Mental Health Bill [HL]

I, too, congratulate the noble Baroness. Section 141 is about the most blatant piece of discrimination against mental illness as it is possible to imagine in statute. What message would be sent out if it were ever invoked? The message would be that mental illness is equivalent to gross misconduct, on which the Speaker would have no alternative but to take drastic disciplinary action. It would be equivalent to saying that being mentally ill makesyou unfit to work and unfit to represent your constituency. I cannot believe that that is what we want the law to require the Speaker in the other place to do, so I very much hope that the Government will think again about Section 141.