---

Mental Health Bill [HL]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. He has made an assertion, which I understand to be that there is less certainty of opinion when a psychiatrist makes judgment than with all other clinicians’ judgments. I want to challenge that. Does the noble Lord really believe that a neurosurgeon has any more certainty when he judges the effect that an operation will have on a large brain tumour, or that an oncologist has any more certainty in prescribing chemotherapy for certain types of cancer, than a psychiatrist has when giving his medical consultant’s opinion in relation to mental illness? If so, I would welcome him citing some evidence to support that.