Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act, published in December 2018, what progress his Department, when his Department plans to respond to the recommendations contained in that review.

We are considering the report and its recommendations in detail and will respond in due course. We remain committed to reforming mental health law and will develop and bring forward legislation when Parliamentary time allows.

We have already accepted two important recommendations: the establishment of new statutory advance choice documents, so that people’s wishes and preferences carry far more legal weight, and the creation of a new role of ‘nominated person’, to be chosen by the patient, to replace the current nearest relative provisions.