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Mental Health Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness has brought forward what is, I hope, a probing amendment. The awful point is that if you start naming various conditions, we will get a never-ending list. Most of us who have dealt with disabilities over a period of time know that one of the problems we face is the stereotype. There are certain preconceptions to do with the way that people with disabilities—either obvious or hidden—relate to the world. The deaf may have tremendous problems relating to people if the batteries in their hearing aids are low or if there is no loop in the room. Their behaviour could be interpreted as aggressive if you happen to catch them on a bad day. I do not like the idea of naming a condition in the Bill and saying that it is fundamentally different. I have spent countless hours in this Chamber saying that disabled people should be treated wherever possible in the same way as the rest of the world. We are in trouble if we start to introduce caveats suggesting that we need not take into account that a disability will lead to slightly different patterns of behaviour. That would be the flipside of saying, ““Does he take sugar? Dear lad. Pat him on the head and put him in his wheelchair in the corner””. It would be like saying, ““They are all monsters””. I would be much happier if the Government would explain their thinking on this matter. The fact is that illness can occur to any disability group regardless of whether it is mental or physical. Why introduce a second caveat? It may be because people are worried that this group has been labelled in the past. I may not have listened to enough of what has been going on in this Bill, but please could we have more clarification of the Government’s thinking?