Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s helpful comments. This is clearly a complex area. I begin by saying that I should be very happy to institute discussions between now and further stages of the Bill. I give no commitment but it is important that there is an opportunity to discuss a complex area. I am happy to accept the invitation that noble Lords have given to enable that to happen. The Family Law Reform Act provided that 16 should be the age at which the consent to treatment should be treated as though that person were an adult and the consent of a person with parental responsibility should not be required. The Mental Capacity Act, as I have already said, also provided that in general none of the measures in it would apply to persons under 16. The position of under-16s is more complex; there is likely to be far more variation. That is why our initial thinking is that guidance is able to go into much greater detail in this difficult area. That is our preference. Where the child is Gillick-competent—that is, it is deemed that they understand what they are consenting to and the consequences of that consent—and the child consents, the draft code plainly says that he can be admitted informally on that basis. I reiterate for the noble Earl, Lord Howe, that that is very much a draft code and is work in progress. Comments made during the passage of this Bill will undoubtedly be fed into the code. Where a Gillick-competent child refuses, our guidance will state that it would be unwise to rely on the consent of a person with parental responsibility, and to detain a Gillick-competent child against his wishes might be in breach of Article 5 of the ECHR. The code will suggest that detention under the Mental Health Act should be considered, although again there is the possibility of an application to the court. But, for under-16s, every case will be different and depend on the specific facts of that case. That is why we think that it is right to leave under-16s to the code. This is a developing area of law; that is why we think it better to put this guidance in the code. I accept what the noble Earl said about clarity in the law but the problem with the amendment is that it requires children to be treated as adults as a blanket rule; we think that for those under 16 every case will need to be looked at individually and have regard to a range of factors that will be explained in the guidance. For example, where the child is not Gillick-competent to make such a decision, if the decision falls within the zone of parental responsibility, a person with parental responsibility will be able to give consent and the child can be admitted informally on the basis of that consent. Guidance as to what is within what is known as the zone of parental responsibility will be given in the code. Again, this is a developing area, and we think it more helpful to give detailed advice in the code, which can be updated from time to time. It is, however, basically about the kind of decisions that our society thinks it proper for a person with parental responsibility to be able to take. Where the child is not Gillick-competent and either it is not considered that the child could be admitted informally on the basis of the consent of a person with parental responsibility, or no person with parental responsibility is prepared to consent, consideration should be given to the use of compulsion or, occasionally, an application to the court. As I said, the Family Law Reform Act sets 16 as the benchmark for a young person to give consent to treatment as though he were an adult. We think that our approach is in line with that. I should be happy to enable further discussions to take place on this important matter but our default position is that, because of the complexity, we think that the code of practice is the best place to deal with it. On Question, amendment agreed to.