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Paul Goggins: Patient confidentiality clearly raises some issues, but conditions can be laid down in relation to a particular offender when they are released from prison or hospital. A line must be drawn, but the provisions that we are introducing today make it clear that victims can be kept informed, where that is their wish, about whether the offender is released from hospital or prison. Although the provisions are complex and lengthy, I am convinced that they give us the cover that we need.
The second set of provisions requires the local probation board to keep the victim informed of decisions on discharge, and the Home Secretary and the mental health review tribunal to provide the board with the information that it needs to meet that requirement.
The remainder of the amendments are technical changes to clauses 36 to 40, to effect the structure.
Mr. Grieve: I do not want to take up the House's time. I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for taking on board the point that emerged in Committee that victims need to be kept informed about the release of patients who may be subject to restrictions under the Mental Health Act 1983. I hope that he will forgive me if I emphasise that the rules are complicated; I trust that they will achieve the desired effect. I have no reason from reading them to believe that they will not.
At the risk of repeating of myself, there is an issue about the amount of information that can be provided. I want to highlight the point so that it is placed on the
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record. It is clear that, in many cases, the release of someone who may have committed a violent offence may be intimately linked to the extent of the improvement of their mental condition while under treatment in hospital. Yet difficult ethical issues surround the amount of information and reassurance that can be provided to a victim about the offender's mental condition. I do not know how that will be resolved in practice. I do not know whether guidelines will be issued about the amount of information that can be supplied.
I can envisage a position whereby those who treat a patient, who is subject to restriction, in a mental hospital or psychiatric unit will feel constrained about what they can properly say without breaching patient confidentiality. That is not to diminish what the Government are trying to do, but I wonder whether it will prove problematic in practice. I assume that a victim can be given only the barest information that someone is due to be released and that the authorities are satisfied that that person does not currently pose a risk. The victim will inevitably ask, "Why do you believe that?" With the release of an ordinary prisoner, it might be possible to provide more information, but in the case that we are considering, there may be some problems with giving the information that people want. That is a problem for the Under-Secretary and it will be interesting to observe how the provisions work in practice. Subject to those comments, I welcome the amendments.
Mr. David Heath (Somerton and Frome) (LD): I also welcome the proposals' intent. I share with the hon. Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) the view that there may be difficulties in implementation. Obviously, when conditions attach to an individual's release, specific information can be given to the victim. Indeed, new clause 13 lists such information. There is an ancillary matter, which is associated with the point that the hon. Member for Beaconsfield made, about medical assessments of the perpetrator's current mental condition. That is more difficult to define.
Are there any restrictions on the victim's use of information? In some circumstances, victims may wish to go to the local press and media and broadcast the fact that the person who caused them or their family a great deal of grief and anguish is to be released and is in the vicinity. It is an understandable reaction and, whatever conditions apply, they may believe that they have a story to tell. It may be published and that could pose difficulties for the offender's rehabilitation. One can foresee great difficulties only too easily.
However, if the information is given on restricted terms—I am not clear from the amendments that that is the case—further questions arise about the extent to which the information can be shared with, for example, Victim Support, which might be a helpful organisation in the circumstances; a local general practitioner; anyone who might want to provide counselling to the victim; or the local police, who were not directly involved in the case but have a locus standi.
We have important concerns about the operation of the proposals but we do not oppose the intent, which is clearly right.
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Paul Goggins: The provisions do not allow for the disclosure of personal medical information or specific information about an individual's mental health. They ensure that the victim has the right to make representations about the conditions that will apply when the offender is released. They can be given simple factual information, namely, that the individual has been released from hospital or prison and the details of any prohibitions on contact.
The hon. Member for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) asked about restrictions on the use of the information. I need to check that and I shall contact him later. I understand that there are no strict legal limits, although it is good sense that people do not share the information. The point of providing it is to reduce rather than accelerate anxiety. If the information is passed to the media, it can serve only to heighten anxiety. That is not in the victim's interest. Of course, it would be useful if a victim could disclose the information to Victim Support and get some additional support. I shall examine the hon. Gentleman's point. As far as I can tell at this stage, there are no strictly enforced legal limitations, but common sense dictates that the closer the information is kept, the better.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause 11
'(1) This section applies if section 36 applies.
(2) Subsection (3) applies if a person who appears to the relevant local probation board to be the victim of the offence or to act for the victim of the offence—
(a) when his wishes were ascertained under section 36(4), expressed a wish to receive the information specified in section 36(6), or
(b) has subsequently informed the relevant local probation board that he wishes to receive that information.
(3) The relevant local probation board must take all reasonable steps—
(a) to inform that person whether or not the patient is to be subject to any conditions in the event of his discharge;
(b) if he is, to provide that person with details of any conditions which relate to contact with the victim or his family;
(c) if the restriction order in respect of the patient is to cease to have effect, to notify that person of the date on which it is to cease to have effect;
(d) to provide that person with such other information as the board considers appropriate in all the circumstances of the case.
(4) The Secretary of State must inform the relevant local probation board—
(a) whether the patient is to be discharged;
(b) if he is, whether he is to be discharged absolutely or subject to conditions;
(c) if he is to be discharged subject to conditions, what the conditions are to be;
(d) if he has been discharged subject to conditions—
(i) of any variation of the conditions by the Secretary of State;
(ii) of any recall to hospital under section 42(3) of the Mental Health Act 1983 (c.20);
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(e) if the restriction order is to cease to have effect by virtue of action to be taken by the Secretary of State, of the date on which the restriction order is to cease to have effect.
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