§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD MONK BRETTONMy Lords, this is a very short one-clause Bill which, I hope, will not detain your Lordships long. It is intended to amend a defect in the Mental Deficiency Act, 1913. It may be remembered that that Act established a judicial authority which could make an order to put a mentally deficient person into an institution of detention or under guardianship. That was a judicial authority given to the County Court Judge or Stipendiary Magistrate. The Act further provided that where an order had been made placing a mentally defective person under guardianship, the judicial authority could make another order, if necessary, to transfer the person from guardianship to the greater restriction of detention. What the Act did not 1187 do was this: it did not provide that the judicial authority should make an order to transfer the other way, from detention to guardianship. In the working of this Act it has been found that many of these unfortunate persons, after they have been in detention for some time, are so much improved in health that they might with advantage be transferred to guardianship, though they are not well enough to be liberated. That is what this Bill is intended to do.
I believe there are many cases of that kind, and it is desirable that this power should be given to the judicial authority. It will enable many of these poor people to lead happier lives under guardianship than they at present may do under detention, and it has the additional advantage to the local authority, which is interested on the score of expense, that it is an economical matter, because guardianship is very much cheaper to arrange for than is detention. This Bill has the approval of the Central Association for Mental Welfare. It has passed the other House of Parliament without amendment, and, I believe, without any opposition whatever. It is a one-clause measure. If your Lordships wish to object to it in any way you can do so as well in Committee as you can now: therefore I hope your Lordships will at once give it a second reading. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Lord Monk Bretton.)
§ VISCOUNT HALDANEMy Lords, I do not see why this Bill should not be passed. When an unfortunate person can be safely taken from the institution to which he has been committed, it is an improvement to put him under guardianship. All that is in accordance with the tendency of the time. The Bill has passed the other House, it has been approved, at any rate, by substantial authority, and unless the Government see some special reason for objecting to it I think it is a measure that might very well be passed.
§ THE EARL OF PLYMOUTHMy Lords, on behalf of the Ministry of Health I need only say that they accept this Bill. They look upon it as a rectification of the omission in the Act of 1913. It is entirely uncontroversial from other points of view, and the Government are therefore prepared to accept it.
§ On Question, Bill read 2a; and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.