Part of Mental Health Bill [HL] - Report (2nd Day) – in the House of Lords at 8:15 pm on 2 April 2025.
My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have contributed to this group and the Minister for her responses. I also thank the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, for supporting my suggestion about a pilot for the responsible person. I have noted that the Minister has said that a pilot is not really necessary because what the Government are doing goes further than that. That is one way of looking at it, but I have to be honest and say that it is not quite how I see it. I completely take the point that we need to see what happens when the PCREF has bedded down. Let us see what it achieves, but if it does not achieve what we all want to see then we will need to think at that point about whether a responsible person would make the sort of difference that was being talked about at that very helpful round table.
I look forward to hearing more about the various actions that the Minister mentioned in relation to the CQC. I of course look forward to meeting the new chief inspector and will be interested to hear how they see their role, particularly the extent to which they think they are an advocate, providing a voice for people with mental health difficulties. This gets to the very heart of this Bill and the very reason why we have it in the first place. It is an incredibly important issue. We could talk about it for a long time, but we cannot. The hour is late and it is incredibly unfortunate that we have had such a truncated second day of debate. I know that these things happen but, given the importance of the topic, it is extremely unfortunate. Having said that, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Amendment 48 withdrawn.
Amendment 49 not moved.