Mental Health Bill [HL] - Commons Amendments – in the House of Lords at 4:15 pm on 24 November 2025.
Baroness Berridge:
Tabled by Baroness Berridge
In Amendment 19B in lieu, as closing words after subsection (3)(c), insert—
19E: “but where the patient is the subject of a child arrangements order or a special guardianship order, the nominated person must always be the person named in that order as the special guardian or the person who that child lives with.”
Baroness Berridge
Conservative
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her clear intention to continue the dialogue on this, but I believe that we all would be assisted by officials from the Department for Education who hold responsibility for the Children Act and the various experts in the UK on this very difficult area of the interconnection of the Mental Health Act and the Children Act. I have to say at this point that I believe that there still is a fundamental misunderstanding of the authority of a court order to allow a professional to go behind it and appoint someone to this role who could directly conflict with a special guardianship order.
I want to make it totally clear that His Majesty’s Government are giving discretion to a group of professionals who have clearly said that they do not want this, do not have the competency to do it and would need 24/7 legal advice to attempt it. Unfortunately, because of the lack of consultation on this area, at this late stage we are at a very difficult moment for those professionals, who do not want to do the job that the Minister is giving them. In the light of her promises to meet further on this, I will not move my Amendment to the Motion.
Amendment to the Motion on Amendments 18 and 19 not moved.
Motion on Amendments 18 and 19 agreed.
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As a bill passes through Parliament, MPs and peers may suggest amendments - or changes - which they believe will improve the quality of the legislation.
Many hundreds of amendments are proposed by members to major bills as they pass through committee stage, report stage and third reading in both Houses of Parliament.
In the end only a handful of amendments will be incorporated into any bill.
The Speaker - or the chairman in the case of standing committees - has the power to select which amendments should be debated.
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