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Mental Health Bill [HL]

That is a very helpful clarification. As has been said, it remains to be seen how the policy will work in practice. I am sure that the Government will get their policy in the end, one way or another. One part of the Minister’s reply was very revealing. He argued that CTOs should not necessarily be confined to revolving-door patients. He suggested that limiting the CTO to such patients would discriminate against the first-time-episode patient. I am concerned by that. Any measure designed to deal with revolving-door patients has to discriminate against patients on their first admission. If thenoble Lord is talking about legal human rights discrimination, I think that he is simply wrong. It is not discrimination when you have two discrete sets of patients—the first-timer and the revolving-door patient—because they are different and have an entirely different status. I shall have to reflect carefully on that part of his reply. The experience of CTOs in Australian jurisdictions, as shown recently in an Australian Senate report into mental health across Australia, is that the only thing that makes a difference is the quality of services and timely intervention. The need for services to be in place before a system of CTOs is put in place was emphasised by the experts from Australia and New Zealand at a recent London conference. We would do well to bear that point in mind. I should like to conclude on a constructive note. Noble Lords referred to the views of Professor Tony Maden, and I think that those views should be explored. If the Bill were to provide for CTOs to be limited to a certain group of people, we might have the basis for a constructive dialogue. The conditions that I would look for, which I understand that Professor Maden is also advocating, would be threefold: that there should have been a history of serious violence in the patient; that there should have been a previous relapse because of the patient having stopped medication; and that the patient should be identified as a continuing high-risk patient. If the Government were prepared to look at that proposal, it might well be possible to find a way forward that will command broad support. I say that having taken on board everything that noble Lords have said in this debate.