Peers Tell Government To Outlaw The Caste System In The UK

In a vote in the House of Lords peers defeated the government and said that discrimination on the grounds of caste should be outlawed in the UK. Peers backed an Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill amendment to add caste to race discrimination laws.

The government opposed the move, saying it had set up an education programme to tackle caste discrimination. Peers said this was not enough, and the law needed to be changed. The government was defeated by 256 to 153.

The defeat was the second of the day for the government, with peers also challenging the government over the role of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in promoting a more equal society.

You can read more on this story on the BBC News website here.

New Report On Mental Health Act In 2011/12 Published

Photograph by Damork

The Care Quality Commission’s annual monitoring report on use of the Mental Health Act has drawn attention to rising use of the Act both to detain people in hospital and to continue to use compulsory powers when they return home.

The number of people who have been detained has risen steadily each year since the 1983 Act was amended in 2007, while the introduction of community treatment orders is extending the use of compulsion when people are discharged.

The report shines a light on the way people are treated once they are detained. Like recent reports from Mind and Rethink Mental Illness, it describes wide variations in the quality of experience of detained patients.

It shows, for example, that a significant minority of detained patients are not involved in decisions about their treatment or in planning for their discharge from hospital.

The report also draws attention to the continued high rates of detention, and in particular the use of community treatment orders, among many Black and minority ethnic groups.
Worryingly, the report also finds that too few people are offered access to independent advocacy. Access to an advocate is a fundamental safeguard in the 2007 Mental Health Act and research by the Mental Health Alliance and others has identified a gap in provision of advocacy services, especially for some Black and minority ethnic communities.

The full report is available to read here: http://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/documents/cqc_mentalhealth_2011_12_main_final_web.pdf

Website of the Week: Justice

The Justice website is a UK Government website aimed at all those working within and reliant upon information produced by the justice system. The site contains many free to download publications and reports including:

• The latest justice related news
• Court, criminal justice and prison statistics
• Research and reports
• Guidance on a wide range of policy areas including freedom on information, human rights, prisons and probation, youth justice and protecting vulnerable adults
• Consultations on reforms & changes to the law