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Mental Health Bill [Lords]

I agree that there have been many scare stories about the Bill, which have not helped the general debate in the wider community—or, indeed, in parts of the House. Conversation with several different groups in my constituency, including Derman, which represents Turkish and Kurdish groups, and the Chinese Mental Health Association, shows that there are many complex reasons for people not presenting with mental health problems. Sometimes it is to do with the culture of the community, and I admit that it is also sometimes to do with the way in which the system deals with people. However, the Bill, with its narrow focus, will not solve those problems, whatever we do to it. If it were amended to the point of dealing with the way in which we provide services, it would be a different animal. It would be about provision of services, whereas it is about the legal rights of detention and compulsion. It appears that there is some consensus in the House about examining more deeply and radically the way in which we ensure that our mental health services provide treatment on the basis of need, and by ethnically blind means so that gross inequalities no longer exist. Black men in Hackney are three times more likely to suffer from mental health problems than anywhere else in the country—I forget my exact facts, but the instance is higher than average. I look forward to working with hon. Members of all parties to try to tackle the matter, perhaps outside the Bill, but in the next mental health measure—my right hon. Friend the Minister looks weary at the prospect—in which we may consider direct provision of services and tackling inequality. The debate has at least helped air those matters to a slightly wider audience than those of us who live among people with such difficulties.