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

Lord Walney Excerpts

Wednesday 25th November 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Walney (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I add my praise to the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, on making an accomplished maiden speech and I welcome him to the House. He notes that he is the first actuary ever to speak in the House of Lords. I guess that it is something of a coincidence that at least two former Ministers in the Department for Work and Pensions will have had a great deal of contact over the years with actuaries: the noble Lords, Lord Blunkett and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath. I served as a special adviser with the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and we had a number of conversations with actuaries over the years. I hope that this does not damn him with faint praise, but the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Davies, was the most engaged and enlivening to be given by an actuary that I have yet had the privilege of listening to. I know that he will enlighten the House in many ways in the years ahead, and I welcome him.

Let me praise the Minister and his colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care for taking this early step to remove these provisions. It is an unusual and commendable act to take swift action on a measure that was due to expire anyway, and it sends a welcome message about the Government’s attitude to mental health issues in that they have clearly heard and understood the grave concerns of many advocacy groups and individuals about the draconian level of these powers. It will help vulnerable individuals at an incredibly difficult time in their lives because of the trauma of lockdown restrictions to know that these provisions are no longer hanging over them. Let me give credit where it is due.

I will echo a number of previous speakers in raising concerns about the overall system. It is a symbol of the way that public services tend to act in that they have a bare level of functionality at the crisis end but remain desperately lacking at the preventive and therapeutic end of mental health provision, which remains a yawning gap. As many speakers have said, including the NHS Confederation, the peak has probably not yet come, and I hope that in the months ahead we will hear far more from the Government and the Minister about what action can be taken on that front.