Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Health Services), Department of Health; Doncaster Central, Labour)

My hon. Friend has a very great understanding of some of the problems that have been caused by the treatability test, especially because of her constituency work in this case. I am grateful for her support for our view, which is reflected by others, especially in Jean Corston’s report, that that test has stood in the way of people getting treatment. It has also meant that people end up in the wrong place, with tragic consequences.

Another extremely difficult and sensitive consideration is that the treatability test is also a perverse incentive for people not to comply with treatment. Tony Maden, a forensic psychiatrist, has spoken to me about the fact that in Broadmoor, for example, lawyers have advised their patients not to engage with treatment because if it can be proved that they are not treatable they have to be released. Naturally, a mental health review tribunal would not accept that, but nevertheless there is that perverse incentive at present because of the treatability test, and people can quarrel about whether they are detainable in sometimes very difficult circumstances.

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