Clause 40
Mental Health Bill [Lords]
11:30 am
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing and Shoreham, Conservative)
I was not challenging that, but it is pointless unless the Secretary of State for Justice has to do something about it, such as decide whether to challenge the medical opinion or not to challenge it and say that a suitable place was not available. The consequences would be the same, as a person in prison, who should not be in prison, should be in hospital. That is the key point. What is the incentive for an appropriate space to be found as soon as possible? There does not seem to be any comeback.
The Minister gave us some indicative figures of how delay has been reduced when she referred to 12 weeks. Does that cover everyone? Is everyone automatically obliged to be transferred if the medical opinion is that they should be transferred, even if it takes three, six, nine or 12 months? Will that recommendation still be live? I do not know how the system works at the moment, but my reading of the mechanism suggests that there is a potential problem with having no incentive to get on with it.
I come back to the Minister’s point about public safety, and appropriate security and skill levels in a hospital. Surely, if she has confidence in the services that her Department is offering to mental health patients and those in secure mental hospitals who happen to have come through the criminal justice system as well, she should not be making the case that, in some way, they might be better off in a prison than a health environment. That is the clear implication of what she is arguing, especially by praying in aid public safety, which does not apply in prisons because there are no members of the public there.