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Session 2008 - 09 Publications on the internet General Committee Debates Autism Public Bill Committee Debates Autism Bill |
The Committee consisted of the following Members:Chris
Shaw, Committee Clerk
attended the Committee Public Bill CommitteeWednesday 29 April 2009[Mr. Roger Gale in the Chair]Autism Bill2.30
pm
The
Chairman: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. For the
convenience and comfort of hon. Members, if they wish to remove their
jackets, they may do
so. That,
if proceedings on the Autism Bill are not completed at this
days sitting, the Committee do meet on Wednesdays at
2.30 pm when the House is
sitting. I
offer you a warm welcome to the Chair, Mr. Gale. I am
delighted that the Autism Bill has been allocated to such a senior
member of the Chairmens Panel and I look forward to serving
under your chairmanship. I hope that we will not keep you long, but
these deliberations are most important. I hope that the sittings motion
will be agreed by the Committee.
I am very
grateful that so many hon. Members have come forward to serve on this
private Members Bill Committee. The proposal is that the
Committee sit at 2.30 on a Wednesday afternoon. No time is given for
concluding the deliberations, but I anticipate that two hours on a
Wednesday afternoon will probably be appropriate. Looking at the Bill
and knowing the seriousness of the subject matter, I hope that it will
involve no more than three or four sittings before we can bring it back
for Report and Third Reading. However, the best laid plans of mice and
men, and private Members Bills, often go awry.
This is my
first private Members Bill, Mr. Gale. I have no
experience in this regard, but I hope that you will guide me and the
other members of the Committee. I am therefore pleased to propose the
sittings
motion. 2.31pm
The
Minister of State, Department of Health (Phil Hope): I
understand that I shall have the opportunity to speak later, so on this
occasion I rise just to welcome and support the sittings motion. I hope
that we can proceed with the Bill in due
course. Question
put and agreed
to.
The
Chairman: Before we begin, I have to make two preliminary
announcements. First, I remind hon. Members that adequate notice, which
is three sitting days, should be given of amendments. As a general
rule, the Chair will not call starred amendments. I remind hon. Members
that amendments need to be tabled by the end of tomorrow to be
selectable for next
Wednesday. Secondly,
hon. Members may be aware that a money resolution is required to be
agreed by the House before the provisions of the Bill that impose a
charge on public funds can be considered by the Committee. Such a
motion stands on the Order Paper under Future
Business C, but it has not yet been agreed by the
House. Clauses 2, 4 and 5 impose significant charges on public funds. I
am, therefore, bound by the rules of the
House governing our financial procedure to decline to propose the
question on those clauses and the amendments to
them. 2.33
pm
That further
consideration be now
adjourned. I
want to take the opportunity to say a few words on the reasons why I
propose an adjournment. We have in the Room a group of MPs who are
extremely experienced on the subject of autism, and I hope that will
lead to a fully constructive and fruitful debate on the Bill. Things
always happen in threes, and today three things have come together for
us. First, we had the headline in the Daily Mail: Have
we found key to autism? Secondly, we have had the advantage of
a written statement on the consultation document published by the
Minister. Thirdly, we have started the Bill on its passage through
Committee.
However, as
you rightly said, Mr. Gale, we have yet to get the money
resolution, which inhibits somewhat discussions on the Bill. I am also
proposing that consideration be adjourned because the consultation
document for the strategy has been published only very
recentlywithin hoursand it would be good for the
Members who are bringing their expertise to the Bill to have a chance
to study that document as
well. I
have been delighted by the cross-party support that the Bill has been
given. It is a testament to the co-operation that I hope we shall
seeparticularly if we get a chance to put the money resolution
through next week by virtue of the Governments willthat
we have no Whips on the Committee at all. The promoter of a private
Members Bill is allowed to choose or to invite people to join
the Bill Committee and I contemplated inviting Whips from all our
parties, but I decided that was not at all in the spirit of the Bill;
quite the reverse. I hope that we will not need to be whipped in any
way whatever.
