Baroness Berridge (Con)

My Lords, I support Amendments 44 and 66. The Joint Committee on which I serve recommended that community treatment orders be abolished for Part II patients. That recommendation is supported by organisations such as Mind. That is partly due to the awful racial disparity statistics—you are up to 11 times more likely to be under a CTO if you are from a black or Caribbean background—combined with a lack of evidence that CTOs reduce hospital admissions. It took a brave gulp, even as the Joint Committee, to recommend that. The independent review had not gone as far as that, but it was in the report of the Joint Committee. I, too, like the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, recognise the powerful speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Parminter, at Second Reading. I remember that, because of the extremely tight timetable the Joint Committee was given, it did not have time to consider in detail eating disorders or personality disorders, which was regrettable. I can see from the reasons the noble Baroness outlined that there may be a case for retaining CTOs, perhaps even just for eating disorders. To quote her words from Second Reading, a CTO “puts a boundary around the eating disorder … that a voluntary agreement could not, in that it makes it clear what will be the result”.—[Official Report, 25/11/24; col. 555.] The Bill outlines protocols for specific treatments, such as ECT, so it seems possible in principle to have the law apply to specific disorders. Most reluctantly, I have not made an amendment in Committee in support of the Joint Committee’s recommendation. But the independent review stated that “action is required”. We must not lose sight of that urgency. There are significant problems with CTOs. The argument that is proffered—that they help and are the least restrictive measure for a very small number of patients—is not a good basis for retaining them, bearing in mind the enormous harm they are doing on the other side. I ask the Minister to look for another way, going forward, to help this small group, and not to ask racialised communities to, once again, pay such a high cost for such a small group of patients. In the Joint Committee’s report, it seemed that the group of patients we were talking about were unrestricted patients under Part III of the Act. Bearing in mind that 79% of CTOs are under Part II, which is for civilian patients, can we look in detail at the evidence to find out which small group of patients we are talking about? There are particular issues, according to our report, if a restraint or restriction is being used on people when the small group of patients seems to be within the forensic context rather than under Part II. I ask the Minister to put CTOs where they need to be, as a result of these amendments. The independent review said that they should be in the last chance saloon. We must be careful not to lose the urgency that the independent review gave to these issues. Although I support Amendment 66, tabled by my noble friends, it is the very least we can do. The restrictions outlined in Amendment 44 are about ending them after a certain period, because part of the problem is that they go on and on, rolling over for years and years. That coercive effect on certain communities seems to remain, as the path of least resistance.