Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Mills Excerpts

Monday 5th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

13. What steps she is taking to improve the approach of the police to working with people with mental health problems.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

17. What steps she is taking to improve the approach of the police to working with people with mental health problems.

[The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mrs Theresa May)]

We have taken a number of significant steps in this area: we have launched schemes including street triage, and liaison and diversion; we have reviewed the Mental Health Act 1983; and we have introduced an agreement supported by more than 20 partners nationally to improve the way the police and their partners deal with people with mental health problems. Police cells are now being used less frequently as a place of safety, and I am pleased to say that our work is already having an impact.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs May]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing out the success of the work already being done across the country, including in London, to reduce the number of people with mental health problems who are being held in a police cell as a place of safety. Police cells should only ever be used as a place of safety for somebody with mental health problems in exceptional circumstances. We are encouraging police forces across the country to look at the success of the triage schemes that have already been undertaken and take on board the very good practice which is having a beneficial effect for those with mental health problems and for police resources.

[Nigel Mills]

May I urge the Home Secretary to make it absolutely clear that there is no place at all for children with mental illnesses being in our police cells? I believe she has confirmed that that is the case, but I would be grateful if she would do so again.

[Mrs May]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that a police cell should not be a place of safety for a child with mental health problems—we are very clear about that. That is one issue that has emerged from the review we have undertaken, with the Department of Health, of sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act, and I am clear that in future we should not see children being held in a police cell as a place of safety when they have mental health problems.