We need to
adjourn because the matter is of such great importance. There are some
500,000 people with autism in the UK. Since I agreed to take on the
Bill, I have been particularly touched by all the communications that I
have had with families across the board. Continuouslyalmost
dailyI receive information and items from families and
individuals with autism, wanting to make a contribution to the
discussion of the Bill. Adjourning for a further week will give us time
to gather in some more of those
comments. For
all of us, the matter is important in all our constituencies. I think
it is fair to say that every one of us, whether Ministers or not, has
the opportunity, as the Bill is starting on its way, to go back to the
people in our constituencies who have been exhorting us about it. I
hope that the adjournment until next week, to discuss clause 1 onwards,
will be advantageous to us.
Annette
Brooke (Mid-Dorset and North Poole) (LD): I apologise for
interrupting the hon. Lady. I wonder whether she has had discussions on
the monetary implications of clauses 3, 4 and 5 in relation to the
monetary implications of the Governments proposals. Are they
similar or vastly
different?
Mrs.
Gillan: I thank the hon. Lady for that intervention. At
this stage, as we are talking about the adjournment, I do not want to
get into the details of the Bill. I can see by the nodding of your
head, Mr. Gale, that I would
incur your wrath. You will allow me latitude, but I am sure you will not
let me go into that detail. However, it is something that we will get
on to eventually, when we get into the body of the
Bill. What
is important about looking at the matter and putting off the discussion
until next week is that there has been a genuine warm intention from
the Government, not only in publishing the consultation, but in coming
forward with suggestions that are a direct response to the Bill. I am
particularly impressed by the fact that it was not difficult to get two
Ministers on the Committee, which shows the Governments
intention to try to find a way through so that we have protection in
legislation for this group of people. I hope that if we can agree on a
modus operandi at some future date, it will not be necessary to tie up
both Ministers, because I am well aware from previous responsibilities
that to tie up two Ministers is a great privilege. None the less, I
think that is the sort of attention that autism should be receiving and
is now demanding, not particularly through any of my actions, but
certainly through those of the National Autistic Society, and through
the way in which it put the Bill together with officials from both
Departments.
I am happy to
take longer on the Bill, not least because I know that we are expecting
a National Audit Office report relating to autism. If we have a
breathing space, we may have some more information that can inform our
debate, which is so important. The NAO report has been promised for
some time, but I gather that it has been delayed, so an adjournment
will give us an opportunity perhaps to find out about the delay, or to
inform our discussions
better. The
Minister will have a moment to indicate his intentions, but in
proposing the adjournment to the Committee, I hope I am not causing
inconvenience, but arranging our affairs so that we have a better
debate in the future. The Governments intention is obviously
strong because they have tabled the money resolution. We hope that the
usual channelsI have had some indication it could be
possiblewill allow the resolution to go through in time for us
to meet next Wednesday and start on the substance of the
Bill. If
the Committee passes the motion to adjourn, I anticipate that we shall
try to reach some agreement about which clauses we will discuss on each
day, because that may also be helpful to Members. We have to keep
quorate with six, but such an agreement might enable Members to move
freely in and out of the Committee, although not too far away in case
we need to vote. That is important. Given my explanation, I hope that
members of the Committee will agree to adjourn further consideration of
the Bill until next
Wednesday.
The
Chairman: The motion is debatable. If hon. Members wish to
make a contribution, they may do so. However, as the hon. Lady said, we
are debating the adjournment motion, not the Bill itself. If members of
the Committee wish to make opening remarks, that is fine by me, but
they must confine what they say to the need for an adjournment, not the
Bill, which we hope very much will be debated next Wednesday
afternoon. 2.40
pm
Phil
Hope: I rise to speak to the Adjournment motion
proposed by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. It will be a
pleasure to be under your
stewardship, Mr. Gale, during the forthcoming sittings of the
Committee. Even though we are adjourning, the Bill will give us a good
opportunity to discuss an absolutely crucial and central
issuethe needs of people with autistic spectrum conditions and
services for
them. Members
of the Committee are knowledgeable and experienced. The fact that my
ministerial colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Children,
Schools and Families, the hon. Member for Portsmouth, North, and I are
here to debate the Bill demonstrates the Governments commitment
to the issue. Former vice-chairs and the existing chair of the
all-party group on autism and members of the group have been
magnificent in keeping the concerns and needs of such people in the
forefront of parliamentary minds.
