HC Deb 05 December 1975 vol 901 cc437-8W
Mr. Nicholas Winterton

asked the Secretary of State for Social Services if she will appoint a committee to review the procedures of the mental health review tribunals, with particular reference to any patient committed to a psychiatric hospital in the first instance for aggressive and uncontrollable behaviour or rape.

Mrs. Castle

The Committee on Mentally Abnormal Offenders under the Chairmanship of Lord Butler whose report (Cmnd. 6244) was published recently carried out a thorough review of the powers, procedure and facilities relating to the provision of appropriate treatment in prison, hospital or the community for offenders suffering from mental disorder or abnormality and to their discharge and aftercare. As my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and I have already announced, the Government are considering the committee's recommendations, many of which are far-reaching and have important financial and manpower implications. I do not at present see need for a further inquiry.

Where the court thinks it necessary for the protection of the public it already has power, when making a detention order under Section 60 of the Mental Health Act 1959, to make a further order that the patient shall be subject to the special restrictions set out in Section 65. In these cases the mental health review tribunals have no power of discharge. Instead they give advice to the Home Secretary and the ultimate decision on whether or not to discharge is his. My right hon. Friend has already indicated that he is giving urgent attention to the Butler Committee's recommendations regarding the introduction of further safeguards in the procedures relating to these "restricted" patients. So far as other offender patients are concerned the committee recommended that tribunals should not reach a formal decision that any mentally disordered offender patient should be discharged until they have established that whatever needs to be done to return him to as satisfactory a situation as possible in the community has, so far as may be practicable, been done. Copies of the committee's report has been sent to all chairmen of mental health review tribunals.

As the hon. Member may know, my Department, in conjunction with the Home Office, the Lord Chancellor's Department and the Welsh Office, is currently reviewing the Mental Health Act 1959, including its application to mental health review tribunals, to consider whether any legislative changes are desirable.