§ 83. Sir ROBERT NEWMANasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that over 30,000 women patients of unsound mind are detained in borough and county mental hospitals where there is no lady member on the visiting committee; and whether he proposes to take any steps to make it compulsory, if necessary by legislation, that in all these public institutions where women of unsound mind are detained there shall be some of their own sex on the visiting committees?
Mr. CHAMBERLAINThe hon. Member is no doubt aware that a Clause was 1516 included in the Mental Treatment Bill which I prepared and had introduced in another place in 1923, requiring that two members at least of every visiting committee should be women. The importance of the presence of women on visiting committees is fully recognised, and the matter has already been brought to the notice of the Royal Commission on Lunacy and Mental Disorder.