Sajid Javid
(Picture: PA Wire)The Government must do more to help prevent suicide, the former Health Secretary said on Monday, as he spoke about his brother’s death.
Sajid Javid said his family "didn't see" Tariq, 51, struggling to cope before he took his own life in a hotel near Horsham, West Sussex, in July 2018.
He added that he often wonders if there was "anything I could have done to save his life".
Speaking on World Mental Health Day, Mr Javid told BBC's Today Programme: "As a country, we've made great progress in terms of the stigma of talking around your mental health, but there's a lot more that we still need to do, especially around this specific area of suicide prevention.
"It was four years ago [my brother] took his own life. None of us in the family saw it coming at all.
“One day he was there. The next day he was gone...Certainly on his birthday and other special family moments, I recall with my brothers whether there is anything, certainly I could have done, to save his life."
Mr Javid said what his family has experienced is "far from unique" as the UK's suicide rate "has remained stubbornly high".
He added that "more needs to be done" as he criticised the Government for "taking too long" to tackle online safety, pointing to the "huge gap" in online regulation of content which incites suicide.
"It is an offence under the current suicide act to encourage or incite someone to kill themselves," he said.
"But there's a huge gap when it comes to covering digital communication.
"We were all reminded of that just last week with the coroner's report into the tragic death of Molly Russell - you had Ian Russell on your programme, who talked about it so powerfully - and so that needs to happen, but the Government's taking too long.
"When I was Home Secretary, alongside Jeremy Wright the culture secretary, we introduced the white paper on online harm, and here we are, four years later, nothing has happened.”
