Clause 5
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
John Pugh (Shadow Minister, Health; Southport, Liberal Democrat)
I agree, if that is empirically the case. The interesting thing about the debate that we had on impairment is that we all believed, and the psychiatrist said, that when applying the concept of impairment to an individual, the same conclusion would be reached by everybody. It is not obvious to me that they should not equally come up with the same conclusions when applying a concept of treatability. Why would they come up with different conclusions in the one case and not the other?
Given my belief that there is scope for some kind of dialogue, as opposed to mutual campaigning against each other, I found the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Rhondda fairly helpful. I did not agree with it wholeheartedly, but he tried to define legitimate treatment—treatment that is the basis for some degree of coercion— as having the intention of alleviating rather than being “likely to alleviate”.
Unfortunately he is not here, but he was endeavouring to lower the bar as to the treatments that are permissible, while seeking to outlaw anything that cannot reasonably be expected to be efficacious. He was challenged by my very acute colleague, my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey, on precisely that point. He said that
“intention must always include an element of likelihood, although likelihood is not predominant... There is always an element of likelihood in any degree of intention”.——[Official Report, Mental Health Public Bill Committee, 26 April 2007; c. 133.]
I guess he was saying that one cannot honestly intend something that one has no reason to expect. The Liberal Democrats, of course, intend to form a Government soon, which implies that we have a reasonable expectation of doing so. To be wholly acceptable to anybody, his amendment must explicitly incorporate the concept of reasonable expectation.
Another change that would help to move things forward in a positive way is to incorporate a care plan, and a review of it, for anybody who is subject to coercive treatment, as found in the Mental Health (Care and Treatment) (Scotland) Act 2003. That would spell out what was to be done and how it was to be monitored and evaluated, and could be the basis for an appeal. There is further debate to be had—this is a big issue.