Parliament returns: what legislation is coming down the track?

The Labour government will have been in power two months when parliament returns today.

We have already seen a King’s Speech and a statement on the public finances. So, what legislation is coming down the track?

Mental Health Bill

The Government has committed to legislate to modernise the Mental Health Act. The Briefing Note that accompanied the King’s Speech says it is “woefully out of date” and explains that “The Bill will make it fit for the 21st century so that patients have greater choice, autonomy, rights and support, and make sure all patients are treated with dignity and respect throughout their treatment.”

Key commitments include:

• ensuring that detention and treatment under the Mental Health Act takes place only when necessary;

• further limiting the extent to which people with a learning disability and/or autistic people can be detained and treated;

• strengthening the voice of patients;

• strengthening and improving the statutory roles;

• removing police stations and prisons as places of safety under the Mental Health Act; and

• supporting offenders with severe mental health problems to access the care they need

Of perhaps concern however is the other point in the briefing when the Government says that MHA reforms will take a number of years to implement, as they will need to recruit and train more clinical and judicial staff. They plan to introduce these reforms in “phases as resources allow, and we will not commence new powers unless we have sufficient staff in place that means it is safe to do so.”

A draft Mental Health Bill was brought forward by the previous government. We’ll have to wait and see what the draft legislation will look like.

Hillsborough Law and Martyn’s Law

Both are set to have a significant impact on the legal world of inquests and inquiries, and both have been driven into existence largely due to the campaigning of numerous bereaved families nationwide.

The Bill aims to change the culture in the public sector by:

• improving transparency and accountability;

• reducing the culture of defensiveness; and

• helping ensure that the lack of candour uncovered in recent reports is not repeated

Read more here.

Cyber Security and Resilience Bill

Whilst the detail has yet to be published, the Bill is a response to recent cyber-attacks on hospitals, universities, local authorities, democratic institutions and government departments.  The Government intends to expand the remit of the existing legislation by:

• bringing more services and supply chains within scope;
• strengthening regulatory powers, including to allow cost recovery and proactive investigation;and
• requiring a wider range of incident reporting, including where an organisation or company has been held to ransom.

While we wait for the new Cyber Security Bill to be published it is important that commissioners, providers and digital health suppliers act on the essence of the Bill. Steps should be taken now to reduce vulnerabilities of your technology and organisation by meeting security standards such as Cyber Essentials, the Data Security Protection Toolkit and security criteria within the Digital Technology Assessment Criteria.

Digital Information and Smart Data Bill

The Bill will:

• enable new innovative uses of data to be safely developed and deployed;
• help public services work better for everyone by reforming data sharing and standards;
• support the important work of scientists and researchers. “Scientists will be able to ask for broad consent for areas of scientific research, and allow legitimate researchers doing scientific research in commercial settings to make equal use of our data regime.”;and
• modernise the structure of the Information Commissioner’s Office and give the ICO stronger powers.

The detail will include measures to establish digital identity verification services and smart data schemes to assist with data sharing. There will also be measures to help coroners access online/social media information when investigating a child’s death. A number of these measures had featured in the various Data Protection and Digital Information Bills published under the Johnson and Sunak administrations; the Parliamentary majority of the Starmer Government means the latest proposals should now reach the statute book.