§ Mr. Evelyn Kingasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he expects the report of the Lord Butler inquiry into the law and treatment of mental offenders to be published.
§ Mr. Roy JenkinsAn interim report was received from the Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders in April, and is being presented to Parliament as a Command Paper today. I understand that the committee hopes to submit its final report in 1975.
The committee has thought it right to submit an interim report in order to make early recommendations on the need for regional secure hospital units in the National Health Service. The report calls attention to the inadequacy of present facilities within the National Health Service for the containment of psychiatric patients who cannot be satisfactorily treated in an open hospital but who do not need the degree of security provided by the special hospitals. It recommends urgent action to establish security units in each regional health authority area and a direct allocation of central Government funds for this purpose. Supplementary proposals are made on such matters as the size, location and staffing of the units.
My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Services and I are very 221W grateful to Lord Butler and his colleagues for the careful and urgent attention which they have given to this matter. We fully share the committee's concern to see an early improvement in the provision of secure facilities outside the special hospitals, and my right hon. Friend is announcing in answer to another Question today the action she has taken to promote this.