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Mental Health Bill [HL]

There is little to add to the compelling arguments made by the noble Lord,Lord Carlile, and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, so I shall be brief. As I am chairman of the Mental Health Act Commission, the body tasked with monitoring the 1983 Act on behalf of the Secretary of State, it may be helpful if I make some observations. While many aspects of the 2004 Mental Health Bill will not be missed, this one would be. As we have heard, the amendment would reintroduce what was Clause 86 of the 2004 Bill as an amendment to the 1983 Act. The Government clearly thought that this measure worth while and included it in both the 2002 and 2004 Bills. I hope that they will accept this call to pick it upagain now. In recent years, there has been something of a decline in the numbers of patients remanded to hospital for assessment under existing powers—under Section 35 of the 1983 Act. Official statistics from the Department of Health over the past decade show that the annual number of such remands more than halved in 2004 and 2005. Only 118 such hospital orders were made by the courts. By contrast, the remand population in prison continues to be more than 10,000 people. Among that population there is a high incidence of mental disorder. For every one person given a remand to psychiatric hospital directly from the courts, at least four people are transferred as remand prisoners, incarceration having been found unsuitable because of their mental condition. Of transferred remand prisoners, as with remand prisoners generally, it is not always the case that they are destined for custodial disposal, even to hospital. Although statistics do not tell us what happens to these patients, we can see that, once they have their day in court, something like one quarter of remand prisoners who are transferred to hospital under the Act’s powers end up with some form of community disposal. In such a context, I am sure that the Minister will agree that all measures that might encourage the courts to avail themselves of the least restrictive option consonant with justice and public safety ought to be adopted. It would be helpful for the courts to survey the mental health legislation and see, among the options for mentally disordered offenders or accused persons, an option to remand on bail under the Mental Health Act 1983.