Mental Health Bill [HL]

Lord Crisp Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Crisp (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 148, which is in my name and that of my noble friend Lady Hollins. I also support all the amendments in this group. Indeed, on the ones introduced by the noble Earl, Lord Howe, I very much support the stories that we have heard and which he spoke about at Second Reading. I also note the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, about non-drug therapies, which relate very much to what I will talk about.

I will make one general point: a generational change in the whole field of mental health is happening globally, with a shift towards more social interventions and preventions. This wider context needs to be recognised a bit more in the Bill. Amendment 148, which is about withdrawal from dependency-building drugs, is part of that context. I also agree very much with the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, just made that drugs are needed, and with the powerful points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, in the last day in Committee on the real pressures and problems that people within the NHS and beyond face in working with some of the people they end up having to work with, and on the conditions that they are working in. This emphasis on social interventions, therefore, is not at the expense of other aspects of mental health.

Some of these interventions do harm. I will come on to the point about withdrawing from drugs. On reducing prescribing and supporting withdrawal, I do not understand why this Government, through the Bill or otherwise, are not making changes that could help to reduce costs and improve services, which would take pressure off all services and, indeed, improve people’s economic position by enabling them to be fit to work.