Mental Health Bill [HL]

Baroness May of Maidenhead Excerpts

Monday 24th November 2025 Lords Chamber

Sadly, at the moment the Bill is defective, hence my tabling the amendment to the Motion. I recognise that it is not appropriate to divide at this stage, but we have some time before the Bill goes back to the Commons to try to sort out what is, I am informed by AMHPs, still a confused situation. I regret that the experts on the Children Act and the Mental Health Act who supplied an amendment to the Minister’s department did not seem to receive a reply. I hope the Minister will be able to reassure me that statutory guidance can do more than I believe it can. We need to take these final moments with the Bill to protect the thankfully small number of children who are in these most vulnerable situations.

[Baroness May of Maidenhead (Con)]

My Lords, first, I am very grateful to the Minister and her officials for the interaction and the many discussions we have had on the matters posed in the amendments I originally put down to the Bill on the powers of the police and the possible extension of some of those to authorised professionals, including healthcare professionals. I am also grateful to the Minister and the Government for agreeing to the review and consultation in relation to the exercise of powers, not simply those in Sections 135 and 136 but the general exercise of powers between police, healthcare professionals and other authorised professionals.

I have a number of questions about that review, but before I come to them, I hope I can crave the indulgence of the House just to cite a couple of examples of what is concerning me about the powers. Often, people go to the situation in which there is a real threat—a risk of violence or of danger to those exercising powers of restraint—but actually there are other issues. In moving the government Motion, the Minister referred to the fact that there are indeed some concerns among healthcare professionals, as well as among police, about the exercise of these powers. One situation might be if a patient presents to a GP in an evident mental health crisis, the clinician determines an urgent assessment is needed and the patient is advised to attend hospital voluntarily, but they are unwilling to do so and there is no other available alternative statutory pathway, so the police are contacted in order to exercise their powers under Section 136. It is not that the police are needed; it is just that they are the only people who have the power at the time. There is not necessarily a need to restrain somebody; they are just the only people who have that power.

The other circumstance might arise in an accident and emergency department, where a patient is identified as requiring hospital admission for mental health care, but the individual attempts to leave before an approved mental health professional or a second assessing clinician is available or a bed is found, the emergency department staff have no statutory authority to prevent the individual’s departure, and they ring the police for assistance. In the joint Home Office and DHSC review, which reported in 2014, there was evidence of this. Dr Beale said:

“A police officer has more power in that situation than I do. How can I excuse calling the police to my department to assist in mental health care? … We want to reduce the involvement of police in mental health care, not invite it”.


I am sure we are all agreed that we want to ensure the best possible pathway and experience for the person with mental health problems, we want to reduce the use of police resource, and we want to improve the policing of communities, because the police officer required to attend unnecessarily a mental health patient is a police officer taken off the policing of their local community.

So my questions are, will the review ensure that it also looks at the evidence given to the review that reported in 2014, which, among other things, showed that 93% of paramedics agreed with extending the Sections 135 and 136 powers to remove a person to a place of safety to other professionals, provided that they are trained and equipped? What is the timeline for the review and consultation? I would like it to be something like six months. Which department will be running the review or be responsible for it? I think it should, again, be a joint Home Office and DHSC review. What happens at the end? If it identifies a need to extend these powers or to add healthcare professionals to the list of authorised professionals, will the Government guarantee to undertake that, and what vehicle would they use to do so?

Once again, I am very grateful to the Minister for the discussions we have had, and I would just like to be clear on these points.