Mental Health Act Reform

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I am very happy to do that. One of the most striking and out-of-date things about the current legislation is that if somebody who is unmarried is incapacitated through illness, decisions on their behalf are automatically, in the first instance, taken by their father, rather than by their choice of who might take those decisions. That is one of the things we want to change, along with the wider point about support for the community and voluntary services that the right hon. Gentleman rightly suggests.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

I wish to add my voice to the tributes paid to Sir Simon Wessely who, as my right hon. Friend will know, drew extensively from the lived experience of those who have been through detention under the Mental Health Act. Will he join me in paying tribute to those individuals, who often had to relive harrowing and distressing experiences so that we might improve our services through this legislation, recognising that their contribution will pay dividends to those who follow their treatment in future?

[Matt Hancock]

I would very much like to pay tribute to those who bravely put forward their testimony of their lived experience of what it was like to be a service user under the existing Act, which formed so much of the evidence for what we need to do to make it better.

I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend. She was the Minister responsible for mental health during much of the framing of the review, and the initial turning of that review into this White Paper. She did that with such sensitivity, thought, and—crucially—by actively listening to what people want when they are at some of the most vulnerable points of their lives. It is not easy to do that; it requires skill and compassion, and my hon. Friend has both of those in spades.