Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the potential merits of reforming the Mental Health Act to include mandatory care for people suffering from addiction.

We have not made a formal assessment. For the purposes of the Mental Health Act 1983, drug or alcohol addiction are not considered to be mental disorders. This is stated in section 1(3) of the Act. The reforms to the Act proposed in the Government’s White Paper, published in January, respond directly to the recommendations made by Sir Simon Wessely’s independent review of the Mental Health Act. The review’s terms of reference, as set by the Government, did not extend to a consideration of including addiction within the provisions of the Act.