Coronavirus Act 2020 (Expiry of Mental Health Provisions) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I warmly welcome the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton. I know that he is well respected by trade unionists outside this place and he will bring to us a refreshing brand of politics. We will not always agree, but I like someone who gives us a feisty challenge. He cannot possibly have got lost here as often as I have done as a new girl in the past few weeks, so if I find the noble Lord, I will try to put him on the right track, although that will probably get him even more lost.

For once, I want to congratulate the Government on rolling back a piece of legislation. Indeed, I hope that we will see a lot more of this because it seems that so much of the Coronavirus Act 2020 is draconian, disproportionate and frighteningly illiberal. Even the assurance that it is temporary or for an emergency is of little consolation. I would personally expire the whole Act, but perhaps the Minister could start by looking again, as has already mentioned, at the provisions in Schedule 12 that also severely weaken the statutory protection for the vulnerable.

The need to protect the vulnerable against an overweening and arbitrary state power is exactly why Schedule 8 was always such an egregious and frightening position. For good reason, sectioning people is made difficult. The power to deprive individuals of their liberty under the aegis of mental health and for their own good has a sinister history: think of the lunatic asylums of the past, the Soviet use of psychiatric hospitals, and so on. We are right not to section people lightly, but perhaps the Minister could reflect on a number of unresolved ironies.

Lockdowns themselves are an example of the state depriving the whole citizenry of their liberty under the veil of public health. Locked up and locked down is a thin line in my view. Can the Minister assure us that when the lockdown ends on 2 December, it will not happen again? One worry about Schedule 8 has been the extension of the length of time that the mentally ill can be incarcerated on the say of one doctor. My worry is the endless and never-ending extension of the length of time that society is incarcerated on the say of one—dare I say?—Matt Hancock.

Will the Minister comment on the devastating impact that we have heard about so eloquently from fellow noble Lords that lockdown measures have caused a lot of damage to mental health in the community. Many, both young and old, are consumed with anxiety, deprived of their autonomy, subject to a form of solitary confinement and feel lonely and isolated. There is also fear not only of the virus but about the cataclysmic effect of lockdown on jobs and livelihoods.

Sufferers of dementia in care homes are locked away from families and stimulation, leading to a deterioration in their mental capacity, and in some instances, tragically, to premature death. In other words, lockdown and its ugly sister, tiering, are bad for the mental health of the well, let alone the mentally ill.

I have a final question. I note with horror that the Welsh Government are not expiring Schedule 8. Will the Minister do what he can to cajole or persuade his counterparts in the Senedd as soon as possible? I declare an interest as I am from north Wales, but I find it rather shameful that the mentally ill in Wales seem to need safeguarding from their own Parliament.