People with learning difficulties could have their civil rights infringed unless the definition of mental disorder within the draft Mental Health Bill is narrowed.

Conservative MP Angela Browning warned health minister Rosie Winterton that the bill's definition was too broad and risked covering people with learning difficulties and autism.

Browning told MPs scrutinising the bill that people with learning difficulties such as HL in the Bournewood case might be defined as having a mental disorder, making them eligible for lawful detention.

Last October, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that HL, who has autism, was detained unlawfully at Bournewood Hospital, Surrey, for five months because he could not discharge himself.

But Winterton said: "It is not our intention to show that people with learning disabilities would be brought under the Mental Health Act."
Meanwhile, the joint parliamentary committee on human rights has repeated its calls for the government to amend the Mental Capacity Bill to accommodate the Bournewood judgement.