Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful for that clarification. However, I fully agree that the team approach is the best one. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, asked whether we thought that the legislation was human rights-compliant. Yes, we do. The Winterwerp judgment of the European Court of Human Rights decreed that except in an emergency, a person should not be deprived of their liberty unless they have been reliably shown to be of unsound mind, which must be established by objective medical expertise. We fundamentally disagree with the view that only psychiatrists can provide this objective medical expertise. We do not believe that the European Court of Human Rights was seeking to require that only the medical expertise of a psychiatrist would be acceptable. Instead, we believe that the judgment can be interpreted more broadly as referring to relevant medical expertise which may be from mental health professionals with qualifications in disciplines other than psychiatry.