Draft Mental Health Bill

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble and learned Lord makes an important point. I am very much aware of today’s earlier discussion, when I was smiling, perhaps over-smugly, thinking, “At least we’ve got pre-legislative scrutiny.” However, I accept the noble and learned Lord’s point that it has to be proper pre-legislative scrutiny. I hope he will forgive my lack of experience on this. I am not yet aware of the difference between good and thorough pre-legislative scrutiny and brief pre-legislative scrutiny, so I will have to take this back to the department and will write to him and others.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

We thank the Minister for the draft Bill. Although it is on the law of mental health, it has clear financial implications and so a specific commitment to provide the resources to implement the changes in the law would be valued. In addition, however, given the agreement that there is about what will be in the Bill, what steps are the Government taking to get it implemented straightaway? There are so many proposals in Sir Simon Wessely’s report that could be implemented immediately, so I hope the department is pursuing that proactively.

It is important to understand a bit of the context here. We are heading into financially difficult times. We know that there is a close connection between people’s personal financial problems and mental health and that there will be an increasing level of indebtedness, which automatically means greater need for services. Maybe the Minister can reassure us that the resources will be there to carry out what is in the proposals.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an incredibly important point. We have seen the impact that the pandemic has had on mental health across all age groups. During the Health and Care Bill, the noble Lord and many others raised the issue of parity between mental health and physical health, and I thank him for that. That brought home that the current legislation is out of date, which is why we really need to update it. I also thank noble Lords who have spoken so far for agreeing that this is not a party-political issue at all. We all want to address this issue, and maybe the issue of funding will come up. The Government remain committed to achieving parity between mental and physical health services to reduce inequalities. We are making good progress; investment in NHS mental health services continues to increase each year, from almost £11 billion in 2015-16 to £14.3 billion in 2020-21. We expect all current CCGs—and ICBs once operational —to continue to meet the mental health standard, and we have made a number of amendments. We are investing more than £400 million over the next four years to eradicate mental health dormitories. Clearly, as we go through the Bill, there will be financial implications, which will be considered as we debate it. I cannot give a clear pledge on which measures will be implemented until we have seen the Bill. Clearly, however, we understand that a lot of this is long overdue, so the quicker we can get this done and come to an agreement satisfactory to all sides of the House, the sooner we can get on with implementing it.