Speaker's Conference (on Parliamentary Representation) Contents


Submission from Rethink (SC-78)

  Rethink is the leading national mental health membership charity, and we work to help everyone affected by severe mental illness recover a better quality of life. We have over 8,300 members and support around 50,000 people each year through our services, support groups and by providing information on mental health.

  Given our close links with people affected by severe mental illness and our long-standing efforts to fully involve them in our campaigning work, we know that our beneficiaries seek a more representative Parliament with members who both understand mental illness and feel able to talk about their own experiences of it.

  We believe that this conference offers a significant opportunity to eliminate the discriminatory legislation which prevents people with experience of mental illness from standing for Parliament and hope that it will consider action to encourage greater and more open discussions in Parliament of the ways in which mental illness has impacted on the lives of hon. Members, their families and friends. We would like to ensure the following issues are considered.

REPEAL SECTION 141 OF THE MENTAL HEALTH ACT

  Under section 141 of the 1983 Mental Health Act, an MP can be removed from their seat if they are detained under the powers of the Act for six months or more. There is no provision for any hearing and no locus for the MP to represent themselves. This procedure therefore breaches Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as incorporated in the Human Rights Act 1998. Interestingly, no equivalent provisions deal with members of the House of Lords.

  Also, no such provision exists for when people are hospitalised with a physical illness so this legislation carries symbolic weight and reinforces the notion that people affected by mental illness are incapable of work and unlikely to recover. Former Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik proved this to be untrue when he spoke to the UK Parliament about his experience of mental ill health when in office as he recovered and went on to be re-elected for a second term.

  As Earl Howe stated:

    "Section 141 is about the most blatant piece of discrimination against mental illness as it is possible to imagine in statute. What message would be sent out if it were ever invoked? The message would be that mental illness is equivalent to gross misconduct, on which the Speaker would have no alternative but to take drastic disciplinary action. It would be equivalent to saying that being mentally ill makes you unfit to work and unfit to represent your constituency. I cannot believe that that is what we want the law to require the Speaker in the other place to do, so I very much hope that the Government will think again about Section 141".[220]

  Such a law clearly undermines people's confidence to stand for election and become a Member of Parliament. We therefore urge the Speaker's Conference and the Government to repeal Section 141 of the Mental Health Act and remove this outdated and discriminatory ban.

STIGMA SURROUNDING MENTAL ILLNESS

  The stigma surrounding mental health problems is all pervasive with 9 out of 10 people saying they have experienced discrimination at home, in work and in the community.[221] The first step in challenging it is by bringing mental health into the open, and talking about its impact in the same way that we would physical conditions like cancer or heart disease.

  A recent anonymous survey from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health found that one in five MPs who responded had some personal experience of a mental health problem. However, most felt unable to share their experiences and viewed work-based stigma and a hostile media reaction as barriers to greater openness:

    "We have seen huge changes in attitudes towards homosexuality and transgender since people became more open… a similar transformation could take place if more people touched by mental illness talked about their experiences."[222] Anonymous MP

  At the recent launch of our Time to Change campaign in Parliament, MPs told Rethink that they had experienced mental illness themselves, but that they would not feel able to speak openly about this for fear of the repercussions in the media, from colleagues in the House and from their constituents. Such a strong response highlights that Parliament needs to change. It will never appear representative if those MPs who do share some of our members' experiences feel unable to talk about them openly. Also, MPs cannot possibly represent people affected by mental illness if they are ashamed of being associated with it themselves. This message has come out strongly through our 'Rethink Politics' project.

RETHINK POLITICS

  Working with the Electoral Commission, we are currently undertaking "Rethink Politics", a three-year campaign to increase the political awareness and participation of people affected by mental illness. This work aims to address the issues of democratic disengagement within the mental health community.

  This project has trained over 200 service users and carers to better understand democratic processes and has brought them into direct contact with a range of elected officials including MPs and Ministers. The frequent feedback we received following these events with politicians was that their MPs seem much more accessible, "like real people".[223] As such, we recommend more work of this kind whereby Members of Parliament spend more time meeting with constituents, particularly those who might be prone to social exclusion, to ensure that they understand the political system and how they can engage with it.

  Participants have voiced concerns about politicians seeming to have a low level of awareness about mental illness. In our research for this project, one participant noted the following:

    "I have always played my part in voting. What really puts me off politicians is discrimination and them not understanding or listening to all of the issues, especially from people with mental illness".[224]

  This project has also highlighted members concerns that politicians appear to be immune to mental illness as they do not openly discuss it in relation to themselves or their families (as noted above). Either through politicians not raising these issues, or people with mental health problems being less likely to enter Parliament, it appears that there are significant groups that are either under represented or completely lacking in representation. As one in four people will be affected by mental health problems we feel that this is a failure to reflect Britain in the House of Commons and this undermines its legitimacy.

  This is exactly the kind of under representation that must be tackled. We therefore urge the Speaker's conference to focus on these issues to help ensure that the Commons is truly representative of British society. Rethink would welcome an opportunity to offer oral evidence to the conference, or to invite a mental health service user or carer to speak to the conference to outline their views.

  Alongside this response, we enclose the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health's report, Mental health in Parliament which offers further detail on some of these points.[225]







220   Mental Health In Parliament (2008), Report by the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mental Health. Back

221   Stigma Shout: Service user and carer experiences of stigma and discrimination, (2008), Time to Change. Back

222   Ibid. Back

223   Rethink Politics evaluation (2008), Rethink, unpublished. Back

224   Your Shout (2007), Rethink Politics, unpublished. Back

225   Information provided, not printed. Back


 
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