| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mrs. Gillan:
The hon. Gentleman seeks to make a point that I thought we had dispensed with earlier. I am delighted and thrilled with the proposals that the Government have made. Those proposals are going to
go ahead. The Bill is a vehicle for us to examine those proposals and consider the detail. It is no more than people deserve. The Minister has nothing to fear from a Committee stage for the Bill. In fact, he has everything to gain from it, because he will be able to showcase what the Government are doing. That would be a golden opportunity for the Minister and his colleagues. He is not going to tell me that he cannot be bothered to spend the time in Committee, because I know that that is not the case. He is devoted to advancing the programme, so he has nothing to fear from the Bill.
Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): As a vice-chairman of the all-party group on autism, I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the Bill. The first case that I took up as an MP back in 1997 involved a 14-year-old who had been diagnosed with Asperger’s. I went to someone in education and was told, “Oh, it’s not us, it’s social care.” I went to someone in social care and was told, “It’s not us, it’s the NHS.” A vicious triangle ensued. In the end, it was only by banging those three people’s heads together and having pooled funding that we got an action plan. Is it not essential that we use the Bill to drill down into the detail and see exactly who is responsible, to ensure proper joint working on the ground among those different agencies? That is why it is so essential that we go into that detail in the House.
Mrs. Gillan: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. In my personal experience, people who have concerns about an individual in crisis can go to social services, who say that it is not their problem, and then to the mental health authority, which says the same thing, and then to the police, who refer them back to social services. It would be an advantage to look into such detail in considering the Bill.
David Howarth (Cambridge) (LD): May I bring the hon. Lady back to the important point that she was making about local authorities assessing need? In Cambridge, a group of parents of adults with autism are worried about what will happen to their offspring after they become too old to care for them. They are trying to set up specialist housing for their offspring to live in for the rest of their lives, but the first thing that the local and regional authorities told them was that they could not be helped because the authorities did not know the level of need involved. That is why there has to be legal force behind the obligation to assess such need.
Mrs. Gillan: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Later, I shall refer to a non-existent prevalence study, which will illustrate exactly the point that he has made.
John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): There is often a phenomenon of buck-passing between different agencies. Also, the needs of a child or young person often straddle the divide between different departments, which is precisely why we need joint strategic needs assessments—and joint commissioning to boot. Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems that still exists in the education service as a result of a lack of training is quite widespread ignorance among the children’s work force of parts of the spectrum? I am thinking of a teacher who said to the parent of an Asperger’s child, “I don’t believe in Asperger’s syndrome.” It is not a matter of belief; it is a matter of fact.
Mrs. Gillan: I pay tribute to the work that my hon. Friend has done, particularly in the area of speech therapy for children. He is absolutely right. I knew a little about autism, and I am learning all the time. Last night, on a car journey in the middle of the night, I read part of a book by Temple Grandin and a series of articles by her. I found them absolutely fascinating. To ask whether one believes in Asperger’s is almost demeaning. The more I look at the subject, the more fascinating it becomes, and the more I realise that we in the House have a duty to try to deliver measures to provide a framework in which we can give the right assistance at the right time to the right people when they need it.
Stephen Pound (Ealing, North) (Lab): The hon. Lady is clearly going to do a great service to the nation by bringing the Bill before the House today. She might be able to do an even greater service. In the Bill, she refers to the definition of autism as
“all autism spectrum disorders, including Asperger’s syndrome”.
I have had some difficulty, as have others, in defining the autism spectrum. I appreciate that the answer to my question might be that this subject should be ventilated in Committee, but does she intend at any stage to attempt to provide a definition of the autism spectrum?
Mrs. Gillan: The hon. Gentleman has just answered his own question, and I will continue with my speech.
Of the local authorities surveyed by the National Autistic Society, only two have developed robust ways of collecting and collating information on the population of people with autism. Under 40 per cent.—actually, 39 per cent.—of local authorities have appointed a named team leader with responsibility for autism spectrum disorders, which are known as ASDs. Only 53 per cent. of young people had been issued with transition plans on the move from children’s to adult services—a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans) earlier—falling to just over one third in mainstream schools. That is illustrated by one local authority, which said:
“ASD is not ‘core business’ for learning disability or mental health, so will not be prioritised”.
That is precisely the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (John Bercow).
My own county council, Buckinghamshire, has done a piece of work to enable it to record the number of people with Asperger’s syndrome and high-functioning autism in our area. In that respect, it is better than many other local authorities, but there is still a long way to go in my backyard before this information can be used effectively in service planning, let alone to address the urgent needs of this group of people.
