We appreciate that many mental health inpatients under 18 are informal patients and that advocacy plays a vital role in supporting choice and the person as an individual. The Bill already extends the right to an independent mental health advocate to informal patients, and this includes children and young people. It also places a new duty on hospital managers to inform them of this right. This means that hospital managers will be expected to proactively approach all patients, including children and young people, and others such as their parents or carers, to make sure they know that they are entitled to an advocate and help them to appoint one. Extending the opt-out model to informal children and young people who are in hospital informally would have cost and capacity implications. We have prioritised this for compulsory patients who are under greater restrictions and so are likely to need higher levels of support from advocates. As independent mental health advocacy services for informal patients will be a new requirement, we will also be describing in the revised Mental Health Act Code of Practice the new role for these advocates in relation to informal patients. This will include in relation to vulnerable inpatient groups such as children and young people, people from ethnic minority backgrounds, and people with a learning disability or autistic people. Committee View We agree with witnesses that children under 16 may be denied the opportunity to benefit from the rights provided by the Bill if their ability to make decisions for themselves is not properly assessed. Clarity in such assessments is therefore important. We support the call from the Joint Committee on the Draft Mental Health Bill for the Government to consult on the introduction of a statutory test for competency, or “child capacity”, for children aged under 16.