Mental Health Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 76A: 76A: Schedule 6 , page 82, leave out line 3 and insert— ““(3) The maximum length of an initial authorisation must not exceed six months, and the maximum length of any further authorisation must not exceed 1 year.”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, we return to a matter raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and others in Committee and one on which we still have to find agreement. The amendment is pretty straightforward; it states: "““The maximum length of an initial authorisation [for a deprivation of liberty] must not exceed six months, and the maximum length … must not exceed 1 year””." A large percentage of the people to whom these provisions will apply will be the elderly in residential care. Many older people in residential care are extremely frail and their conditions change over time, although they can change quite rapidly. For that reason, permitting the deprivation of liberty for a year seems to us too long a period for it to persist. Therefore we are making one more attempt to get the noble Baroness to agree that the noble Lord, Lord Rix, and I are right in seeking a period of six months for an initial deprivation. I beg to move.