Question to the Home Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, what information his Department holds on the number of incidents that police have responded to that have involved someone experiencing mental health problems; and what estimate he has made of the cost of such police involvement in each of the last eight years.

Police officers in England and Wales regularly interact with people who may be experiencing mental ill health. Some such interactions may result in the need to remove a person to a place of safety under section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. Data on such detentions were collected by the Home Office on a mandatory basis for the first time in 2016/17, and are published as part of the ‘Police powers and procedures, England and Wales’ statistical bulletin, which can be accessed here: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/police-powers-and-procedures-england-and-wales-year-ending-31-march-2017.

In response to Home Office enquiries earlier this year, police forces in England and Wales provided a range of information about the numbers of cases they had identified that may involve a person experiencing mental ill health, either by means of a mental health flag or through dip sampling. Data on these cases is not routinely collected by the Home Office.

The Home Office has not estimated the cost of police involvement in cases where the person may be experiencing mental ill health. Given the wide variety of circumstances in which police may come into contact with someone who has mental health issues it is not practicable to separate out mental health related aspects from other policing responsibilities in respect of each case.