The Health Secretary has responded to the widespread disappointment expressed by mental health charities at the exclusion of a mental health bill from the Queen's Speech for the second year running. He reiterated the government's commitment to reforming existing legislation.

John Reid said that a revised bill would be brought forward for pre-legislative scrutiny "as soon as possible". "This government is fully committed to reforming mental health legislation," he said.

In order to achieve government objectives, it was "vital", he said, to get the legislation right. "To that end, it is important that a strong part is played by Parliament in scrutinising the bill. I am therefore pleased to be able to say that a revised bill will be brought forward for pre-legislative scrutiny as soon as possible," Reid said.

The Chair of the Mental Health Alliance, Paul Farmer, said that the government's decision was an "important sign" that ministers had listened to the concerns of alliance members, service users and carers: "We hope this will be reflected in the new draft bill when it is published. However, we must wait until we see if the new bill contains significant revisions capable of achieving a broad consensus."

The health minister, Rosie Winterton, said that the government was aware that many stakeholders expressed concerns about last year's draft bill and "while I believe that many of these concerns are based on misperceptions of the bill, I am keen to do all that is possible to ensure that we legislate on a sound basis".

The major objections to the draft bill centred around its civil liberty implications on compulsory treatment ? particularly proposals to change the definition of mental disorder so that personality disordered people would no longer be excluded from such treatment on the grounds that they were "untreatable".

Concern was also expressed in November by a joint NHS Confederation and Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health report, which warned that the proposals could lead to a 50 per cent rise in the number of tribunal hearings and a doubling of the workload associated with the legislation for psychiatrists, social workers and administrative staff, placing an "intolerable strain on already hard pressed mental health services".

However Winterton said that there would "be no reform without a workforce to deliver it". The minister also said that she wanted "to set up a programme of monitoring and research into the use of compulsion, which I believe will address the fears about the bill".