Mental Health Bill is back on the agenda

The Government will press ahead with controversial reforms of mental health laws, Alan Milburn, the Secretary of State for Health, insisted yesterday.

The absence of a draft Mental Health Bill from the Queen's Speech had fuelled speculation that the planned reform was being dropped in the face of widespread anger.

Critics have complained that its proposed draconian powers – enabling the detention of people with severe personality disorders even if they had not committed a crime – breached human rights.

But Mr Milburn insisted the plans had merely been delayed because the Government was still considering 2,000 responses for reforming current laws.

He told MPs: "The laws today are rooted in the 1950s. We need to strike a better balance between safeguarding the rights of individual patients and protecting both patients and the public.

"The draft Bill we issue for consultation, after we consulted through a Green Paper and a White Paper, has produced around 2,000 responses. When we have finished considering those responses we will bring forward a Bill during the course of this session."

Mr Milburn said rules that prevented doctors forcing individuals to have treatment in the community had to be changed.

"We have the absurdity today where ... legislation as it is today does not allow compulsory treatment, for the small minority of patients that need it, in the community.

"Doctors have got to wait until patients become so seriously ill and are a threat to themselves or others and have got to be admitted to hospital to compulsorily treat them – in a world where most treatment takes place in the community rather than in hospital.

"That is a palpable nonsense and it is neither good for the patient ... nor the community and it is that we have to change.

For the Liberal Democrats, Evan Harris welcomed the Health Secretary's comments. "I think the Government is taking the right approach, to look at the consultation, and, I hope, bring the Bill back in a more acceptable form," he said.

Liam Fox, the shadow Health Secretary, said the Conservatives would fight plans to reintroduce the Government's proposed mental health legislation, branding it the "personality disorder Bill".