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Mental Health Bill [HL]

I support what the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, has said, but I will speak to Amendment No. 40. In the 2004 Bill, the Government were going to allow patients to nominate someone to act as their nearest relative. One reason for that was that the nearest-relative provisions in the 1983 Act are quite complex—this is one of the commonest areas for mistakes around the Act. Also, the person who is the nearest relative is not necessarily the person who has been nominated by the patient. Given that the 2004 Bill was going to deal with this by allowing patients to nominate someone, it is rather a surprise to see now that the only change from the 1983 Act is to add the patient to the list of people who can apply to displace the nearest relative. That really is not good enough. First, what if the patient and the nearest relative do not get on? That has been known. In the Bill as drafted, the patient has to prove that the nearest relative is unsuitable. Suitability is rather a strange test to use, particularly where what might be going on is not do with suitability but simply an inability to get on—the two just do not like or possibly even trust each other. Secondly, in order to change the nearest relative, the patient has to go to court at a point where they are ill and, possibly, vulnerable, and may well be rather dependent on the nearest relative concerned. Thirdly, I am also considerably worried that the cost of applying to the court for this could be something like £500, which, for many of these patients, might well have to be found from their incapacity benefit, as they are largely living on that. So there are rather a lot of questions to be answered by the Minister on why the provisions in the 2004 Bill are not in this Bill. Another point worth making is that, in all the time that we have looked at the legislation before us, we on the Liberal Democrat Benches have been at pains to say that we think that public safety is important. If we want patients to really trust the system, we have to allow them to nominate the person whom they want to act as their nearest relative. We would argue thatif they trust the system—and can make that nomination—they will feel more at ease within the system, which will be safer for all of us.