take their lives, it is about making sure that they have long-term support. I ask the Minister to make sure that we have the mental health support for young people and everyone alike, so that people have long-term support to get through the challenging times. I visited the Samaritans in Watford recently and found that they do incredible work in ensuring that they are at the end of the telephone line for somebody—and, of course, there is anonymity to ensure that they are supported.
I am particularly proud of the fact that this is one of Hertfordshire County Council's top priorities. It wants to create a county that is suicide-free, and I want to create a country that is suicide-free, but we can only do that by talking about it. We can only do it if each one of us, in each of our constituencies, says that we need to make this a top priority. We need to save lives, we need to change lives, and we need to make sure that the next generation knows this is important.'