We welcome the Government’s commitment to provide more funding for mental health and to ensure local mental health spending increases by the same proportion as overall increases in local health funding. Despite this, we are concerned by the possibility that the system used by NHS England to allocate funding fundamentally disadvantages rural areas. The Government’s settled view is that the system is fair and balances a range of complex criteria. We consider more work to be needed to ensure that appropriate resources fully respond to rural communities’ mental health needs and reflect the additional costs that rural areas must carry as, if this is not the case, rural communities will remain disadvantaged. We are pleased the Government is working to address shortcomings in how rural deprivation is measured. However, we ask the Department to provide us with a detailed statement of the process and the formula, in reply to this report, upon which to seek assurances from an independent source such as the National Audit Office.