Mental Health (Discrimination) (No. 2) Bill

Lord Barwell Excerpts

Friday 14th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am presenting this Bill today because I was lucky enough to be drawn fourth in the private Members’ ballot. As is often the case in this place, I discovered that not through any official communication but because my inbox was suddenly deluged with e-mails of congratulation and my mobile phone and landline started ringing at the same time. It is good that a reshuffle was not taking place at the time.

It is rare for a Back Bencher to have the opportunity to change the law of the country. I received hundreds of good suggestions—some more realistic than others—and I took my time and thought long and hard before making my choice. I chose mental health for three reasons, the first of which is that it affects so many people. One in four of us will experience a mental health condition in our lifetime, and three in four will see a member of our immediate family experience such a condition. Those numbers have been increasing, and will continue to do so, because although the physical conditions in which we live and work have improved, our lives are busier and more stressful. The World Health Organisation estimates that by 2030 more people will be affected by depression than by any other health condition.

Secondly, beyond those headline figures I have seen at first hand how people struggle with mental ill health, and how hard they often find discussing it, even with those to whom they are close. Two of my closest personal friends suffer from mental health conditions, as do two former teachers with whom I have kept in touch. Sadly, both had to retire early, thereby depriving other young people of their excellent tuition. My predecessor as Member of Parliament for Croydon Central, Andrew Pelling, had to take leave of absence from this House in early 2008, although crucially in terms of what we are discussing he was able to return to work and do a good job for his constituents.

Since I became a Member of this House, numerous constituents with mental health conditions have come to me for help—I imagine that all hon. Members currently have constituents who are distressed and struggling with Atos work capability assessments. Two specific cases stick in my mind. The first was a man who came to my surgery because he had lost his job and was at risk of losing his home. He broke down in tears in the middle of the appointment, and openly discussed committing suicide. The second was a resident of a south London YMCA property in my constituency who had witnessed someone committing suicide. He went to his GP for help and was effectively told to get over it. He then suffered a breakdown, lost his job and his marriage, and ended up sleeping on a park bench. Anything we can do—even in a small way—to help people suffering with such conditions must be good.

The third reason I chose mental health was that it has a particularly passionate advocate in the form of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne (Mr Walker), who is sitting in front of me. I hope that he will speak later in the debate so that hon. Members who have not heard him discuss the issue will see that passion for themselves.

My Bill’s purpose is simple: to tackle the last legal form of discrimination in our society. Over the course of my adult life we have made significant progress in tackling racism, sexism and homophobia. Parliament changed the law and sent a clear signal, and, although things are still far from perfect, attitudes have changed. To our shame, however, the law still discriminates against those with a mental health condition. A Member of Parliament or company director can be removed from their job because of mental ill health, even if they go on to make a full recovery, and many people who are perfectly capable of performing jury service are ineligible to do so. As it stands, the law sends out a clear message that if someone has a mental health condition, their contribution to public life is not welcome, and that is an affront to a decent, civilised society.

The Labour party deserves credit for its legislation to tackle other forms of discrimination: the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Civil Partnership Act 2004. The Conservative party initially lagged behind on those issues, but it can be proud of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and I hope that the coalition Government will pass legislation to tackle this remaining form of discrimination against those with mental ill health.

The belief that people should be treated as individuals and judged on their merits, and that they should not face stigma and discrimination, is common to all mainstream parties. I believe that, if the Bill gains Royal Assent, we will look back in a few years’ time and be amazed that it took until 2012 to do it.

The Bill is supported by the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Mind and Rethink Mental Illness. I thank them, my assistant Mario Creatura and the Public Bill Office for all their help. The provisions were originally introduced in the other place by Lord Stevenson of Coddenham in the previous Session. He—not I—deserves the credit for raising the issue.

Lord Stevenson’s Bill had four clear aims, the first of which was to repeal section 141 of the Mental Health Act 1983, under which a Member of Parliament—including Members of the Scottish Parliament or the Welsh and Northern Ireland Assemblies—automatically loses their seat if they are detained under the Act for more than six months. There is no equivalent provision for peers, neither is there an equivalent provision if an MP suffers from a physical illness that affects their ability to perform their role. The law, therefore, is clearly discriminatory. It stigmatises those with mental health conditions and gives the false impression that people cannot recover from such conditions.

In the Law Society’s opinion, the law may well breach the UN convention of the rights of persons with disabilities, which the UK ratified in 2009. Article 29 of the convention states that Governments should ensure

“that persons with disabilities can effectively and fully participate in political and public life on an equal basis with others, directly or through freely chosen representatives, including the right and opportunity for persons with disabilities to vote and be elected”.

There is also a grave danger that the law will deter Members from admitting to having a mental health condition and from seeking treatment, which would be a tragedy. Ludicrously, the law is harsher than that relating to MPs who are sent to prison, which does not take effect unless an MP is sentenced to more than a year.

Finally, an MP who lacks mental capacity, as defined by the Mental Capacity Act 2005, can be detained for up to 12 months and not lose their seat. The law is therefore also a nonsense. It has never been used in its current form, but back in 1916, Dr Charles Leach MP was removed from his seat using the provisions of predecessor legislation, the Lunacy (Vacating Seats) Act 1886.

