The UK has become more violent. There are occasional homicides by people with mental illness, because they are part of society. But the numbers are very low. Homicides of strangers by people with mental health problems number about two a year and in the vast majority of cases the killers do not have symptoms at the time of the offence. Alcohol and drugs are more likely to be implicated as causes of homicide than symptoms of mental illness.

The increase in homicides and violence in the UK is not accounted for by people with mental illness. They are more likely to be victims. In fact the rate of homicides by people with mental illness in the UK has risen at a slower rate than homicides generally.

Given these statistics you may think that the imperative for government would be to produce a Bill to protect the mentally ill from neglectful services and a vicious public. But instead it has produced a Draft Mental Health Bill which is nothing to do with mental health and more to do with public safety.

Under the brave new world of the Bill, you would not have to be mentally ill to be detained and treated in hospital. No definition of mental illness is given. Added to this, your "mental disorder" would not have to be amenable to treatment for you to lose your liberty. You do not even have to have committed an offence; you just have to be considered at risk of committing an offence.

This produces the ludicrous situation where you could be detained almost indefinitely by doctors for a mental disorder which does not exist, to get treatment that does not work, for things that you have not yet done.

For some patients, their psychiatrist would be their gaoler. Locking people up who are a danger to society is what the prison justice system does. Treating people with illnesses should be what doctors do.

A major problem is that there is no robust system of risk assessment. Thousands of people may be detained for years, but this may not make any impact on the rate of homicides or suicides.

Under the new system, like the old, those who are detained would have the right to appeal; indeed every patient would automatically have a tribunal after 28 days. But these tribunals would consist of a layperson, a legal member and a psychiatrist, not a jury. So the socially excluded person with a mental disorder loses their liberty and also their right to a normal legal process.

It could be argued that such powers would be used only for people who are a real risk to society, but written into the Bill is a new power. Community treatment orders would allow people to be treated by community mental health teams against their will in the comfort of their own homes. How can you be so ill and dangerous that you have your human rights taken away but well enough to live in the community?

Though it has taken seven years to get this far, the parliamentary scrutiny committee has suggested a major rewrite. Of course such legislation is difficult to draft, but the Government has made it even more difficult by ignoring professional advice. The Draft Mental Health Bill is opposed by almost all care-giving groups. The only good thing that has come out of it so far is that patients, carers, charities, voluntary groups, nurses, and the Royal College of Psychiatry have buried old animosities to come together and fight it under the banner of the Mental Health Alliance.

All these groups recognise that whatever way the current Bill is dressed up, it will not ensure that people with mental illness get access to prompt, high-quality mental health care. It builds on the mad, bad and dangerous stereotype to ensure that people suspected of being a risk to the public or themselves are locked up.

The Government believes that tough restrictive laws like the Terror Bill and the Draft Mental Health Bill reflect public sentiment.

Times Recommends

• Lies and cover-up at MG Rover exposed by report
• High oil prices push manufacturing costs up
• Primark founder steps down as chief executive