§ Dr. Charles Hillasked the Minister of Health whether he is aware that no relief is afforded by the Matrimonial Causes Act 1937, to a person whose wife or husband, having been a certified patient in a mental hospital, after an interval subsequently becomes a voluntary patient and is incurably of unsound mind; and whether he will introduce amending legislation so as to make available facilities for the release from the matrimonial yoke of a spouse who is incapable of enjoying normal matrimonial life through mental disability of the other spouse.
§ The Attorney-GeneralI have been asked by my right hon. Friend to reply.126W The Matrimonial Causes Act, 1937, enables a petition for divorce to be presented on the ground that the respondent is incurably of unsound mind and has been continuously under care and treatment for at least five years immediately preceding the presentation of the petition. For this purpose, a person is deemed to be under care and treatment while he is detained in pursuance of an order made under the Lunacy Acts (or under the corresponding legislation in force in Scotland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands) or while he is receiving treatment as a voluntary patient, being treatment which follows without any interval the period of detention already mentioned. If any interval occurs between the ending of the period of detention and the subsequent voluntary treatment it would normally relate to a period during which the patient was not regarded as insane and it would not, I think, be in the public interest to amend the law so as to permit a period of treatment as a voluntary patient to be taken into account in such circumstances.