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Mental Health Bill [Lords]

As is so often the case, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. It is a simple matter of logic that if someone says that they intend or propose to do something, and then set about doing it in a way that one could reasonably expect to have no likelihood of success, they cannot genuinely have intended or proposed to do it. Therefore, if the purpose of the treatment is"““to alleviate or prevent a deterioration in his condition””" one must believe that there is some likelihood of success. That is why I suggest to the hon. Member for Oxford, West and Abingdon (Dr. Harris) that the hurdle is not as low as he may fear. During the debate in the House of Lords, Earl Howe spoke against a compromise amendment that was remarkably similar to the one that I proposed but spoke of symptoms and effects instead of symptoms and manifestations. He said:"““The effect of someone’s mental disorder may consist of alarm or affront on the part of the public because his behaviour has been violent and disruptive. Treatment that has the purpose of alleviating that effect—and no more than that—could consist of nothing more than locking the person up in a therapeutic surrounding away from the public view.””—[Official Report, House of Lords, 19 February 2007; Vol. 689, c. 928.]" I believe that he was stretching a point and deliberately misconstruing what the word ““effect”” might mean, but let us be generous to him and say that there was some ambiguity in the word. Clearly, it is not right to detain somebody solely to prevent somebody else from being fearful of that person’s mental condition. I do not believe that that is what ““effect”” meant, and that it referred to the condition itself. However, that is why I have suggested ““manifestation”” instead of ““effect””. I also believe that Lord Carlile was wrong when he said in the debate in the House of Lords that somebody could be detained purely to treat that person’s Tourette’s syndrome. He appeared to ignore the fact that not only one but three tests must be fulfilled to detain someone because of their mental disorder. We should add a fourth, namely the availability of treatment. It is important that detention cannot happen unless the person is suffering from a mental disorder of a nature or to an extent that warrants that. On top of that, he should be detained in the interests of his health and safety or with a view to the protection of other persons. Given that all those tests must be met, Lord Carlile’s concerns about detention to treat Tourette’s syndrome are not valid arguments. I have insisted on the phrase ““symptoms and manifestations”” in amendment No. 3 because I believe that the manifestation of an element of a mental disorder must have a direct relationship with that disorder. The relationship cannot be indirect; the manifestation must, by definition, be an element of the condition. The reason for the word ““manifestation”” is that it has a direct route into the mental disorder. Let me give an example. Somebody who is schizophrenic might suffer and be extremely angry because he has just split up with his partner. He might be furious with her. However, we should not be allowed to detain somebody solely to treat that anger unless the perhaps violent anger is a direct manifestation of the mental disorder from which he suffers. That is important.