My Lords, this amendment brings us back to the use of Tasers. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for taking on board the points raised when we debated this issue in Committee and coming back with a revised amendment. My noble friends Lord Hailsham and Lord Attlee have given us a flavour of what we discussed then.
Any use of force by police officers in psychiatric wards on patients—or on any member of the public in any setting for that matter—must be appropriate, proportionate, necessary and conducted as safely as possible. When police officers need to attend and use force, they must be able to account for their actions. As the noble Lords, Lord Dear and Lord Rosser, and my noble friend Lord Hailsham indicated in Committee, a blanket ban on the use of Tasers in psychiatric wards would remove this valuable police tactic when they are dealing with potentially very violent situations.