Mental Health Bill [HL]

My Lords, I strongly endorse this amendment; if accepted, it would meet one of the three or four most serious concerns expressed at earlier stages of the Bill about the legal process required to renew a detention order. The noble Baroness has put the case very well. I believe the case is unanswerable. I am delighted that the Government have signalled their willingness to consider the amendment positively but, like the noble Baroness, I believe that there is a potential problem with the amendment because it does not explicitly require the second person to conduct an examination of the patient. I very much hope that no clinician would be satisfied that the conditions have been met other than by an examination. It would be wrong for this provision to allow the responsible clinician to get someone in the team just to rubber-stamp his or her view. The second opinion needs to be a separate independent decision, and I hope that the code of practice will reflect that.