Mental Health Act Reform

Jeremy Hunt Excerpts

Wednesday 13th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

I welcome the comments of the SNP spokesman, and I appreciate her support and thoughtful questions. She is quite right about ensuring that we address the challenges that present themselves for people with autism who are, as she says, disproportionately likely to end up in the criminal justice system. This is an issue on which I have worked very closely with my right hon Friend the Lord Chancellor; I am delighted that he has been able to join us for this discussion.

Part of the point of separating the attitude in law towards those with mental ill health and those with learning disabilities and autism also relates to treatment when there is an interaction with the criminal justice system. It is absolutely critical to get this right. It is difficult, and a huge number of people are working very hard to get this right on the frontline, but at the moment they are hampered by the law when it comes to how that can happen. I hope that in the future they will be supported by the law such that they can make sure people get the right support and the right treatment, whether those people are in the criminal justice system or—as with the vast majority—they are law-abiding and need support from the state because they are in a vulnerable condition.

[Jeremy Hunt (South West Surrey) (Con) [V]]

I thank my right hon. Friend for a comprehensive response to Sir Simon Wessely’s superb review, which I was proud to commission at the request of the former Prime Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), whose commitment to mental health issues has been unparalleled. However, he knows that changes in the law only matter insofar as they affect the lives of real people, and his Department’s own data says that we still have more than 2,000 people with autism and learning disabilities locked up in mental health units, often supposedly temporarily, and sadly sometimes experiencing terrible breaches of human rights, such as the frequent use of restraint.

Will my right hon. Friend use this landmark moment to follow what Italy has done and close down all such units, so that these highly vulnerable people can be looked after more humanely in the community?

[Matt Hancock]

Absolutely. I want to see more people cared for in appropriate settings, which will often be in the community. My right hon. Friend set the target, as Health Secretary, to reduce the number of people with autism and/or learning disabilities in secure in-patient care. The 2,000 figure that he cites is a significant reduction, I am glad to say, from when he set that target and set that work in train—almost half. I want that number to continue to fall.

Of course, where there is a criminal justice element or restriction, that can be more difficult. However, we must make sure that the treatment and setting are appropriate for each and every person. Very often, a mental health setting is not appropriate for somebody with learning disabilities or somebody with autism, for whom it can in fact be the opposite of appropriate; it could be the worst place.

My right hon. Friend will know, as the Chair of the Select Committee, that the Care Quality Commission has in fact closed a number of settings during the pandemic, and we must make sure that we build more capacity. We have the budget in the spending review to do that and some of that building work is under way. There is a huge programme of work on the physical estate side and on training staff, as the hon. Member for Tooting (Dr Allin-Khan) mentioned, as part of the legislative change. No one element of that transformation works without all the others.