My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy, for their support. I reassure the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham, that there is nothing coercive about this. I think there is a misunderstanding because a health issue is being debated in a criminal justice Bill. The reason there is no need to mention anything to do with consent in the amendment is that it is quite unnecessary. Any professional who would be doing the assessment has a professional duty to engage with any patient only with that patient’s consent. Indeed, it would be self-defeating even to try to do an assessment because it would not be effective, so it is totally unnecessary to mention consent in that situation. It is perfectly normal that consent is an absolute given in health issues among all health professionals.
I say to the noble Earl, Lord Attlee, that it is not inflexible either because it should not be for a policeman to decide whether a young person has been affected mentally by the situation. It is coercive if you count coercing the police to do the right thing and share the information, but it is not coercive in relation to the children. The police have to share the information, and it is then for the qualified person doing the assessment to decide what level of help—or no help at all—is needed by that child. That is perfectly straightforward and I see no reason why it should not be done.
The fact is that the police sometimes refer children for mental health assessments, but very rarely. Sometimes children go through a lot of barriers before they get to the assessment, and they disengage. They say, “I can’t do with having to tell my story over and over again to a whole series of people”. What should happen is a referral from a police officer directly to the people who
can assess—with the child’s consent, of course—as their professional duty, whether that child needs any help at whatever level.
Clearly, I am not going to convince the Minister, but I should like to keep talking to her about this. Indeed, we have a meeting in the diary for next Monday about this very thing, so I would like to do that. Because of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.