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Health and Social Care Bill

Thank you. I was nearly at the end of my diatribe about my view that we must have at least a national committee with responsibility for visiting and overseeing the implementation of the Mental Health Act. I will be raising this issue again under different amendments later in Committee, but I would like to remind noble Lords that the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture, OPCAT, makes it clear that where a patient or anyone else is detained, there must be a truly independent body of experts visiting and monitoring their condition. Mental health patients clearly fall under that protocol; the Mental Health Act Commission is bound by it and the Government have signed up to it. As was said on an earlier amendment, this also suggests that we need rather more independence than is perhaps discharged by the current wording with regard to the relationship between the commission and the Secretary of State. It is clear that we must have a national profile for mental health legislation and its implementation, and that the care of patients under that legislation should be a national function. I therefore strongly support Amendment No. 25.