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Mental Health Bill [HL]

I support the noble Lord, Lord Carlile, on this amendment. One thing to which he did not refer but which I think is worth mentioning is that the provision in the amendment was included in the 2002 and 2004 draft Mental Health Bills, so I very much hope that he is pushing at an open door here. I shall add just a couple of remarks. There is a strong belief within the Mental Health Alliance that this additional remand provision may help to reduce the number of remands in custody by the courts. That was implicit in everything that the noble Lord said. At the moment, a judge’s only choice under the 1983 Act is between remanding the person in custody or in hospital, but the judge’s ability to remand the person to hospital may be limited due to a lack of available hospital beds. Research also suggests that there is a culture of resistance towards accepting patients via the criminal justice system, partly because of the perception that such patients tend to be ““more difficult”” than others. So this amendment will help to provide the courts with an alternative and less restrictive course of action when dealing with people with mental health problems.