As you will know, Mr Speaker, in January 2010, the Speaker’s Conference on parliamentary representation recommended that the law should be changed. Clearly, there is a debate to be had on what should happen if an MP is unable to perform their role for an extended period. The Speaker’s Conference recommended that the House invite an appropriate Select Committee to undertake an inquiry. In the meantime, my contention is very simple: the current law is both discriminatory and an ass, and we should put that right while we consider the wider issue.

No less an authority than “Parker’s Law and Conduct of Elections” says that, as well as statute, there is common law that

“idiots are disqualified for election to Parliament”,

which may come as news to some of our constituents. Nevertheless, to guard against the unlikely event that the courts would interpret that as a reference to those with mental health conditions, clause 1(2) of the Bill abolishes any such common law.

The second aim of Lord Stevenson’s Bill was to amend school governance regulations, so that people detained under the Mental Health Acts would no longer be disqualified from holding office as school governors. Clearly, someone who is detained is unable to attend governors’ meetings, but that may be for only a short time, and there is no reason that they should not resume their role once they are able to do so.

The third aim was to amend the Juries Act 1974, which applies only to England and Wales, to reduce significantly and better to define who is ineligible for jury service. Currently, as many hon. Members will know, the Act says that mentally disordered persons are ineligible. The definition of a mentally disordered person is extremely wide and includes people who manage their mental health condition through a prescription from their general practitioner or counselling from a psychiatrist. For example, a woman suffering from post-natal depression who is prescribed anti-depressants would—ludicrously—be barred from serving on a jury. Theoretically, that eliminates all sorts of people who would make excellent jurors. In practice, the definition is so wide many people who probably should tick the box do not do so, perhaps including some who genuinely should not be jurors. A person on trial has a right to be confident that the jury is of sound mind. The Bill would better define who should be ineligible broadly in line with the current law in Scotland, thus making it much more likely that such people would identify themselves correctly.

The final aim of the Bill is to amend the Companies (Model Articles) Regulations 2008, so that someone no longer ceases to be a director of a public or private company purely because of their mental health. All companies are required by statute to have articles of association. Model articles operate when a company has failed to draw up its own. Many companies incorporate them into their articles. The model articles include a provision that someone ceases to be a director if a registered medical practitioner who is treating them gives a written opinion to the company stating that they have become physically or mentally incapable of acting as a director and may remain so for more than three months—in other words, the correct test of capacity. However, the articles also include a totally unnecessary, stigmatising provision relating solely to mental health, which my Bill would remove.

The Government have already dealt with one of those aims. The School Governance (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2012 came into force on 17 March and rightly set the disqualification test for school governors as failure to attend meetings for a period of six months without consent from the governing body. That puts the onus on the local governing body to make decisions on whether someone is capable of continuing their duties. The Government recently confirmed that they would support the other measures in Lord Stevenson’s Bill, subject to some small changes to the provisions relating to jury service, to which I have agreed.

I hope my hon. Friend the Minister does not mind if I pay tribute to her predecessor, who is now the Minister for Immigration, who first raised these issues when the Conservative party was in opposition and who played a key role in securing Government support for the Bill. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister—he cannot be in the House today—who has a long-standing interest in these issues and who has been vocal in his support for the Bill. I also thank civil servants in the Cabinet Office for their help with the detailed drafting and explanatory notes. Finally, before this turns into an Oscar acceptance speech, I thank the official Opposition for their support, and in particular the shadow Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), who has already distinguished himself this week in relation to the Hillsborough panel, and whose passion for health issues is self-evident. I thank all hon. Members who have taken time away from their constituency duties to be in the House today to support the measure.

I shall end with three simple contentions. First, the law as it stands sends an appalling message to people with mental health conditions. Charlotte was diagnosed with depression and clinical anxiety in 2003. In 2008, she received a summons to undertake jury service. At the time, she was working as a probation officer and therefore had extensive experience of both magistrates and Crown courts. She declared her condition and explained that she had not seen a psychiatrist for four years and was no longer seeing her GP, and that she was merely picking up repeat prescriptions once every three months. She received a brief message saying she was unsuitable for jury service. She says:

“I felt angry and disappointed...I was very much well enough to cope...and my GP would have been happy to confirm this”.

Angela was told she was ineligible for jury service in 2009 because she sees her doctor three times a year for depression. She says:

“in my early days of mental illness, I would not have been able to sit on a jury. Now I have recovered and gone back to work in research at a university. This blanket ban means that I can’t do my civic duty. It basically implies that I have nothing to offer society because I have a mental health condition, without any regard to how I am actually functioning now. This is totally outrageous”.

I could not agree more.

Secondly, if the Bill is passed, companies, our courts and Parliament will benefit directly from the involvement of more people with experience of mental health conditions. The recent Backbench Business Committee debate on mental health, which was introduced by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan), who now thankfully sits on the Front Bench, was illuminated in particular by the contributions of my hon. Friend the Member for Broxbourne and the hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), both of whom I am glad to see in the Chamber today.

