New bill will help remove the mental health stigma

We live in a world of the Big Policy Statement, the highly crafted (if deeply unwise) videoed apology, and enormous public rows where spokesmen do battle against lobbyists, lobbyists rend PR persons limb from limb, and the grinding of axes is deafening. Whatever one thinks of Mr Mitchell and the Met, it is pretty clear that other agendas are being fought there, and that the natural alliance between the police and the conservatives is more strained by austerity measures than supported by principle. But it is all very large – front pages and social media are clogged now with GateGate, taking its turn in the limelight in the stream of political or celebrity ‘scandals’ or ‘hot news’ as if things only matter if they are tawdry at least and sensational at best. Is small no longer beautiful? Have people forgotten the clichés that make sense of an inorganic world: great oaks from little acorns grow – or many a mickle makes a muckle? (for translation refer to author if required).

Discrimination areas

One small acorn with the potential to be an oak is a very small Bill. It will be, when passed, a very small Act. It has three substantive sections, and one Schedule applying its provisions to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It is the Mental Health (Discrimination) No 2 Bill, a private members bill introduced by Gavin Barwell in June, which had its second reading on 14 September and has now gone to public committee stage. It started life in the Lords in 2011, but ran out of time and was reintroduced this summer.

It tackles three primary areas of discrimination against people with mental health problems – in Parliament, as jurors in court, and as company directors. Under section 141 of the Mental Health Act any MP, MSP, or member of the National Assemblies of Northern Ireland and Wales who is sectioned for a period of more than six months automatically loses his or her seat. Under Schedule 1 of the Juries Act 1974 there is a blanket ban on ‘mentally disordered persons’ sitting on juries. A mentally disordered person is defined as anyone suffering from mental illness, psychopathic disorder, mental handicap or severe mental handicap and who, on account of that condition is resident in a hospital or similar institution or who regularly attends for treatment by a medical practitioner. The width of that covers anyone who visits their doctor every three months for counselling for anxiety or depression, or who takes medication which stabilises their condition so that they function fully in society. The Companies Model Regulations 2008 state that a person might cease to be a director of a public ?or private company ‘by reason of their mental health’.

Clause 1 repeals section 141 in its entirety. Clause 2 substitutes a bar for those liable to be detained under the Mental Health Act 1983 or who are resident in hospital at the time of the proposed jury service. Clause 3 repeals the provision of termination of an appointment as a director on grounds of mental health.

Removing the stigma

What is so good about this Bill is not just the practical result it will have, but the removal of discriminatory stigma. It is certainly not about Parliament protecting its own – section 141 has never been used to de-seat an MP, although MPs believe it has had a deterrent effect on MPs seeking help when they should, and may well have deterred people from standing in the first place.

Banned jurors are another matter – it is estimated that about 9,000 potential jurors have fallen foul of the prejudice inherent in the old legislation. And it is prejudice pure and simple: obviously a defendant is entitled to be tried by people who are capable of understanding and analysing the evidence rationally, but he is also entitled to be tried by people who live in the difficult real world, where 1 in 4 of us will suffer from some degree of mental illness during our lives.

And that ‘1 in 4’ figure has also benefited from the passage of this Bill so far. It is a ?much-cited statistic, which is always, somehow, still, about ‘Other People’, who are somewhere else. When the Bill was introduced in June 2012, MPs rose to claim their place in that statistic. They spoke of their private struggles and their dark days. In public! In Parliament! In front of people who might despise them for weakness! It took courage, and did what Parliament ideally should – set an example, and reflect the life outside those mock Gothic walls.

And I look forward to trials before juries who are more likely than ever before to properly understand the reality of defendants who are themselves one of that famous four.