Mental Health Bill [Lords]

Richard Baker Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 14th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)]

I rise to support new clauses 29, 28 and 39. First, I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley), who mentioned my constituents and the tragic case of the loss of their daughter, Ruth. My experience of listening to her story has made me support the new clauses.

I want to finish my remarks with what Kate asked me to say in this House. Kate Szymankiewicz is a GP in Salisbury and her husband is a surgeon. Their daughter, Ruth, took her own life aged 14. She was unlawfully killed while in a child mental health facility—that is what actually happened. That is what was exposed in the court case this summer. What happened to Ruth was a tragedy. The system did not work as it was supposed to work. I am anxious today that the Minister should not rely on the advice and understandings of officials, or on the guidance that is in place. I ask that he is really assured in his own mind that the legislation he is going to take forward will mean that this will not happen again.

I will not go into the whole story but, essentially, Ruth was placed in a facility that was a two-hour drive from her home. She was not technically placed out of area, but the family would spend more time driving to see her than they would be allowed to actually spend with her. These are wonderful, loving parents who did everything they could—everything in their power—to support their daughter through a condition that she could and should have recovered from. But because she was sectioned under the Mental Health Act to allow her to be force fed, her parents technically lost many of their rights to involvement in their daughter’s care. They had a wonderful, loving relationship with their daughter. She was a happy child who was determined to get better, and her family were keen to see that that happened. She was sectioned only to allow her to be fed, but the knock-on consequence was that the dynamic between the parents and their daughter, who was a patient, changed as adult protocols were put in place.

When Kate visited Parliament yesterday, I asked her, “What would you like me to say on your behalf?” And she said this:

“If your child is unwell and must go into hospital, whether that is because of a physical illness such as cancer, or a mental health illness like an eating disorder, they need to know that their mum, or dad, or caregiver, can be there with them, whenever they need, to help them through a scary and vulnerable time.

Children cannot be treated in isolation. They need the support of those who love and know them best—their family. Families need to be at the heart of our health system in order for children to heal and for their families to heal with them.

When the next child is in crisis, which is right now, I ask you all not to turn away, but to grasp this opportunity to make the Mental Health Act a champion for their wellbeing. Please include all these…amendments to safeguard this generation of young people”.

[Richard Baker (Glenrothes and Mid Fife) (Lab)]

The Bill addresses fundamental flaws in our current mental health legislation in relation to the rights of people with learning disabilities and autistic people. I will focus my comments on new clauses 32 and 33, which I have tabled. They are also about vital rights within our mental health legislation and relate closely to the powerful comments made by the right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) and by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley).

New clause 32 would provide for mandatory independent care, education and treatment reviews for patients detained in long-term segregation. In her report, “My heart breaks”, Baroness Hollins highlighted the harms and sufferings that are so often associated with long-term segregation, and assessed how introducing care, education and treatment reviews can reduce the incidence and use of segregation. I very much welcome the provisions on reviews of care and treatment that Ministers have already included in the Bill, but it has now been demonstrated that independently-chaired reviews are making a real difference and lead to inappropriate long-term segregation being challenged and addressed. The human impacts are substantial. New clause 32 would make such reviews a requirement when someone has been placed in segregation for 72 hours.

New clause 33 seeks to introduce a new level of scrutiny in cases where patients with autism or learning disability have been detained for more than five years. I believe there is a very strong case for an additional check and balance when people have been under detention and compulsory measures for so many years. I understand that the latest data for England shows that 350 people with a learning disability or autism who are currently in in-patient units have been detained there for more than 10 years.

In a previous role, I provided advocacy for the family of a young man, Kyle, who has a learning disability. He is a patient in the State hospital in Carstairs in Scotland, but his family live in the north-east of Scotland. His mother and grandmother have to make a round trip of nearly seven hours to see Kyle for visits which have in the past been restricted to a single hour. Kyle was convicted of no crime when he was admitted to Carstairs in 2009. He has been there for 16 years. The toll that this has taken on his family has been horrendous. The situation is devastating for them, and there is no end in sight. Although it is a case for the Scottish mental health system, it has provided me with an insight into what many people with learning disabilities and their families will be experiencing in England today, and the limitations of mental health tribunals in dealing with these issues.

People with learning disabilities have been losing their liberty for years because of their disability; this is a human rights emergency. It is clear that we have to do far more to prevent these situations from happening. The Bill will help to do that with its welcome measures on prevention, but where these cases are happening now, I believe there should be an additional level of scrutiny—an extra check and balance so that after so long, someone with the right level of authority and expertise can challenge providers to do better and to ask the question, “How can it be that someone has lost their liberty and their right to a family life, because we cannot make their care and treatment work in a community setting?” Although I very much welcome the introduction of the care, education and treatment reviews, I believe we should go further in these circumstances. That is why new clause 33 would make provision for notification to the Care Quality Commission when someone has been detained for more than five years.

This is an excellent Bill. It will do so much for the rights of people with learning disabilities and autism, but there are several areas where I hope the Minister can outline what further ambitions the Government have to ensure that our mental health system is fit for purpose and based on human rights.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

To squeeze in a few more Back Benchers, the speaking limit is now three minutes.