Baroness Barker (LD)

I thank the Minister for her characteristically full and attentive response. I understand why she is not too enamoured by my amendment, and I do not intend to push that much further. However, having listened to her response to the noble Baroness, Lady May, I cannot help but arrive at the conclusion that, while we are quite content, because we all agree, to see police officers being taken away, we are not going to change anybody else’s roles or responsibilities to plug what will be an inevitable gap. I return to something I have said today and previously: this will be the only mental health legislation for 20 years. If we let this go through, in the certain knowledge that we are creating a big gap which will not be filled by existing roles or the deployment of people within the NHS, we are being quite negligent. We are consigning a lot of people to finding themselves without appropriate support at moments of distress, and that goes for staff who happen to be around at the same time. The noble Baroness, Lady May, is a fan of Geoffrey Boycott. I hope that she goes in to bat again and does not give up. There is an enormous gap here and we have just made it worse.