Mrs.
Gillan: One member of the Committee has successfully taken
a private Members Bill through in the
past.
Phil
Hope: I realise that it was not the hon. Lady. My right
hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill was
successful, but I also wanted to acknowledge the hon. Ladys
ten-minute Bill, which was a precursor to much of what we shall be
debating. There is talent in depth in the Committee to discuss the
issues. Reference
was made on Second Reading to the fact that our proceedings will be an
opportunity for members of the Committee to interrogate the Government
about our plans, announced before that debate, for taking forward
measures for children, young people in transition and adults with
autism. We had the chance through the Bill to talk about the
Governments proposals and measures and the broad welcome that
they received at the time throughout the House, as well as from
organisations such as the National Autistic Society, which has been
mentioned this afternoon. The NAS said that much of what we have
already announced achieves some of the intended outcomes of the Bill. I
am delighted that we are meeting
today.
Mrs.
Gillan: An adjournment may give us the opportunity to look
particularly at the timetabling of the whole exercise. That is one of
the areas that we need to explore, and putting off our proceedings
until next week might also give the Minister and his hard-working
officials an opportunity to consider such matters, because timetabling
is of great concern to audiences outwith the
Committee.
Phil
Hope: I am trying not to stray into talking about the
clauses of the Bill, but the point has been made.
Like the hon.
Lady, I am especially delighted that the first sitting of the Committee
is today because, this morning, I had the pleasure of launching the
Governments consultation on our adult autism strategy, which is
now available for people to use. Indeed, I met members of the external
reference group who are working with us to develop that strategy. They
made proposals about how
to proceed, and I now look forward to a major debate during the next 20
weeks out there with the public. I hope that Members on both sides of
the House will take the opportunity to meet groups locally to discuss
the strategy, which I shall say more about in a
moment. The
strategy will be a cornerstone of the developments and improvements
that we all want to see. I cannot think of a better day for the
Committee to begin its work. I am looking forward to spending the next
few Wednesday afternoons elaborating on our commitment to delivering
real change for people with autism. There will be much to
cover.
As I said on
Second Reading, autism cannot be considered in isolation, but must be
within the context of what else is happening throughout the wide range
of social care services, and health and education as a whole. That
includes improvements to mental health services and better support for
people with learning disabilities, for both of which I have ministerial
responsibility, and the reform of local social
services. During
the adjournment of our proceedings and while we contemplate future
sittings, we will be able to examine the delivery of public sector
services that are increasingly personalisedI believe,
rightlyto address the varied needs of people with autism. I
pick up the point that the hon. Lady made about the research that has
come out today about a possible understanding of one of the causes of
autism. That research is welcome and gives us a deeper understanding of
the condition. It is important that we continue to develop our
understanding of autism. We are investing in research to improve the
evidence base. I realise that is not the subject of the Bill, but it is
important to acknowledge the work that is being done outside the
Bill.
There have
been considerable efforts already to reform the system for adults with
autism to make sure that local services respond better to the
individual needs of the most vulnerable in our society. I want to use
the Committee sittings to set out in detail how the reforms will meet
the needs of people with autism. For example, our Putting
People First strategy sets the whole tone for adult social care
for the next decade. Our independent living strategy focuses on how we
can help people with disabilities to live independent lives. Our recent
strategy on learning disabilities, Valuing people now,
will help people with autism who also have a learning disability to
ensure that they get a fairer deal across health, housing, employment
and community care services. We will come back to all those matters
when we discuss the measures in the Bill and how we will deliver real
transformation for people with autism.
Although my
hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and
Families is present, I want to say, As with adult services, so
with childrens services. We know that the picture for
childrens services is also one of tremendous reform, activity,
and real commitment to change things for the better for vulnerable
children, including those with autism. We were discussing the child
health strategy just before the Committee sat. My hon. Friend and I
co-chair the Aiming High for Disabled Children board, which looks at
such matters. Our child health strategy sets out comprehensive plans to
improve local services to deliver more targeted specialist support for
children with complex needs, and it makes
specific reference to children with autism. I am sure that my hon.
Friend is looking forward to setting out for the Committee, when we get
to the relevant clauses, all that is being done for children and young
people with
autism.
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