Mr. Stephen O’Brien (Eddisbury) (Con): My hon. Friend is to be congratulated on introducing the Bill. I declare an interest as the chairman of the Cheshire Asperger’s action group. She has referred to transition, among other things, and it is vital to recognise how much of a lottery that involves around the country, because of the disparity between local authorities in regard to the recognition of the need for support, let alone action, for people with autism, and with Asperger’s in particular. The Bill would ensure that there was at least a minimum duty across the country, and it needs to be examined in Committee, so that we can remove these unfair disparities.
Mrs. Gillan: I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s support. I am also grateful for the support of my Front-Bench team, including the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr. Lansley). I have sought—and I still seek—not to be at all political in the Bill. That has been quite outwith my thoughts. I have been delighted, as the Minister will know, by the cross-party support that the Bill has received. I am very touched that I have commanded the presence of the Front-Bench team here this morning, although, of course, it is not me but the issue of autism that is so important. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr. O’Brien), the shadow Minister, for his intervention.
Mr. Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con): I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the Bill today. Two concerns lead me to believe that these matters need legal backing. One is that those with autism do not always receive the care packages to which they are entitled, as that entitlement is not sufficiently backed in law. The other relates to transition. Recently, I discovered that a constituent of mine had not come to the attention of social services since leaving school 40 years ago, because of the care provided by his mother. We had difficulty in getting the local authorities to respond to this person, with whom they were not familiar, in order to put together a care package. My hon. Friend’s efforts to put these matters into law will provide the necessary framework to ensure that these things can happen.
Mrs. Gillan: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention, but I must now get on to the purpose of the Bill, which I understand is also being supported by the Council for Disabled Children, Action for Children and the Children’s Society. It seeks to build on the excellent work that has been done by the hon. Member for Gateshead, East and Washington, West (Mrs. Hodgson) in her private Member’s Bill on special educational needs, by my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton in her ten-minute Bill, and by my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, North (Mr. Scott).
The Bill is not intended to do everything that is required to help people with autism, but it aims to address some of the structural disadvantages that they face and to vitalise local activity around autism. It clearly specifies the actions needed to stop adults with autism being excluded from receiving the services that they need and to which they are entitled. Existing Department of Health guidance states that local authorities should already be working to assess the needs of adults with autism in their area. However, the reality on the ground is that most local authorities are not even fulfilling their obligation to know how many people with autism there are in the local area. Guidance has not had the required impact, and legislation is essential to ensure that people with autism do not continue to be excluded.
Nadine Dorries (Mid-Bedfordshire) (Con):
I, too, congratulate my hon. Friend on introducing the Bill. She has mentioned people’s exclusion from the services provided in their local area. There is a lottery regarding the provision that children with an autistic spectrum disorder or Asperger’s syndrome receive. We also know that three out of four children in pupil referral units are on the autistic spectrum. That is why the Bill is so
important, because it would ensure that those children were identified, enabling adequate provision to be secured for them.
Mrs. Gillan: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.
The clauses of the Bill specifically address the unique nature of this disorder and the challenges faced by adults, children, parents and carers affected by autism, while providing constructive and tangible measures at least to ameliorate their position. I hope that they will lead, in the long term, to local authorities developing the abilities of every child in their area.
The clauses relating to children seek to improve the data collected by local authorities on children with autism for strategic planning purposes. The Government have recognised that data collection on disabled children has significant gaps and, according to the “Aiming High for Disabled Children” report, the data on all disabled children across the board are poor. The policy commitments of “Aiming High for Disabled Children” and national indicator 54—NI54—to improve education for children with learning disabilities are welcome measures, but data collection seems to need legal force to make it happen universally.
The Bill also seeks to ensure that local authorities have regard to the needs of children with autism in preparing their key strategic planning tool for children’s services. Children with autism are a sizeable minority population, with chronic needs that are too often overlooked. In addition, the Bill aims to strengthen co-operation between child and adult autism services and ensure that data collected by children’s services are used to inform the development of adult services.
The clauses dealing with adults focus on the immediate and necessary support that adults with autism need. More than three quarters of primary care trusts do not keep a record of how many adults with autism are in their area, and 86 per cent. of local authorities say that having more information about the number of adults with autism would help long-term planning.
Mr. David Lidington (Aylesbury) (Con): Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Bill’s scope will extend to the whole national health service? In particular, I should like to know whether the Bill covers an issue that I discovered in taking up the case of a constituent with Asperger’s who was detained in a secure mental hospital. I found that the special NHS trusts dealing with such hospitals did not know how many of their patients had conditions relating to the autistic spectrum, and that those special patients were frequently denied the services they needed because they were simply not available and therefore ended up warehoused, sometimes for many years, before such treatment was made available to them.
Mrs. Gillan: That is absolutely right. My hon. Friend probably reflects the experiences of many hon. Members in dealing with constituency cases.
