Ministers rethink Bill to lock up mentally ill

Ministers are being forced into an embarrassing climbdown over a proposed new law to lock up mentally disordered people who have committed no offence.

In the face of unprecedented opposition from professionals, patients and their own officials, and a five-month campaign by The Independent on Sunday, the Government has been forced to rethink the most controversial aspects of the Mental Health Bill.

The stakes are now so high that Professor Louis Appleby, the Government's mental health tsar, has indicated to colleagues he will resign if concessions are not made.

The Government has drawn up plans to refer the controversial Bill to a special "standing committee", set up to deal with complicated or troublesome Bills, before it is formally debated by MPs.

Ministers have been shaken by the strength of the opposition, which has united the Church, the medical and legal professions and patients' organisations who believe it is unworkable, unethical and inhumane. Tories, Liberal Democrats and backbench Labour MPs are expected to oppose it.

The King's Fund, the leading health think-tank, will warn this week that compulsory treatment will "turn back the clock" and deter vulnerable people with severe mental illness from seeking help.

But the Home Office believes it is a popular Bill aimed at protecting the public from dangerous psychopaths, and is determined to press ahead. On Thursday representatives of the Mental Health Alliance, a coalition of more than 50 groups opposed to the Bill, are to meet officials to discuss concessions that would be necessary to win their support.

The sticking point for opponents is the plan to incarcerate people with severe personality disorders who are judged to be dangerous. Early Home Office estimates put the number that could be pulled in at more than 14,000, which would overwhelm the psychiatric services and raise serious civil liberty issues.

Professor Appleby insisted at a meeting with Home Office officials on 23 October that the criteria must be drawn tightly so that only the most dangerous individuals, numbering a few hundred not already in prison or mental hospital, would be included. He also argued that only those who had committed a crime should be detained. If that was achieved, Department of Health officials believe opposition to the Bill would wilt.

But his stance inflamed David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, who accused health professionals and civil servants of trying to wreck the Government's plans. In a speech to the Zito Trust, Mr Blunkett said: "There has been a tradition of people thinking they can have a separate policy to the ministers they serve. They can't."