Mental Health Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Bradley and Lord Stevens of Birmingham

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stevens of Birmingham (CB)]

I too am supportive of the spirit and intention behind Amendments 19 and 20, but I want to raise two textual questions relating to whether they would give effect as was intended.

In respect of Amendment 19, I am not sure that the explanatory statement accurately characterises what the amendment proposes. It says that the amendment ensures that ICBs and local authorities would

“have a duty to carry out”,

whereas at the point at which those words would be inserted it appears that the duty would also then fall to the patient’s responsible clinician. Amendment 19 by itself would essentially see CETRs overriding the judgment of the responsible clinician, which I think is quite a significant step to take.

In any event, I wonder whether Amendment 20 undoes any of the good work that Amendment 19 proposes in the first place. It says that you can ignore the exhortations of Amendment 19 if there is a “compelling reason” to do so. My question to the drafters of Amendment 20 would be: what statutory interpretation should be placed on “compelling reason” and how might the courts be expected to adjudicate in the event of judicial review?

[Lord Bradley (Lab)]

I support and have added my name to Amendment 13, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, around communication issues. As she rightly pointed out, this could have been linked to Amendment 2, which has already been debated at some length. I will not repeat the same arguments, but they apply to this amendment, which is why I support it.

I also very strongly support the amendment on housing tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Barker. I am chair of NHS England’s health and justice advisory board and have worked on the development of RECONNECT, the service to support people coming out of prison back into the community, which is very much a health-based initiative. Unless their housing needs are met at that point, their treatment, their support and their care plan can fall apart very quickly. Consequently, they are very quickly back in the criminal justice system. The same comparison can be made with this amendment. I strongly support housing being at the core of all issues relating to health and social care.