My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend and I congratulate him on a fine maiden speech. As he said, he brings to your Lordships’ House a wide range of experience in the trade union movement, service on the GLC and as chair of ILEA, where he was a forceful champion of comprehensive education. However, I rather think that his being the first actuary to enter the Lords for more than 50 years will cause the most challenge to your Lordships. He will discover that we float figures around the House like confetti to justify whatever position we happen to take. Happily, this usually goes unchallenged, yet with my noble friend in place I suspect that we will need to be on our mettle and to expect robust scrutiny in the future.
As my noble friend said, it has not been necessary to use the powers in the regulations and their removal is warmly welcomed. Although the regulations are concerned with the requirements under the Mental Health Act 1983, this debate inevitably raises wider issues in relation to mental health provision during the pandemic and beyond.
We know that the pandemic has had a significant impact on the country’s mental health and well-being. What is the Minister’s assessment of this and what measures are being taken to restore services and deal quickly with the backlog of patients? Does he agree with the assessment of Scientists for Labour that there has been a stark decline in the availability of services? Research by Mind from May 2020 reported that the restrictions on seeing people, being able to go outside and worries about the health of family and friends are the key factors driving poor mental health. The Centre for Mental Health predicts that at least half a million more people may experience a mental health problem as a result of the pandemic. Does the Minister agree?
As part of the lockdown in March, dramatic changes were made by NHS mental health services, including discharging patients from in-patient community services and moving to online provision. Has the impact of that been measured? Does he accept that eye contact often plays an important role in cognitive behaviour therapy? We need to reflect on that before assuming that services can always be online in the future. Will the Minister agree to publish a comprehensive plan to restore levels of service, including a thorough assessment of what changes in demand for services are arising from the pandemic?