Clause 4
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
1:30 pm
Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Health Services), Department of Health; Doncaster Central, Labour)
We are discussing a fundamental issue. In the other place the spokesman for the official Opposition argued that the law and the state hadno business interfering in the lives of patients who retained decision-making capacity, despite being seriously ill, if the risk that they posed was to themselves; if they posed a risk to others, that was or should be the province of the criminal law. As I said this morning, that seems fundamentally wrong. It means the state abdicating its responsibilities for protecting people suffering from mental disorder who may be driven to self-harm or even suicide.
As for people whose disorder may be putting others at risk, it is true that the criminal law can intervene,but only after an offence has been committed. In other words, the Opposition have said, in effect, that the rights of those patients not to accept treatment are invariably to take preference over the rights of other people who may become victims. They have said that the competing rights are not to be balanced, but that the former is automatically to be given preference.
I ask the Opposition to think carefully about attempting to retain the clause. It really will have a detrimental effect, admittedly, as the British Psychological Society said, on a small number of people. However, it is not right that we, as parliamentarians, are prepared to turn our backs on those people and not get treatment to them when they desperately need it. That is why I am asking the Committee to reject clause 4.