Mental Health Bill [Lords]

Danny Chambers Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Danny Chambers (Winchester) (LD)]

I begin by thanking colleagues across the House who have worked so constructively on this long-awaited Bill. There has been a shared recognition that the current mental health system is failing too many people and that reform is urgently needed. I thank the Minister for engaging with us so constructively throughout the process, including as recently as yesterday; it is much appreciated.

When I speak to people in Winchester—I know that hon. Members have very similar stories—mental health is one of the issues that comes up the most. We have families waiting months or even years for treatment, we have parents watching their children deteriorate, and we have people languishing on waiting lists when they would rather be working or studying.

The Bill represents the biggest reform of mental health care in over 40 years. It strengthens patient autonomy, modernises detention procedures and rightly removes police stations from the definition of places of safety. These are vital and much needed steps forward and I know that Members on all sides welcome them.

I will speak briefly to several new clauses tabled in my name, each aimed at strengthening the Bill’s impact for some of the most vulnerable people it seeks to protect. New clause 26 would ensure that every hospital has a dedicated liaison service for the carers of patients detained under the Mental Health Act. This is a vital step to support carers during what can be an unimaginably difficult time and to close blind spots that too often exist when someone is caring for a loved one with serious mental illness.

We know that parental mental health concerns are now the most common factor in children’s social care assessments, and that those children are at much higher risk of developing mental ill health themselves. Yet only about a third of mental health professionals in in-patient settings ask whether a patient is a parent. These children and the carers who support them are too often invisible. By identifying and supporting carers properly, new clause 26 would help close those gaps and ensure that no family has to struggle in silence.

[Dr Luke Evans]

We did not discuss this specifically in Committee, but I would be interested to know about the interaction between the independent mental health advocates, which are being expanded and which we all agreed with in Committee, and a new liaison service. I worry about the duplication. Will the hon. Member explain how that crossover would work in practice?

[Dr Chambers]

That is a prescient point. At the moment, there is no responsibility to ensure that children in particular, and other carers too, are identified. Even if they are put in advance choice documents, if the person making those decisions does not identify them, that will not come about. We would have to be careful that there is not unnecessary duplication; however, the initiative the hon. Gentleman puts forward is not a belt-and-braces approach to identifying young carers and other carers who are struggling.

New clause 7 seeks to end the detention of children on adult wards, requiring the number to be reduced to zero within five years—other Members have discussed that today—and the Secretary of State to set out how that will be achieved. It simply cannot be right that children are still being treated on adult wards. It is unacceptable and can seriously hinder recovery and effective care.

Although the Bill rightly focuses on hospital-based treatment, the process has also laid bare how fragile our wider mental health services have become, with the lack of early support in primary and community care and the shortage of initiatives that help people long before they reach crisis point. That is why new clause 14 would place a duty on integrated care boards to ensure that community services have the resources they need to meet the demand and report on that regularly. Keeping people well in their communities must be at the heart of any modern mental health strategy, because if we get the community care right, we prevent crises, reduce pressure on hospitals and help people live healthier, more independent lives.

Finally, new clause 22 would establish a veterans’ mental health oversight officer. That dedicated role would ensure that those who have served our country receive the understanding and tailored care they deserve when they come into contact with mental health services. Too often, veterans experience mental ill health, sometimes linked to their service, and they find themselves in systems that do not fully recognise their unique experiences. The proposal would help change that by providing proper oversight; encouraging joined-up working across the NHS, veterans’ services and the third sector; and ensuring that compassion and accountability sit at the heart of how the Mental Health Act is applied to veterans.

Taken together, the proposals are about making our mental health system even more humane, more joined up, and more focused on prevention and recovery. I hope the Government will take them in the spirit in which they are intended, which is to strengthen this important Bill, which we very much support, and deliver a system that truly supports those who need it most.

[Abtisam Mohamed (Sheffield Central) (Lab)]

I will speak on new clause 35, which sets out the conditions under which community treatment orders can be extended beyond 12 months. Like many across my constituency of Sheffield Central, I know personally how overstretched our mental health services are. My brother lives with complex mental health needs and our family has seen at first hand the impact of a churning workforce, long waiting lists and a lack of community support services, brought about by an unrelenting crisis in funding.

Our system has not been properly expanded or adapted to meet the challenges. Instead, far too many people are detained and restricted, rather than supported to recover. We see this nowhere more acutely than in the overuse of community treatment orders, which were supposed to be a bridge from hospital to home for those who are constantly readmitted to hospital. People have described them as

“a tag that nobody can see, but you know it’s around your mind.”

The evidence shows that they have not met their intended purposes, with three major studies having found no reduction in readmissions or hospital time through their use. Yet despite the previous Government having promised reform, community treatment orders have continued. Reform has been too slow and too narrow in scope.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Chambers]

The Liberal Democrats support the Bill, which makes mental health law much fairer and more compassionate. However, reforming detention law is only half the job, because without investment in prevention and community care, the Bill risks becoming an improved way of managing failure rather than preventing it. Without proper early intervention, people deteriorate until crisis is the only door open to them.

Melbury Lodge in my Winchester constituency shows what a good partnership can look like: NHS teams working with citizens advice to help patients sort out debts, bills and benefits before discharge—recovery is impossible if patients return home to a pile of threatening letters and bills. Yet schemes like that are the exception, not the rule. Debt, insecure housing, domestic abuse and bereavement are not side issues—they are often root causes—and care plans that ignore them are not truly caring.

Before I bring my remarks to a close, I pay tribute to the extraordinary people working at the frontline of mental health care—nurses, doctors, counsellors, therapists, support workers, carers and charities—who hold up a system that too often feels as if it is collapsing around them. Their compassion and professionalism are the reason so many people make it through their darkest moments. They deserve much more than just thanks; they deserve a system that supports them as much as they support others.

In my years of campaigning for better mental health, including as a trustee of a mental charity and, in the past year, as the Liberal Democrat mental health spokesperson, I have become more convinced that mental health cannot be seen as the responsibility of NHS services alone. It must be embedded across society, in education, healthcare, housing, farming and even in the way we support small businesses.

I thank the Minister and his team for all their work on the Bill and their cross-party engagement, as well as everyone who served on the Bill Committee and the Members who have turned up repeatedly to these debates. One thing that does unite the House is improving mental health care.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed, with amendments.