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Health and Education

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. There is a risk that the structure of the legislation will lead the Government to assume that community treatment orders can be applied. By their very nature, such orders will tend to pre-empt services, and the general level of access to services will diminish, particularly in rural areas. Action does need to be taken, and to give the Government due credit, they have tried to push measures such as early intervention. However, those will be lost as a consequence of their proposals. So I urge the Government to think very hard about their proposal. The pre-legislative scrutiny Joint Committee rightly called for substantial amendments to the legislation, and our amendment to the motion makes it clear that we want that to happen.