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Mental Health Bill [Lords]

We discussed autism not only in Committee, where the hon. Lady tabled a number of amendments, but when I attended the all-party group on autism. In addition, in discussions that I had until Friday last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Burton (Mrs. Dean) put forward arguments from the National Autistic Society. The meeting of the all-party group showed some of the divergence of opinion, even among those representing people with autism. I am thinking particularly of one of the Opposition Members who questioned why we were even considering some of the changes that the hon. Lady suggested. It is a complicated subject but I was glad that we were able to have the debate in Committee. I am more than happy to continue to look at how we can assist on issues such as the code of practice, to make sure that services are developed appropriately. As I said, I hope that the amendments that I tabled on supervised community treatment, the conditions that can be applied and how they will be applied will give some reassurance to those who are concerned about SCT. Where we have not been able to accept amendments, we are trying to use non-legislative means to tackle the issues raised, such as the nearest relative provisions, which were mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones), and places of safety, which were also mentioned today. We will continue to work on those matters, although it was not necessarily right to include them in the Bill. I thank the many organisations that have worked with us in developing some of the Government amendments. In particular, I thank YoungMinds and the children’s commissioner—an office that, as I have said, is now called 11 Million.