Oral Answers to Questions

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hurd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question. My understanding is that that amalgamation is actually working well, and has largely been welcomed across the system. It does present challenges for further amalgamations because of boundary issues, but I would ask him to open his mind to the benefits of that merger, which appear to me to be very real.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

6. How many people have been unlawfully detained for more than 24 hours while awaiting a mental health assessment in each of the last three years.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Victoria Atkins)]

Provisions in the Policing and Crime Act 2017 ban the use of police cells as places of safety for under-18s, restrict their use for adults and reduce the maximum period of detention to 24 hours. Information on the length of time for which people are detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 pending an assessment is not held by the Home Office, but we are seeking to ascertain the scale and nature of this issue and we are reviewing the available information that we were provided with last month by the College of Policing.

[Preet Kaur Gill]

Under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the police have just 24 hours to hold someone with a mental illness. The College of Policing shared with the BBC last December the fact that 264 people were held for longer than this, including a mentally ill child who was held for five days. Is the Home Secretary aware of this report, and what steps have been taken to remedy the situation?

[Victoria Atkins]

Very much so, and I thank the hon. Lady for raising this important issue. We know that there is an issue in this area, and she will be pleased to know that her constabulary—the West Midlands—in fact does very well on this. It did not use police cells at all for such detentions last year; indeed, since 2013 it has used them on only 14 occasions. Of course, however, any such occasion is one occasion too many. She will I am sure join me in being pleased that the use of police stations as places of safety nearly halved last year, but we need to do more.