Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill [Lords]
Debate between Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi and Fiona BruceTuesday 12th February 2019
(5 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 View all Mental Capacity (Amendment) Act 2019 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Consideration of Bill Amendments as at 12 February 2019 - (12 Feb 2019)
Fiona Bruce
The hon. Gentleman keeps talking about human rights, but what answer does he have for the fact that up to 125,000 people are currently being unlawfully deprived of their liberty, in breach of article 5 of the European convention on human rights? That is the problem that the Bill seeks to rectify.
Mr Dhesi
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention, but in terms of human rights, this issue is being raised not just by me, but by more than 100 pre-eminent organisations in the field. The only way to solve that is through funding—that is the only way in which we can lay this matter to rest. The hon. Lady highlighted the 2017 Law Commission review of the deprivation of liberty safeguards, which stated that the current regime is
“in crisis and needs to be overhauled.”
I agree. There is a crisis and the current system cannot cope, but surely the answer is not to replace bad laws with yet more bad laws, and that is what we are in danger of doing.