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Press Release

28th November 2003 - For immediate release:

BACK TO THE DRAWING-BOARD WITH THE DRAFT MENTAL INCAPACITY BILL

ALERT's comments:

The report of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the draft Mental Incapacity Bill, published today (Friday 28th November 2003) commended the Bill in glowing terms but admitted "More work needs to be done to get it right."

The committee had heard a torrent of expert evidence from bodies ranging from the Law Society to the Royal College Of Psychiatrists, pointing out exactly what was wrong with the Bill, and had received cries of alarm from many members of the public.

CALL IT MARY JANE?

Lord Carter, the chairman, writes in his report "The Committee are satisfied that nothing in the draft Bill will permit euthanasia." (A minority report was not allowed.) There is no need to fight over terms - you could call it Mary Jane - as long as it is clear that the draft Bill puts into statute form the 1993 judge-made law that doctors may starve and dehydrate incapacitated patients to death, without any prior request from the patient. This is incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, now incorporated into U.K. law.

REDUCING AVERAGE LIFE-SPAN

ALERT, which has been campaigning against the Mental Incapacity Bill since the idea was launched by the Law Commission in 1995, believes its real purpose is very different from the ethos of those organisations that have welcomed it. Few of these aim to shorten the average life of retired people (which would be the main effect of the Bill). Legal language can fool the layman.

People with disability - and others also - have rightly argued against the frightening effect of the proposed "general authority".

CONSULTATION - WHAT'S THAT?

The report makes much of the process of consultation that preceded the drafting of the Bill. Andy Berry, who attended most of the meetings of the "Consultative Forum", says: "They really didn't consult - that's where you listen and change things to reflect people's concerns - they just told us what they were thinking of doing."

"If this is to be the style of consultation in Tony Blair's 'Big Conversation' then I'm not expecting any changes in government policy". 

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