I am conscious that time is passing and that other Members want to contribute to the debate, although I have tried to be as generous as possible in allowing interventions. I would like to make a few more points about the scope of the Bill, which is also designed to tackle the chronic lack of services for adults with autism.
Autism does not fit in with how local authority services are structured. The problem is exacerbated, as we have seen in the examples discussed today, by a lack of understanding of autism among health and community care professionals, particularly those providing assessments. The resulting exclusion from services can result in an increase in support needs in the long term, with 33 per cent. of adults having developed mental health problems because of the lack of access to services.
Dr. Hywel Francis (Aberavon) (Lab) rose—
Mrs. Gillan: I want to make some progress, but I will allow the hon. Gentleman to intervene when I have concluded my point.
As I was saying, the Bill extends to Wales, and I would like to take this opportunity to commend the Welsh Assembly Government for the steps they have taken in their strategic plan—the autism spectrum disorder strategic action plan—to address many of the issues faced by people with autism. The plan contains a series of action points for local agencies in Wales, including accurate recording of the numbers of people with autism in each local authority area. It is a step in the right direction. In Committee, I would seek to withdraw the provision if given the undertaking that the Welsh Assembly Government would take the matter further.
Dr. Francis: I think that the hon. Lady has anticipated my question, but I would like to say, as chair of the all-party carers group, how grateful we and all carers in this country are to her for her initiative and her sterling work in this field. Is she aware of the various local authority initiatives already taking place in Wales, which greatly anticipate what she wants? As the promoter of the Bill that became the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004, may I say how important it was to have the Welsh Assembly Government to support my Bill? That said, I would like to thank the Minister for his responses, which I would say are largely a consequence of the work that the hon. Lady has done in recent months.
Mrs. Gillan: I thank the hon. Gentleman. I have the Welsh Assembly Government’s plan here with me and I believe that they have made great progress and that many lessons can be learned.
Mark Williams (Ceredigion) (LD) rose—
Mrs. Gillan: I am just about to move on to discuss the generous offer made by the Minister in response to the Bill and the work of the National Autistic Society, but I will give way to the hon. Gentleman first.
Mark Williams: The hon. Lady referred to withdrawal of clause 6. Will she elaborate on the discussions she has already had with the National Assembly for Wales? She is right to highlight the excellent work undertaken in Wales with Autism Cymru. How positive is she about the Assembly’s response?
Mrs. Gillan:
I have a letter from the Assembly, but I do not have it to hand. I have been in correspondence both with the Minister here and the First Minister in Wales, informing them of my Bill and my intention to cover Wales, but also of my willingness to withdraw the particular clause, which was intended effectively as a
vehicle to allow me to discuss relevant issues in Wales. This is a devolved matter, but I fully intend to follow up what happens in Wales with the junior Minister who responded to me. I am pleased with progress and it is right to say that the Assembly has been ahead of the curve on this.
The Minister is also trying to get ahead of the curve. Following protracted negotiations with the National Autistic Society and phone calls with the Minister and his colleague in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, I am delighted about that. Ministers have set out a programme of action in response to the proposals in the Bill, reflecting the demands and needs of autistic people and their families. However, the litmus test will be how these measures and the Minister’s promises are implemented. Once again, however, I want to put it on the record that I am delighted to have these proposals. I know that the National Autistic Society and other organisations are thrilled that Ministers have moved so far and promised to deliver the actions necessary to fulfil the Bill’s aims.
However, the Minister has confirmed, I think, that he would prefer the Bill not to go into Committee. He also knows that I have to press my case, because it is not right for me to let people with autism down. In his own words, as reported in The Observer last week:
“Tens of thousands of people with autism have been repeatedly let down by the social care and health system while Labour has been in power... people with autism have ‘not been well served’...The past has not been good enough”.
He also generously conceded that the Bill “has had an impact”. I cannot be another person to add to the disappointment of people up and down this country, so I must press my Bill.
Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP): I congratulate the hon. Lady on her Bill, and indeed everyone else who has contributed to it. It does not extend to Northern Ireland, but I am here to represent the strong will of many people in Northern Ireland that this Bill should succeed. Like other Members, I am continually confronted in my constituency office with parents who should not have to negotiate between services and navigate through systems to find out whether their child has autism. They should be the first to know. That should be a matter of law, and the hon. Lady’s Bill is a step in the right direction. A number of years ago, a taskforce report about Northern Ireland’s departments dealing with education, health and—
Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. I hope that the hon. Member’s intervention will be brief, as interventions should be.
Mark Durkan: The pledges in that report about Northern Ireland compare directly with the pledges given now, but the commitments have not been upheld because of service reorganisation and restructuring and changes of Ministers. That is why we need a platform for action and attention based in law.
| Next Section | Index | Home Page |