Policing and Crime Bill — House of Lords, 2016-11-30
Topic: Health
Joan Walmsley (Liberal Democrats, Centre to centre-left): My Lords, we now move to issues relating to the interaction between the police and people with mental health problems. This amendment would ban the use of police cells for adults detained under Sections 135 and 136 of the Mental Health Act 1983 in the same way as this Bill now bans it for children under 18 I am very encouraged by the 53% reduction in the use of police cells as places of safety during 2015-16. The police, mental health services, local authorities and voluntary sector partners deserve our congratulations on that. However, that still left 2,100 people taken to police cells—a situation that will have led inevitably to exacerbation of their mental health crisis. I listened very carefully to what the Minister said in response to a similar amendment that we discussed in Committee. I thank the Minister for the meeting that we had at the Home Office to discuss it. I am encouraged by the clearly expressed intention of the Government eventually to reduce the use of police cells to zero, and I hope that the Minister will feel able to accept this modified amendment, which takes account of her concerns We got rid of discriminatory mental health legislation only a few years ago, and we are on a journey towards parity of esteem between physical and mental health. The Mental Health Act 1983 is now over 30 years old, and we need further to update how we treat people with mental health problems and enshrine that in statute. At least two police forces have now managed to reach the desirable target of zero use, which proves that use of police cells can be avoided even in exceptional circumstances, so we are not asking for something that has been shown to be impossible; we are asking for something that has been shown to be possible. But we appreciate that it requires the provision of more health-based places of safety, more training, better regulation, better partnership working and more diversionary strategies such as street triage That is why subsection (4) of the new clause, which my amendment would insert into the Bill, makes provision for delayed implementation until such time as the Secretary of State is convinced that everything is in place to ensure that there is no longer any need to take people in mental health crisis to a police cell for their assessment to be done. I appreciate that this was not strictly necessary, as implementation is dealt with elsewhere in the Bill, but I included it to make clear what I am asking for. I suggest that an implementation date of April 2019 is quite achievable When you are in a crisis, you need compassion and understanding and, with the best will in the world, the police are not the people to give that. That is why the police themselves are keen that the objective of my amendment is achieved as soon as possible. A mental health crisis is a mental health car crash. Nobody who broke their leg in a road accident would expect to be taken to a police station for triage; they would be taken to a health-based place of safety for their needs to be assessed and treated—in other words, an A&E department in hospital. We cannot say that we have achieved parity of esteem between physical and mental health if we continue to treat mental health emergencies in a different way from the way we treat physical emergencies. People detained in this way are not criminals and yet they are treated as such and feel distressed and confused, making it even more difficult to help them get well.