People with Learning Difficulties and Autism: Detention in Secure Settings

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Brinton (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, on securing this important debate, especially with her expertise following the excellent review that she led two years ago. I declare my interest as a vice-president of the Local Government Association.

The Health and Social Care Select Committee’s report published on 13 July this year makes it absolutely plain that, 10 years on from Winterbourne View, the provision for autistic people and those with learning difficulties sees far too many placed in residential settings, which is unacceptable.

Jeremy Hunt MP, the chair of the Select Committee, said:

“Despite commitments by governments over the years, the totally inadequate level of community provision means that autistic people and people with learning disabilities are wrongfully admitted to inpatient facilities and detained for a shocking average of six years … it is time to recognise that a voluntary approach to reducing the numbers has failed and long-term admissions should now be banned with alternative community provision set up in their place.”


The Select Committee report follows on from the oversight panel review of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, saying once again that this is an emergency and needs dealing with immediately. I start by asking what is probably also my final question: can the noble Lord the Minister say when the Government will announce not another plan, but the recommendations and how they will be delivered?

I welcome the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, about what happened 35 years ago; 25 years ago, when I was chair of education in Cambridgeshire, it really felt as if this country was beginning to become progressive in its approach to ensuring that those with learning disabilities and autistic children should, wherever possible, be living with their families or in their communities with support and going to their local schools. We believed that we had changed things. The evidence is—as the noble Lord, Lord Crisp, said—that too many people are being warehoused in unacceptable settings.

For some people, specialist residential provision has been developed over the years, but there are now complex commissioning rules with health and local government again fighting over the costs—as we heard about in our previous debate. Additionally, the lack of funding from central government to local government for this specialist provision, as well as the general funding crisis that local authorities are facing following cuts of about 30% to their overall budgets, means that there is a real problem and it appears that short cuts have been taken.

Noble Lords have also spoken about the further worry of restrictive practices. The horrors of the Winterbourne View covert videos, showing staff treating in-patients badly, were seared on the public’s soul. Everyone said that this must never happen again. But the evidence is that it continues. Indeed, there was a video of a staff member dragging a young autistic person by his hair only last month in a school. As both the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, and my noble friend Lord Addington have said, this speaks to the lack of supervision and a lack of training of staff in these institutions. As the Select Committee report said:

“None of this is worthy of a 21st century healthcare system”.


I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for giving a successful outcome for one patient, now living successfully and happily in the community. The problem is the inertia and structural problems with commissioners and funding, meaning that 2,000 are still in inappropriate settings at best, and at worst living their lives with their human rights ignored. Immediate action is needed now.