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Mental Health Bill [HL]

I support the amendment. It has been moved with great cogency by the noble Baroness, Lady Murphy, who cited evidence from the profession. I add nothing to that. I remind noble Lords that the Joint Scrutiny Committee recommended, after hearing evidence, that: "““the Government bring forward legislation … which would enable people to make advance statements and to record advance decisions, particularly if there is a treatment that they would not wish to receive””." One or two examples of that have been given by the noble Baroness. The committee also recommended, "““that the arrangements provide for these statements (in relation to any future mental health treatment) to be taken into account by, but not become binding on, clinicians in determining the provision of medical treatment for mental disorder under the Act””." I confess to great disappointment that that clear conclusion of the Joint Scrutiny Committee has not been included in the Bill. I remind the Committee that, in November 2002, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, in its 25th report, recommended at paragraph 91 that, "““the right of patients to give directions about their future treatment, during periods when they are capable of doing so, should be respected where doing so would not present a threat of death or serious harm to the patient or anyone else””." The scrutiny committee also highlighted the first point made by the noble Baroness in moving the amendment: the lack of consistency between the Mental Capacity Act and the Mental Health Act 1983. I look forward with interest to hearing what the Government propose to do, or how they propose to justify that very obvious inconsistency. The amendment includes, as proposed new Section 75B(2), three sets of circumstances in which advance decisions or advance statements would not be applicable. Those three sets of circumstances seem to me to provide all necessary protection to clinical judgment and to patients in the sort of circumstances referred to by the noble Baroness. I cannot see any sound reason why the Government should reject this amendment. I hope the Minister will at the least be prepared to consider the matter further.