Autism

Debate between Angela Watkinson and Cheryl Gillan

Tuesday 20th November 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), and I pay tribute to him for his speech. It is good to know that here in Parliament we do not always shout and bray at each other, but sometimes work together with a common purpose and for the common good. In the same spirit, I welcome the Under-Secretary of State for Education my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson), the children’s Minister, to the Front Bench. I also welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Speaker: you have taken a great deal of personal interest in this subject, and I pay tribute to you and your work in that regard.

Let me say to my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon (Mr Buckland) that I am delighted that this is the subject on which I am making my first speech from the Back Benches for a very long time. It is a subject close to my heart because of my Private Member’s Bill, which was a truly co-operative affair involving Members in all parts of the House. However, the debate also gives me an opportunity to pay tribute to all the families and parents who sent the hundreds of e-mails that enabled us to secure a Second Reading for the Bill, and to put on the statute book what I think was the first, and is still the only, disability-specific piece of legislation in the country.

One of the hidden heroines of that process was my great friend Baroness Browning, who did so much to further the cause. I talked to her just before the debate. She continues to raise these matters regularly in the other place, and I want the Minister to know about an issue that is challenging her particularly at the moment. She is very concerned—as, I am sure, are many Members of this House—about the assessments that are being conducted for the Government, especially those conducted by Atos. I ask the Minister to acknowledge that concern, and to ensure that people with enough experience of autism spectrum disorders are able to make the fair assessments that we all want.

That concern—along with many others that have been expressed in the two speeches that we have already heard—is reflected across the board. It is felt that there is still a great deal to be done. Research by many organisations, including the Back-Bench all-party group but also the National Autistic Society, indicates that people are still having to battle and fight to secure the right support for family members. This year the NAS celebrates 50 years of providing advice and support, and its research illustrates that ongoing battle. Nearly 50% of the parents who responded to a survey that it conducted recently said that they were still having to wait for more than a year to obtain the right support for their children, and 25% were having to wait for two years. That cannot be right in this day and age, given the knowledge of autism that we now have.

Delays in obtaining access to support can have a significant impact. Nearly 70% of those parents said that the progress of their children’s education had suffered because of the lack of timely support, and I am sure that that is echoed in the experience of some of the parents of children with autism who are in the House today. I also think that such delays always result in poorer outcomes for children and young people with autism. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon knows that only 15% of adults with autism are in full-time employment, but one of the statistics he gave was 1% short. In fact, the disability task group in Sheffield said 26% of graduates with autism are unemployed, and that is the highest rate for any disability group.

[Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)]

I know my right hon. Friend has long taken an interest in this subject, but may I recommend to her the ROSE—Realistic Opportunities for Supported Employment—project in my constituency, which transfers such students from further education colleges into employment, and provides support that is gradually withdrawn as they become more independent? That is an example of good practice which I am sure my right hon. Friend would like to see copied throughout the country.

[Mrs Gillan]

Certainly one way to maximise the potential of people with autism is to follow such examples of good practice. The all-party group might want to address these issues in the future. If we want to be hard-nosed about this subject, we could refer to a National Audit Office report published when the Autism Act 2009 was going through this House, which showed that if local services identified and supported just 4% of adults with high-functioning autism and Asperger’s syndrome, the outlay would become cost-neutral over time, and if they did the same for just 8% of such adults, that could save the Government some £67 million a year.

I worked very closely with the NAS during the passage of the Autism Bill, so I know that it strongly supports the Government’s proposed reforms to the special educational needs system. It especially welcomes the introduction of joint co-operation and commissioning duties, the extension of SEN law to cover academies and free schools, and the education, health and care plans for young people up to the age of 25, which will replace the statements.

The NAS has raised some concerns, however, and it speaks from a position of great strength. It runs seven schools for children with autism, and it is setting up an autism free school—in our area, Mr Speaker, of the Thames valley. The new NAS Anderson school in Bristol works with children to address the challenges they face, with the specific aim of helping them move back into community-based mainstream provision. The NAS knows from experience that these new schools are set up in response to great local need and are anchored in their communities. It is essential that children with complex needs can have access to such independent special schools, but I understand there is some concern that under the new system parents may not be able to express a preference for such schools in an education, health and care plan. I urge the Minister to ensure that such schools can be accessed by those who need them.

This debate has focused on the SEN reforms, but the Autism Act 2009 was borne out of a recognition that the specific needs of adults with autism were often overlooked by service designers at the local level and therefore they consistently missed out and did not get the help they needed. Unfortunately, that is reflected in recent NAS research. Some two-thirds of adults with autism are not getting the help they need.

It is vital that we get education provision right. Local authorities must ensure that they not only educate themselves, but implement the Department of Health adult autism strategy in a way that addresses local needs. In working with young people with autism and their families, local authorities must plan at the strategic level for local services and develop individually tailored plans to ensure that children with autism are supported into adulthood and can enter employment and live independently in our communities.

The adult strategy will be reviewed in 2013. That gives us an important opportunity to consider these matters. It also gives us a chance to celebrate improvements —there have been improvements—but we must not ignore the fact that there is still so much more that we need to do. I particularly urge the Minister to take on board the fact that he needs to work with his colleagues at the Department of Health and the Department for Work and Pensions, and with many others, including Members of this House, to ensure that the proposals to reform SEN are fully linked to the work on the autism strategy.