Mental Health Services

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Ramsbotham

Tuesday 19th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell]

I pay tribute to exactly the sort of charity that my noble friend’s daughter works in. They provide invaluable and often unseen benefits to society. We have already made available considerable financial support for similar such charities. If my noble friend would like to write to me with the details of the one he described, I would be glad to consider it. Undoubtedly, these charities will play an important role in dealing with mental health issues of the kind he describes during the mop-up after Covid.

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Senior Deputy Speaker]

I return to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, does what the Minister has said apply to prisons and probation?

[Lord Bethell]

I pay tribute to the Prison Service, which in extremely difficult circumstances has managed to provide pastoral care and clinical segregation in our prisons in a way that has completely outperformed expectations. The effect in prisons has been profound and the mental health of prisoners is concerning. The degree of lockdown in prison cells is an awful aspect of this disease, and undoubtedly we will have to work very hard to manage and deal with the mental pressures on prisoners, which are extremely unfortunate.

Offensive Weapons Bill

Debate between Lord Bethell and Lord Ramsbotham

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, I will also speak to Amendment 39. I thank noble Lords for returning and doing me the courtesy of hearing this out. I really appreciate it and I will be very quick. The noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, put it very well—I wish she were still in her place—but I also feel very passionate about the victims of acid attacks and corrosive substance crime. I am a trustee of the Scar Free Foundation and I have met a lot of the victims, and I have been blown away by how these crimes have seemingly come out of nowhere and become a very big deal: there were nearly 1,000 attacks last year. I am very much aware of how innovative criminals have quickly become, to get around the law and invent new crimes. I am aware that our responses have got to be very quick as well. I applaud the speed with which the Home Office has reacted to this crime wave. I will not go through the list, but it is an impressive list and I completely endorse the approach.

We owe it to ourselves to recognise that this is an experimental approach: international data suggests that legislation on acid attacks is very difficult. It does not always work, so we should keep track of how this legislation proceeds and whether it is worth analysing its effectiveness and what is happening with the arrests that come out of it. That is why I suggested these two amendments: so that in two or three years’ time, we are not left worrying whether we have been on the right track and so that we have the right data to be able to fine-tune and make any changes to our approach.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, in this, because so many things that were alleged about the inefficiency of various measures are unproven. For example, short sentences are said to be no deterrent. We do not know for certain, and therefore I support entirely a continuous review. We must have more data to be able to be more precise in the measures that we take.

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Bethell for setting out the rationale for these amendments. I understand his intention, but I hope to persuade him that there will be adequate reporting of the use of the new powers in the Bill relating to corrosive substances without the need for statutory provisions such as this. Once the offences in this Bill are brought into force, the collection of data regarding corrosives offences will be much more accessible for police forces and will allow for a much clearer picture to be presented on the extent of corrosive attacks and the corresponding law enforcement response.

My noble friend may be aware that we are already working with the police to improve how offences involving corrosives can be better captured in police data to help understand the scale of attacks. We have submitted a joint application, with the National Police Chiefs’ Council, to the police data requirements group to establish a new data collection requirement with respect to corrosive attacks as part of the annual data requirement on all forces in England and Wales. Subject to agreement, these would allow for regular publication as part of the Office for National Statistics quarterly crime statistics.

In relation to Amendment 38, I simply point out to my noble friend that all government legislation such as this is subject to post-legislative review five years after Royal Assent. In the intervening period, there are the usual arrangements for scrutinising government policies and the operating of new powers such as contained in this Bill. For example, it will be open to my noble friend to table periodic Written Questions or initiate a debate.

Given these established methods, I am not persuaded that we need a bespoke duty to report annually on aspects of this Bill. I fully accept that this is a serious issue, but I hope I have provided my noble friend with sufficient reassurance on the action that we are taking to address it and that, accordingly, he will be content to withdraw his amendment.