Secondary Schools: Autistic Pupils

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be grateful if my noble friend could share details of these cases, so that we make sure we understand them properly. The House will be aware that a diagnosis of autism needs to be a medical diagnosis. We will publish our improvement plan for provision for children with special educational needs. That will clearly cover how we want EHCPs to work better in future; it will be before the House shortly.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the Answer she gave earlier and remind the House of my interests in the general field of special educational needs. Does she agree that if you are determined to get a medical diagnosis, you are slowing down the process of recognition and help? If we get teachers better trained to give a suspicion—it might be just a suspicion—or some knowledge about the autistic field, we will have a chance of getting better help. If noble Lords think that does not have an effect, look at the numbers of autistic people identified in the prison system.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord raises two connected issues. Formal diagnosis of autism in this country needs to be done by a medical professional—a doctor. The noble Lord is absolutely right; that does not need to slow down interventions to support a child where there is apparently autism, even before it is confirmed. The Government announced a contract with a number of leading charities in this area to provide universal training across the teaching workforce in both schools and FE, and 60,000 people have been trained so far since April 2022.