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Mental Health Bill [Lords]

That is an important area that needs to be discussed and should be teased out in Committee. I believe that we do not yet know everything that there is to know about a whole series of mental disorders. The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) made an important point about progress with autistic spectrum disorder and I am sure that the same will apply to many of the personality disorders that, 20 years ago, were considered absolutely untreatable, incurable and beyond the pale. I believe that in 20 years’ time we may have a completely different attitude, which is why it is so important to have legislation that is able to meet changing perceptions in the future. There are two specific areas in which I am not entirely sure that the Government have got it right. The first is the issue of appropriate treatment—the so-called treatability clause. I believe that the amendment passed in the House of Lords places a very high hurdle, but it is not actually the hurdle that the hon. Member for Buckingham gave us, which was actually a variation of the Lords amendment. In fact, his was a much lower hurdle because he put several qualifications into it. Innovative treatments will come along in the next 10, 20, 30 or 40 years in respect of which no clinician will be able to guarantee that they will ameliorate the condition or, indeed, prevent deterioration of it—certainly not in the first few months. The very fact of detention may lead to deterioration of the condition for a short period, but the mere fact that one cannot guarantee that that effect will be produced, as the House of Lords determined it, should not necessarily lead to an automatic get-out clause. I think that it is possible—