§ Mr. HeppellTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when he will publish the outcome of the Government's consultation on its proposals for managing dangerous people with severe personality disorders; and what progress has been made on them. [135201]
§ Mr. BoatengI refer my hon. Friend, to the reply I gave him on 28 July 2000,Official Report, columns 1167–68W.
The Government's proposals for those who are Dangerous and Severely Personality Disordered (D and SPD) address a longstanding challenge to public safety by ensuring that effective powers of detention and high quality services are available to deal with this group. The consultation period for these proposals ended on 31 December 1999. A summary of the analysis of the consultation will today be placed in the Library together with copies of individual responses, where permission to publish was not withheld.
Of those expressing a preference, the majority of respondents to the consultation exercise preferred option B as the more effective way of providing high quality services for this group. The Home Affairs Committee in its report published on 14 March strongly supported option B. The Government attach great weight to these views. However, the Government have decided that before taking final decisions on how best to provide services for this group in the long term, they need to pilot and to evaluate the assessment process and the various treatments available for this group within existing service structures. This period of piloting and evaluation will however take place at the same time as the expansion of dedicated specialist facilities within both the Prison Service and the National Health Service (NHS) and the introduction, as soon as parliamentary time permits, of new powers of detention for the assessment and treatment of this group.
Following the recent Spending Review, I announced during the summer the allocation of substantial resources to pilot and develop new services for those who are D and SPD. This will mean 320 new specialist secure places across the Prison Service and the NHS by the end of the Spending Review period. The first pilot project at Her Majesty's Prison Whitemoor in the Prison Service has already begun and the first NHS pilot at Rampton Hospital will commence in November.
At the same time, we are pressing ahead with the preparations for those legislative changes which will be required under either option. For example, arrangements 127W for the assessment process and detention, and for safeguards and review, will apply whether those detained are held in existing services or in a new third service.
Following the recent review of the Mental Health Act 1983, the Government believe that these changes can be made as part of wider changes to that Act. The effective implementation of new arrangements will require the provision of new, high quality, specialist services for this group which will be part of the process of service development and piloting. Access to these services will be managed through a plan of care and treatment appropriate to the individual. Subject to the results of the pilot projects, these powers would be available for this group as soon as they have been implemented. As my earlier reply indicated, these proposals will be published in detail in a White Paper before Christmas.