Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that. There is a transitional period to be gone through. The noble Baroness talked about the Court of Protection, which has not until now hadto make decisions about people’s welfare. It has primarily made decisions about goods and property. She will understand, then, where some of my concern comes from. We are on either side of a fine line. I would prefer that people deprived of liberty had the extra protection afforded to them in my amendment. Clearly, the noble Baroness disagrees. We will continue to keep this matter under scrutiny as the Act is rolled out. I hope that, if we find there is a problem, we can return to it at some stage very quickly. In the mean time I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.