CLACTON’S MP has hit back at claims Government spending cuts are to blame for a rise in suicides.

Labour has highlighted a report claiming the number of people trying to kill or hurt themselves is increasing.

National NHS figures reveal the yearly number of hospital admissions for self-harm has risen by almost 10,000 over the past three years to more than 104,000.

However, Tory MP Douglas Carswell said Labour had been in power for most of that period.

Leading mental health charity Rethink said the current economic climate was likely to push the figure even higher.

Chief executive Paul Jenkins said: “This alarming increase is likely to be due, in part, to increased financial insecurity and other worries associated with the economic crisis.

“Many people are reporting heightened levels of distress in response to cuts to welfare benefits, for example.

“Self-harm is most common in young people, who may also be suffering disproportionately from the effects of the economic downturn.”

Clacton Labour Parliamentary spokesman Keith Henderson seized on the comments, claiming the Government’s cuts were hitting the most vulnerable.

He said: “The social consequences of the economic crisis, which will only be made much worse by the savage cuts being driven through by David Cameron and George Osborne, are beginning to reveal themselves in all their horror. There has been a dramatic rise in the number of people hospitalised after harming themselves.”

Mr Henderson said students faced crippling debts after “outrageous” increases in tuition fees.

He added: “This crisis affecting our young people is deeply alarming. The despair of this generation, revealing itself in this sad increase in self-harm, alongside an increase in suicide, is a damning indictment of the coalition’s economic strategy.”

Mr Carswell accused Mr Henderson of playing politics.

He said: “Mental health is something that affects the lives of many local people. “As their local MP, I have got to know many of those affected by mental health problems.

“Having helped spearhead the fight to save Peter Bruff Ward at Clacton Hospital, I know how important it is that those with mental health problems get the help they need.

“I find it distasteful that a party spokesman appears to be suggesting the increase in mental health cases is due to efforts to fix the financial mess left by the last government.

“It is precisely this kind of partisan attack that puts so many people off politics.”