Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Bill — House of Lords, 2020-05-20
Topic: Mixed Topics
Elizabeth Barker (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, I will address the same amendments in this group as were listed by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. Amendments 5, 6, 9, 12 and 15 will be addressed by my noble friends Lord Thomas of Gresford and Lord German. I declare an interest as a member of an advisory board at the charity Rethink Mental Illness Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, I want to draw attention to the decisions being taken about a prisoner’s state of mind and their mental capacity to answer questions relating to the release of information about bodies. I was a member of the scrutiny committee in your Lordships’ House that did the pre-legislative scrutiny on the Mental Capacity Bill. Like the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, I took part in the passage of that Bill through Parliament. I was part of the body that reviewed it and have subsequently been one of the Peers who participated in the Mental Capacity (Amendment) Bill When the post-legislative scrutiny of the Mental Capacity Act took place, it became very apparent that while it is widely regarded as being a very necessary and very innovative law, it is a law which is largely misunderstood and often ignored in practice. Some professionals, particularly in the world of health and social care, are very adept at understanding the concepts behind the Mental Capacity Act and are deploying them in their everyday work, but they are few and far between. Noble Lords who have listened to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, may have picked up on the fact that even within the medical profession, many practitioners simply do not understand what mental capacity and the tests of it are under this legislation During the review of the Mental Capacity Act, we spent virtually no time looking at the questions of how the Act is used within the criminal justice system, and I suspect that that was because it is not widely understood. As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, made clear, the Mental Capacity Act rests upon the capacity of a person to make a particular decision at a particular time. It is not lawful to make a read-across from a person’s incapacity to make one decision to an assumption that they cannot make another. Therefore, in every case, it is for the Parole Board to decide at that point whether the prisoner has the capacity to withhold information, and that may vary over time It is right that we should discuss this, and we should look at putting these provisions in the Bill for three reasons. First, there are some conditions under which mental capacity can fluctuate. As mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, some mental health conditions—the effects of drug and alcohol or degenerative diseases, the onset of dementia—may mean that over time the capacity of a prisoner to release this information diminishes The second is that there needs to be training and good practice for all practitioners throughout the criminal justice system in determining mental capacity. That includes members of the Parole Board. I wonder whether, in his summing up on this amendment, the Minister might say what training members of the Parole Board have and what guidance is available to them in making determinations under the Mental Capacity Act. Do they call on Mental Capacity Act practitioners, as people in social services do when they come to determine the capacity of an individual to make any decision In saying all this, I am acutely aware that, in some of these cases, the crimes happened a very long time ago. I understand that Helen McCourt’s case was one of the first in which DNA evidence was used. Some prisoners who have been in prison for a very long time could be victims of a miscarriage of justice. It is extremely important when we look at their refusal to impart information about the whereabouts of a body that we do so with great care and make sure that we are not misjudging a lack of mental capacity.