Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, whether his Department has plans to reconsider the recommendations in the Law Commission's report, Criminal Liability: Insanity and Automatism, published in 2013.

The Government has considered the proposals in the Law Commission’s 2013 discussion paper.

Whilst we note the Law Commission’s proposals on the potential to update the law in this area, we have no immediate plans to bring forward legislative proposals in relation to this rarely-used defence. However, we continue to keep this, and the wider and related law on unfitness to plead, under review.