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Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and to the Minister for his reply. He is of the view that we have here a set of provisions that provide an appropriate gateway into compulsory community treatment. My belief is that the gateway is too wide, and that is the reason for these amendments. Underlying that division of view between us is a philosophical divide. If I had to be brutal about the Government’s position on this issue, as indeed on other issues in the Bill, I would say that it rests on a profoundly paternalistic attitude to mental health patients. It is an attitude that accepts only grudgingly that the autonomy and decision-making ability of those with a mental illness matter at all and which would actually much prefer these people to jolly well accept what is good for them whether they like it or not.