My Lords, I appreciate that later clauses will enable us to have a much fuller debate on mental health issues in relation to the new provisions
in the Bill, related to the Mental Health Act 1983, and I do not want to trespass into that territory with this amendment.
The mental health concordat was agreed between the third sector, the police, local authorities and the NHS in February 2014. Included in its wording is that the bodies and organisations to which I have referred will make sure that they,
“meet the needs of vulnerable people in urgent situations”,
and,
“strive to make sure that all relevant public services support someone who appears to have a mental health problem to move towards Recovery”.
It then says that “jointly” they will hold themselves,
“accountable for enabling this commitment to be delivered across England.”
There is no statutory basis for this concordat. Amendment 5 raises the question as to whether we should not put the concordat on some type of statutory footing in the Bill, since the collaboration agreements which are placed on a statutory footing in it cover parties that are covered by the concordat.
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There are already examples of mental health professionals being collocated with police officers and others. Properly implemented, the concordat could save money and improve effectiveness since time that the police spend on dealing with people in mental health crisis because appropriate professional personnel from health and social services are not available is time that they, the police, are not spending on doing other things that they are fully qualified to do and which we would expect them to be doing.
In Committee in the Commons, I think on 22 March, the Minister who spoke on police involvement with those appearing to have a mental health problem referred to an interministerial group having been formed during the previous Government and stated that it was still sitting. Perhaps the noble Baroness can tell us a bit more about the activities of this group, what it has achieved and what it hopes to achieve. It does not appear to be asking too much to have a requirement in the Bill that collaboration agreements geared to effectiveness and efficiency should also be required to take into account the impact in that regard on the mental health crisis care concordat since I suggest that there is a real danger that otherwise a concordat that is not on a statutory basis may all too easily be overlooked or forgotten.
Despite wanting collaboration agreements to be placed on a statutory footing within the Bill, it does not appear that the Government want to go down that road as far as the concordat is concerned. If I am correct in thinking that, no doubt the Minister will explain why that is the Government’s position when she responds. I beg to move.