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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

My Lords, at yesterday's meeting, some people called CAMHS, of whom I had never heard before, floated into my vision. I am told that they are in the child and adolescent mental health services. I am also told that in some parts of the country, they are absolutely terrific; in other parts, they are practically nonexistent. I am also told that they come under the budget of the Department of Health. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, having left the Department of Health, is in a situation rather like Churchill and the Home Secretary when they switched sides over dreadnoughts in 1908, when the hats change and a different voice says the same thing. We will put the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, as a Churchillian First Lord of the Admiralty, saying, ““We want eight for dreadnoughts””—or, otherwise, CAMHS. What happens is that the Department of Health budget goes up and the benefit goes to the Ministry of Justice, which finds that it is saving money by looking after people’s mental health properly rather than having to lock them up in prisons. The Minister would then have some money for his legal aid people, which he says he does not have—we will let him get away with that. There is a wonderful example here of the failure of one part of government to talk to another. I am in no way saying that this would not happen under a Conservative Government, because of course it has and it will; there is no doubt that these sorts of things are inherent in the structure of government. My name is on Amendments Nos. 19 and 22 in the group, and I am very pleased that I put it on them, even though I can see what I think was called the Denman argument that if you include too many lists, it rather defaults from it and puts in some pecking order. We were, however, right to bring it up and to press it, and we are right to see whether we can get from the Minister a little picture of how CAMHS works. I rang the Minister’s office this morning, so he has had advance warning and I am sure he will thrill us with his answer.