The blogs that have been written about the government since Andy Burnham took over have been largely positive. And, in truth, why wouldn't they?

In just over a month, the new Prime Minister committed to ending homelessness in his first speech, the government announced more than £340 million of investment in new community mental health hubs, and the Prime Minister publicly set out his ambition to remove all rough sleepers by Christmas, even committing 15% of his Prime Ministerial salary to help.

With all of that, anything other than encouragement would frankly be nitpicking.

One criticism that has regularly been levelled at the Prime Minister, however, is that he is more comfortable with rhetoric than detailed policy. There doesn't seem to be a clear line of attack from his opponents - remember that next time you see someone criticising the way he dresses - but it is fair to hope that some supporting detail will eventually follow the big plans he and his government have announced.

That played out again in Parliament last week, in a Westminster Hall debate brought forward by fellow Labour MP Liz Twist on World Suicide Prevention Day.

Ms Twist spent much of the debate highlighting some of the bleak figures that have been referenced in previous blogs and praising the work of charities across the UK tackling the crisis.

She said: “I turn to the global statistics. The World Health Organisation calls suicide a ‘major public health challenge’ and estimates that it claims the lives of more than 720,000 people every year.

“In the UK, the latest Office for National Statistics figures show that in 2024 there were 7,147 deaths registered where the cause was recorded as suicide. We know from the data that men account for three in four of those deaths, and that suicide is the biggest single cause of death for men under the age of 50.”

The Labour MP also referenced Samaritans research which calculated the approximate cost of a single suicide at more than £1.4 million, as well as the fact that men account for just 36% of referrals to NHS talking therapies. She stressed that this “mismatch” indicates that statutory services “cannot carry the weight of suicide prevention alone”.

The figures are awful, but the discussion is important. The problem is that Westminster Hall debates rarely make the news. They often conclude without clear commitments that can be scrutinised further down the line.

They can, however, provide an important opportunity for Ministers to set out what the government intends to do.

Ms Twist used her closing remarks to make a series of clear challenges to the government. She questioned how it intends to revise its suicide prevention strategy and asked what more can be done to achieve genuine “parity” between mental and physical health.

She also asked a practical question about the government's recently announced mental health hubs and emergency centres: where is the revenue funding to provide the staff and resources needed to make those facilities work?

This goes back to the original point.

The announcement received widespread support because it aims to address a crisis showing no signs of slowing down. But it also lacks clarity and detail.

The Minister for Social Care, Alison McGovern, responded by praising Ms Twist's leadership and reaffirming the government's commitment to suicide prevention. She said she had taken note of the contributions made by MPs and would feed them into the teams working on the forthcoming mental health strategy.

But, beyond those assurances, there was little in the way of new information or concrete commitments.

The £343 million capital investment had already been announced. The commitment to a cross-government mental health strategy was already known. So too were the stated intentions to intervene earlier, work across public services and address the wider factors associated with suicide.

None of that is unimportant. But repeating existing policy is not the same as demonstrating that policy is working.

In fairness, this point was also made earlier in the debate by Ms Twist when she said that the national suicide prevention strategy is now more than halfway through its five-year lifespan, yet the numbers have not shifted in any significant way. 

This should have been a moment for the government to explain what happens next.

Will the suicide prevention strategy be revised? What additional action will be taken to address the exceptionally high suicide rate among men? When will the revenue funding for the new mental health facilities be confirmed? How will the government ensure that mental health receives the same urgency and priority as physical health?

None of these questions received clear answers.

Instead, she said that contributions from the debate would be passed to the teams working on the forthcoming mental health strategy and invited colleagues to continue engaging with her department.

The government says it wants to change the narrative around suicide. That requires more than encouraging people to talk, although that is extremely important as well.  It requires properly funded services, measurable commitments and a willingness to change course when existing policies are not delivering.

Perhaps more time should be given to a government before we can expect wholesale change and commitments in Westminster Hall debates. I don’t think that many people would find that to be an unreasonable stance. I do however think that the leash afforded to the government will start to run out if we see more Tik Toks than policies, more speeches than commitments and more words than actions. 

The government has already done a lot of good in a short space of time - the PM even participated in the Great North Run to raise money for homelessness charities last week - but it also needs to provide more information on its plan to address this and many of the other crises facing the country.