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Mental Health Bill [HL]

Will the Minister address two questions which arise from what he has just stated? He spoke about patients seeking to evade treatment by claiming that their conditions were not treatable. The noble Lord, Lord Warner, too, mentioned that in his speech. Can noble Lords opposite give evidence of the nature and extent of that problem within mental health services? I would like to know how big a problem that is in reality, because, if we are going to accept the Government’s arguments, it is right to have some evidence. In addition, given how wide the Minister has begun to draw the definition of ““appropriateness””, how confident are the Government, and on what basis, that their wide definition of ““appropriateness”” will not be open to just as extensive an amount of challenge? Although I am a lay person, I can well picture lawyers and representatives pitching up to mental health review tribunals to argue till the cows come home about what exactly ““appropriateness”” is and whether it can be determined by their age, race and where they live. The noble Lord, Lord Soley, referred on Monday and again today to mental health review tribunals as a great safeguard within the mental health system. My understanding—I ask noble Lords to correct me if I am wrong—that it is the job of mental health review tribunals to interpret the implementation of the law, whatever the law happens to be. They are not in themselves a safeguard; they are a safeguard for the law. Therefore, in future, were these provisions to be accepted, tribunals would extensively have to interpret what the word ““appropriate”” meant.