Clause 24
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
4:30 pm
Angela Browning (Deputy Chairman (Organising and Campaigning), Conservative Party; Tiverton and Honiton, Conservative)
I am delighted to see you in the Chair again, Lady Winterton.
I shall reiterate my points quickly for the benefit of hon. Members who may not have heard me. I was talking about the Minister’s concern about unintended consequences in respect of the addition to clause 24 and I mentioned briefly before we broke for lunch the report by a former member of the Mental Health Act Commission, Penny Stafford, who spoke about the research that she undertook in respect of children and adolescents and in particular—I am sure that we will come to this at a different stage—the impact on children and adolescents of section 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983. She pointed out that, far from them having the opportunity to be taken to a place of safety within a hospital with appropriate services and specialisms for children and adolescents, all too often they are left to languish in police custody suites.
I put that to the Minister because she has, from time to time during our discussion of the clause, suggested that if the Government legislate, it will be for others to have to implement that legislation, with the resource implications that that may involve—in this case, we are talking particularly about children’s and adolescent services. There is a precedent for this. In fact, there are many precedents in the way the Government have legislated elsewhere on behalf of children.
Let us consider, for example, children’s services supplied through local authorities. There is a statutory obligation on a local authority. The Government do not say, “You will do this if you can afford it” or “when resources permit.” For children’s services in the main, when a local authority looks at its annual budget it has a statutory obligation to protect children, as defined by national legislation.
I therefore find it rather incongruous that the Government are prepared to legislate for the protection of children in one area, but when it comes to children and adolescents in the mental health system, a different set of values or rules applies. That is not just inconsistent; it is unacceptable. We all know that throughout mental health services—indeed, the whole area of mental health—there is stigma. There is the old clichÃ(c) that it is seen as the Cinderella service. I am sure that all of us who take an interest in the subject recognise such descriptions, but we are now talking about children and adolescents in that system. It would be invidious to choose one group of people over another, but if we cannot, through our legislation nationally, protect children, we fail—we fail as politicians and we fail as legislators.
I therefore return to the point that I made to the Minister at the beginning of the debate. If there is one aspect of the Bill that she feels she might be able to come to an accommodation on in terms of the Lords amendments, given the overwhelming evidence of the need for us to do something different in this Bill compared with the original 1983 Act, it is surely the aspect that deals with the provision of services for children and adolescents.
I will stop speaking shortly, much to the relief of the hon. Member for Rhondda, who is hanging on my every word as usual, but first I will say this. This is a very serious subject, on which we would all like to see some progress. I must ask the Minister, in considering the issue—I am sure that she will consider it—to take a look at the evidence before her and the legal counsel provided by YoungMinds and to return to the issue on Report. I am sure that she can make a difference to the improvement of services for children and adolescents in respect of mental health—indeed, she has a duty to do so.