I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
Given that we have only nine minutes, I shall be extremely brief. I grateful to Members from all parties for their support for the Bill’s intentions and ambitions. Having spoken to many advocacy and professional groups outside the House, I know that the Bill in its current state will, if passed, give the United Kingdom some of the best legislation in the world to protect mental health patients from abusive or excessive restraint. That is exactly as it should be.
The Bill will make a difference in four broad areas. First, on accountability, by requiring the appointment of a named senior manager in each mental health unit to be accountable for the existence and implementation of a policy governing the use of restraint and its reduction, the Bill will ensure clear and direct accountability for how restraint is used.
By standardising the reporting of incidents of restraint throughout the country so that they are recorded in exactly the same way against the same demographics, we will be able to see for the first time where the best practice really is, so that it can be spread. That will also allow us to scrutinise the data so that if particular groups—for example, women, BME people, young men and people with disabilities—are subject to more frequent or more severe forms of restraint than other groups, that can be corrected.
According to academic research, the requirement on the police, when operationally practicable, to wear body cameras in and of itself reduces the likelihood of restraint being used by the police by 50%. That alone makes it worth doing, but it also protects the police against vexatious complaints and provides evidence when things do go wrong so that lessons can be properly learned to prevent any repetition.
I am grateful for the Minister’s comments on Report about the investigation of deaths. It is important that those investigations happen immediately following a death or serious incident, and it is critical that they are sufficiently independent to allow people to learn what has gone wrong to prevent any repetition and deliver justice to the family of any victim. It is important, too, that there is consistency among all forms of state custody and that mental health custody is not treated
disadvantageously compared with police or prison custody, so I welcome the Minister’s commitment to achieve that through the deaths in custody panel that she co-chairs.
I said that I would be brief, and I will to stick to my word. The Bill is an important step away from the containment of people who are mentally ill towards treating them with the care and compassion that their circumstances deserve. It will give this country mental health services that are fair and equal for everybody.
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