My Lords, my name is on the amendments in this group. My noble friend mentioned the importance of ensuring parity between physical and mental health services, and we will continue to raise that until parity is achieved. She also mentioned stereotyped assumptions as to links between mental health and criminal offending and racial stigma in mental health matters.
It occurs to me that the arrangements for using police stations as a “place of safety”—like others, I put that term in quotation marks—must be very difficult for police officers. They are not health professionals who can deal with physical health problems or mental health problems. We should not expect them to respond to a situation for which, however well intentioned, they are not qualified.
My noble friend also mentioned the question of funding. Inevitably, the reliance on increasingly stretched local authorities is an issue. Given that a place of safety includes residential accommodation provided by local social services, we need to recognise the importance of local authorities’ funding for new places of safety. The Government’s investment in that is a positive step. As with so many issues, this is not something that can be put in one pigeonhole and left there.