Thirdly, and most importantly, passing the Bill will send a clear message that discrimination is wrong and that people have a right to be judged as individuals, not stigmatised or discriminated against.

If anyone doubts the extent of the problem, I would point them to last September’s excellent Time to Change campaign, run by Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, which surveyed 2,700 people with mental health conditions. Eighty per cent. said that they had experienced discrimination, two thirds were too scared to tell their employer about their condition, 62% were too scared to tell their friends and, worst of all, more than one third were too scared to seek professional help.

Ensuring that fewer people experience stigma and discrimination is rightly one of the key objectives of the Government’s mental health strategy, “No Health without Mental Health”. As a Conservative, I believe that changing the law does not change society overnight, but it does send a clear signal that this Parliament believes that having a mental health condition is nothing to be ashamed of or to keep secret. It is high time that we dragged the law of the land into the 21st century, and I humbly ask hon. Members to support the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Barwell (Croydon Central) (Con)]

I would like to say a few words to sum up the debate. First, I welcome to the Chamber my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies), who is a good friend. When he arrived, he told me that he had been following proceedings closely, and I asked whether he had also been following them with approval. As he correctly pointed out, if it had been with disapproval, he would have been here talking for two and a half hours.

I thank all hon. Members who have spoken, including the hon. Members for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg) and for North Durham (Mr Jones), and my hon. Friends the Members for Broxbourne (Mr Walker) and for Totnes (Dr Wollaston). My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Nuttall) made an encouragingly brief speech, at least from my point of view. If my right hon. Friend the Chief Whip has been following proceedings—I am sure the duty Whip will have noted this—he will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North cannot find his way into the Chamber without his contact lenses. I thank the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and my hon. Friends the Members for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) and for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) for their contributions. All the speeches were excellent, and I believe that today’s debate has shown the House at its best.

Due to the changes in the rules and proceedings of the House, not only have I listened to the speeches, but I have followed the reaction to our debate on social media. What has happened in the Chamber means a lot to a great many people and I may well get in touch with hon. Members who have spoken to ask whether they would like to serve on the Committee.

I thank the two Front-Bench speakers, and in particular I echo the point raised by the hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) about dementia. I lost my father to Alzheimer’s disease, and although Governments of both colours have made real strides in recent years, we still need to do a lot more to tackle that issue. My hon. Friend the Minister is new to her brief, but she showed a good grasp of all the issues the debate covers. To reassure the hon. Member for North Durham, it was good to see a Health Minister and a Justice Minister on the Front Bench earlier in the debate.

[Mr Kevan Jones]

My only concern is that the Cabinet Office Minister said that the Bill has the full support of the Deputy Prime Minister, and his recent track record of getting legislation through is not very good.

[Gavin Barwell]

The hon. Gentleman tempts me into the debate on House of Lords reform, on which not necessarily all my colleagues agree with my views, but I will not return to it.

I should like to emphasise a few points from the debate. First, there is a consensus in the House that changing the law in and of itself does not change society overnight, but it does send a clear signal. Such changes have happened in my adult lifetime. When I was a child, an Asian family tried to buy a house in our road—they would have been the first Asian family to do so. Disgustingly, some of the people on our road tried to persuade the family who were considering selling the house not to sell to an Asian family. When that barrier was broken and that first Asian family moved into the road, people found that they were normal, decent people, and the problem went away overnight. Attitudes on race have changed a great deal, although not enough.

I also recall with great shame my teenage attitudes on sexuality—attitudes of which I am not proud. Attitudes in society to sexuality have also changed a great deal, and we need to change attitudes to mental health. When I was growing up, my perception was that mental health problems affected very few people. As I said, two of my close personal friends over the past 20 years have been affected by mental health conditions. I now see how many people are affected by it, because that includes their friends and family. It is not a case of people either having a mental condition or being perfectly healthy; there is a continuum.

Secondly, the hon. Member for North Durham paid tribute to a number of public figures who have been open about their conditions. He mentioned Alastair Campbell, the former Prime Minister’s press secretary, who has spoken out repeatedly—he is very brave to have done so given the high profile role he had. I should like to mention a sporting figure, Marcus Trescothick, who has shown incredible courage. I have read his autobiography, which is an extremely moving account of his experiences. We have debates on mental health in the House, but it also means a great deal when those who have a high profile in other spheres of public life take the decision to talk openly and honestly about their experiences.

Thirdly, as the hon. Gentleman said, people need to tell those close to them about their condition, but the reaction they get might not be what they expect. I have been on a variety of TV and radio shows to talk about and promote the Bill. I will never forget a phone-in on Iain Dale’s show on London’s Biggest Conversation. A number of calls we took were from people suffering from profound depression and other mental health conditions. One caller could not believe that any of the people in his life would want anything more to do with him if he explained to them how he was feeling. My message, as the friend of two people who have mental health conditions, was that friends will want to know and to provide care and support. If they do not want to do so, they are not proper friends. I therefore conclude, as the hon. Gentleman did, by saying that people who are suffering should know that those who care enough will want to know and to provide help and support.

I thank all hon. Members who have spoken in the debate and those who have listened to our proceedings. I very much hope the House gives the Bill a Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).