Mental Health Bill [HL]

Baroness Browning Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

Indeed the noble Baroness did try, and I have therefore taken its intention at face value.

The Bill removes the requirement for an automatic referral following the revocation of a CTO. This was a recommendation of the independent review which found that, in practice, the automatic referral was an ineffective safeguard, as often the patient is back in the community or back in hospital as a Section 3 patient before the tribunal has had the opportunity to review their case. Therefore, the current process creates a burden on tribunals but does not protect the patient. The Bill improves other safeguards for patients on a CTO, including increased access to tribunals. For these reasons, I hope that the noble Baroness feels able to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Browning (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to everybody who has contributed on this group of amendments. Everybody has bought something different to the table. There have been some good things. I think we are all grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, who led us at Second Reading to have a better understanding of how CTOs can help with eating disorders. I just think back to 2006 and the pre-legislative scrutiny committee of the previous amendment of the 1983 Act. I think there are three of us in the Chamber tonight who were part of that pre-legislative scrutiny. I think that the noble Baronesses, Lady Murphy and Lady Barker, and I were members and I recall the debate on community treatment orders at that time, 20 years ago, when we had quite a lot of strong reservations about how they would work in practice.

Despite some of the good things we heard tonight on this group, I still sense that reservation. I think that if what we had before us was 20 years of lived experience—practical examples of where CTOs have been good, where they have been bad, where they needed to be amended and where they have been amended—we would feel a lot more confident. Too many parts of this jigsaw still seem to be missing to make what I feel is a substantial change to the 1983 Act 20 years later and know that we have got it right. I always think that when we are in doubt about legislation, there is that old, hackneyed thing: “Suppose this was something in a court. What would they say about this? What was Parliament’s intention at the time?” Can I actually define Parliament’s intention at the time? I am not sure that I can define it in as much detail as I would like, in order to feel we are doing the right thing as far as this legislation is concerned.

I thank the Minister. She has, as always, been as helpful and courteous as she can be with this very difficult issue, but I do not quite feel that we have got there yet. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 43 withdrawn.