To regular readers, I start with an apology since this week's post is not necessarily purely northern-focused but an opportunity to highlight an issue that MPs will get to consider next week.

There will be a full debate on the floor of the House of Commons. But it is one which is unlikely to get anywhere near the attention that it deserves.

Imagine for a moment that a quarter of the UK population has suffered from the same type of serious illness at some stage during their life. Then imagine the kind of outcry that there would be in the media and among the public if this was the case. Think of the demands that the Government should do something to sort things out.

Now consider this: we don't need to imagine, because it is a reality. According to the statistics one in four people in the UK will at some stage in their lives suffer from a mental health problem – ranging from stress, anxiety and depression to devastating psychotic conditions.

There is more, much more. According to the Prison Reform Trust, 72% of males and 70% of females sentenced to prison suffer from two or more mental health problems, while on a crude, financial level, the Centre for Mental Health has put the cost of mental ill health in England alone at over £100 billion. And according to the World Health Organisation it is thought that within 20 years more people will be affected by depression than any other health problem.

So why do I detail this? To get across this simple point – mental ill health is not uncommon. Alhough it might not usually be visible, it is a devastating illness. Suffering from it is in no sense abnormal and there should be no shame in having a mental health problem. One description of how it feels comes from Alistair Campbell, Tony Blair's former communications director who wrote in 2010 of his own depression:

At its worst, it is like an invisible dark force that first approaches, then envelops, then appears to fill every waking thought. You can escape via sleep, but you wake and find your eyes won't open, you lack the energy to brush teeth, shave, speak, think anything other than thoughts of emptiness and despair.

When it's bad, my partner Fiona says it is like living with somebody from a different planet. When you get into that mode it's very dangerous and corrosive. People ask, 'What's wrong?' and you don't really know. 'What triggered it?' and you can't answer that either. One thing you do know, there is no way you would wish to have it.

Yet despite how widespread mental ill health is, much remains disturbing about how society as a whole responds to such conditions. In a poll for ITV's Tonight programme recently, 82% of people surveyed agreed with the statement:

I think that people who have depression are often embarrassed about admitting that they have the illness.

In Yorkshire and the Humber the figure was at 85%. Why do people feel that way?

To start with, there are the misunderstandings that many people have about mental health and a lack of information to support those suffering. Research published just before Christmas by the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development showed that only a quarter of respondents to a survey felt that their employer and colleagues encouraged staff to talk openly about mental health problems. Only 37% thought that their employer supported employees with mental health problems well.

There is also the fear that many feel at the prospect of telling others that they have a problem. According to research, a partner is four times more likely to leave someone because they have a mental health difficulty as compared to a physical disability. And 27% of sufferers report facing discrimination, with one telling the mental health charity Mind:

When I was a teenager, I spent time in a child psychiatric unit and when I came out, the kids near where I lived found out. Over the next few years, every time I left the house I would be attacked and have abuse shouted at me. As a result, I started to go out less and less. This led to over a decade of having no social life.

It's pretty difficult reading and listening to such stories: people physically attacked and abused because they have a mental health problem, a problem that is every bit as real as a physical illness.

What then should our policy makers and MPs be doing?

Firstly, we need to tackle the stigma that persists around mental health, to create a more comfortable atmosphere in which those who suffer feel able and willing to admit that they need help without fear of the possible consequences. One practical start would be to better equip employers with the training and information they need to understand mental health problems and how they can best support staff who suffer to enable them to continuing working.

I would not necessarily argue for legislation on this issue just yet, but note how the act banning smoking in public places has served to shift moods, making the practice socially as well as legally unacceptable.

I can envisage the reaction: yet more red tape strangling business. I would ask in return whether, at a time of recession, we can continue allowing mental ill health to cost England alone £100 billion? Coupled with that, Ministers would do well to end all talk of allowing no-fault dismissal as recommended in the Beecroft report. If it is difficult already for those suffering mental health problems to approach their employers. How much harder it would be if those employers had greater powers to dismiss for no reason.

Secondly, there is an urgent need to prioritise spending on mental health services. All over the north, in cities such as in Hull, Bradford, Manchester, Liverpool, North Yorkshire and Sheffield, reports continue to come in of cuts being made to mental health services with access to help becoming more difficult and ever longer. Click on the links to see the scale of it.

Behind the concern is the army of charities which do such a good job in supporting sufferers on behalf of the NHS; groups whose services are now facing an extreme squeeze on their budgets. It is time that Ministers made tackling mental health a priority on a par with improving cancer care and cutting waiting lists.

Tackling mental health problems in these ways does not provide the kind of political benefits that, for example, opening a new hospital does; but if we as a society are to be judged by how we treat our most vulnerable, we have a responsibility to provide the best possible care and support to those facing desperate times. That is a message MPs should remember as they consider the issue next Thursday.

Ed Jacobs is a political consultant at the Leeds-based Public Affairs Company and devolution correspondent for the centre-left political and policy blog, Left Foot Forward.