Human rights, health and care in the next Parliamentary session

Several times a year, Parliament goes into “recess” – a period of time during which the House of Lords and the House of Commons don’t meet. This means that any bills (i.e. potential new laws) that are being debated are paused until Parliament starts back up again.

Parliament went into recess on 22^nd July and returns back on Monday, 1^st September. With the Houses back in business and bills back in progress, we’re expecting a number of developments that impact on the health and care sector and could have big implications for people’s human rights across the UK.

The Mental Health Bill

Calls to reform the Mental Health Act (the main law governing mental health treatment in England and Wales) go a long way back; the previous Government announced a review of the Act in 2018 and published a draft Mental Health Bill back in 2022 (but this was not passed into law before the change of government, so was automatically dropped). The current Government published the new Mental Health Bill in November 2024 and it’s expected to pass into law imminently.

What does it do?

Given how long it’s been in the pipeline, it’s no surprise that the Mental Health Bill is lengthy. It will make a number of changes to mental health law in England and Wales, particularly in relation to the way people are detained in hospital for mental health treatment. Notable changes include securing human rights protections where mental health aftercare is outsourced to private providers; and preventing people being detained under the Mental Health Act because they have a learning disability or autism. You can find out more in our Mental Health Bill & Human Rights explainer, available in Easy Read.

What stage is it in?

The Mental Health Bill started in the House of Lords and is going to Report Stage in the House of Commons. It has already been through the Committee Stage, where a group of MPs examines it line-by-line, and this next phase is where all MPs have an opportunity to debate and vote on the Bill.

What does it mean for human rights?

Any changes to the law must be underpinned by the UK’s Human Rights Act and should be informed by people with first-hand experience of the mental health system. BIHR worked with our co-production group, the RITES Committee, to submit evidence on the Bill to Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights and to attend a Lived Experience Roundtable as part of the Committee’s examination of the Bill. We’ve also teamed up with the National Care Forum to support an amendment to the Bill that ensures that independent care providers who are delivering inpatient or aftercare arranged by the NHS have a duty to uphold people’s human rights. 

From October, we’re running a three-part open course on embedding human rights in inpatient services for senior mental health professionals. The course includes a workshop co-delivered with a Lived Experience Expert and a guest talk from a former Human Rights Lead in an NHS mental health trust. You can find out more and apply for a space on our website.

SEND reforms

In September 2024, MP Richard Burgon led a debate in Parliament on Special Educational Needs & Disabilities (SEND) provision. The Minister of State for Education attended and acknowledged the SEND system is “in such desperate need of reform”. In June 2025, the Government said it planned to publish a paper setting out its plans to change the system for SEND support.

What does it do?

As of yet, the paper has not been published (it’s expected in autumn 2025), so we don’t know what the changes will look like. The Government said its goal is to “make the system more inclusive and improve outcomes for all children and young people” and that £760 million has been set aside for the reforms.

What stage is it in?

The paper itself won’t make any changes to laws or policies around SEND but will likely be followed by legislation to do so. Parliament’s Education Committee is also currently running an inquiry into “Solving the SEND Crisis”, which has now finished taking written evidence and heard oral evidence from the Department for Education on 1^st July 2025. The Committee is expected to put out a report on its findings although no date has been announced for this.

What does it mean for human rights?

State schools, academies and local authorities are public bodies that have legal duties under the Human Rights Act. They must respect, protect and fulfil the rights of the children and families they work with as far as is possible in all their actions. To support staff to understand these duties and how to put them into practice, BIHR run bespoke workshops for SEND information and advice support services (SENDIASS).

We’ve also created tools and resources to help families and supporters advocate for their rights. We worked with Parent & Carer Alliance to co-produce an in-depth guide to human rights and SEND as part of our nationwide Community Programme. We also have a six-part blog series that was led by a Human Rights Officer with experience working in SEND tribunals. It includes a guest blog from IPSEA Policy Manager and RITES Committee member Catriona and a template letter co-produced with Sheffield SENDIASS.

Reviewing equality law

In April 2025, the Government published a call for evidence asking for opinions on the way equality law is currently being applied in the UK. This is to follow-up on the promise it made in its manifesto (a document saying what a party plans to do if elected) to “break down barriers to opportunity”.

What does it do?

The consultation asked questions about a lot of different areas of equality law, including whether employers (including public bodies) should be required to report on pay gaps related to ethnicity and disability. It also asked how best to bring in a legal duty for public bodies to consider how they can reduce socio-economic disadvantages, and whether there are any problems with private organisations being contracted to deliver public services but not meeting the Public Sector Equality Duty (a duty on anyone carrying out public functions to consider how their actions will affect people with different protected characteristics).

What stage is it in?

The consultation has now closed and we’re waiting for the Government to release a report of its findings. These will then inform the Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which is expected to be published this year. It will have to go through all the normal stages of law-making and be debated by both MPs and Lords before it can pass into law.

What does it mean for human rights?

There are a lot of links between equality law and human rights law. For example, the Equality Act says that anybody who is carrying out a “public function” and so has duties under the Human Rights Act also has a Public Sector Equality Duty under the Equality Act. BIHR submitted a response to the Government’s call for evidence drawing on our work with public body workers and communities across the UK. We talked about some of the issues we’ve seen arising with public services being contracted out to private organisations, who often don’t know about their legal duties, which can lead to confusion for staff and worse outcomes for people accessing services. We recommended that the Government improve awareness and understanding of both the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act and provide tailored and practical training for people with legal duties.

Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill

In November 2024, MP Kim Leadbeater introduced the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill to Parliament. It is commonly referred to in the news as the “Assisted Dying Bill”. This is a private members’ bill, meaning that it wasn’t introduced by the Government.

What does it do?

If passed, this would change the law to allow terminally ill adults to request and be given assistance by doctors to end their own lives. The Bill defines someone as “terminally ill” if they have an “inevitably progressive illness or disease which cannot be reversed by treatment” and they are reasonably expected to die of that illness within six months.

What stage is it in?

The Bill has passed through the House of Commons and is due to start its Second Reading in the House of Lords this month. This will be the first opportunity for Lords to debate the Bill and make changes (which will have to be agreed by MPs before the Bill can pass into law).

What does it mean for human rights?

Human rights law doesn’t provide a clear-cut answer on the question of assisted dying but the issue has been examined by both UK courts and the European Court of Human Rights. BIHR created a briefing looking at key human rights that need to be factored in, such as the right to be free from inhuman or degrading treatment and the right to private life, alongside a plain-language breakdown of some of the leading legal cases in this area.

The British Institute of Human Rights (BIHR) is a UK-wide charity working with individuals, community groups, public bodies and policymakers to enable positive change through the practical use of human rights law. Over the last 10 years we have trained over 10,000 staff including frontline health and care staff, senior leaders commissioners and regulators on human rights law.