Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dems to announce mental health policy ‘red line’

The Lib Dems haven’t really announced many enormous policies so far at their party conference. Yesterday’s speech from Vince Cable was more notable for its loyalty than it was for its focus on ‘bolstering’ apprenticeship pay and ‘clarifying’ and ‘enhancing’ workers’ rights. But unless they’re planning to go for the 2013 Tory strategy of not announcing something in their leader’s speech and then cobbling together an announcement from one throwaway line when they realise the newspapers might not write anything up at all, the Lib Dems do still plan to use Clegg’s speech to announce something important.

Based on what Norman Lamb had to say yesterday at fringe meetings, it looks as though at least one of the policies the party announces will be on mental health. He told a ministerial Q&A session that his party will make mental health policy a ‘red line’ in future coalition negotiations, which is an interesting development for a policy area that is often neglected and treated as the poor relation of physical health.

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