George Osborne urged by MPs and celebrities to end discrimination against people with mental health problems

The new campaign is being led by Norman Lamb, Alastair Campbell and Andrew Mitchell

George Osborne will be urged to help to end the discrimination against people with mental health problems (Getty)

George Osborne will be urged by MPs of all parties, business chiefs, faith leaders and entertainment and sporting celebrities to help to end the “discrimination” against people with mental health problems.

In an open letter, they call on the Chancellor to use his spending review this month to boost investment in mental health services to put funding on a par with budgets for other health treatments.

The new campaign is being led by Norman Lamb, the Liberal Democrat former health minister; Alastair Campbell, the former Downing Street director of communications; and Andrew Mitchell, the former Tory Cabinet minister. Each has faced mental health problems himself or in his family.

Mr Lamb said: “People with mental health problems have always been seen as second class citizens. It’s an historic injustice which has to end.”

Mr Campbell said: “This is an issue whose time has come. The range of people now giving their active backing to a cause that used to be so taboo nobody would talk about indicates that if we can keep up the momentum, a tipping-point can come.”

The letter has also been signed by David Cameron’s former adviser, Steve Hilton, and by nine former Health Secretaries.

It calls on the government to address the historic inequality between mental and physical health, highlighting lack of access to treatment, lengthy waiting times, inadequate crisis care, use of police cells and the 20 year gap in life expectancy between those with mental health problems and the rest of the population.

The signatories say: “We ask for the same right to timely access to evidence-based treatment as is enjoyed by those with physical health problems. We accept, and urge ministers to accept, that this will require additional investment in mental health services.”

They add: “Ministers have accepted that whatever improvements in attitude may have been made in British society, those who experience mental ill-health still do not get a fair deal from our health services. In effect they suffer discrimination in our publicly-funded NHS. This must be addressed.”

Signatories include Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the former Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, the classicist Mary Beard, the film director Danny Boyle, the singer Annie Lennox, the actress Emma Thompson, the football manager Alan Pardew and the Olympians Sir Steve Redgrave and Dame Kelly Holmes.

Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, said: “We fully welcome this campaign and the attention it brings to an area in which we have invested more money than ever before.

“We have made great strides in the way we think about, and treat, mental health in this country. Whether it is our talking therapies reaching more than three million people, the police working with mental health nurses to aid those in crisis, or school counsellors helping young people with eating disorders, we are making good progress. But we are committed to doing more.”

Mental health campaign letter signatories

Signatories include the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the singer Annie Lennox, the film director Danny Boyle, and the Olympian Dame Kelly Holmes, as well as the former Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson, the classicist Mary Beard, the actress Emma Thompson, the football manager Alan Pardew, and Olympian Sir Steve Redgrave