Autism

Chris Stephens Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Chris Stephens (Glasgow South West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan). I want first to place on record the fact that many of my constituents have contacted my office and urged me to attend this debate. Many of them have sent emails expressing how much it would mean to them if their Member of Parliament were to attend the debate. I am glad to see so many other hon. Members here as well.

When I was first elected, one of the first things I introduced in my constituency was a surgery specifically for carers. That is important for carers of people with autism, because they often face issues in isolation, including education, social and social security issues. Sometimes, those issues are not faced in isolation; they can become combined. That is why I introduced a specific surgery for carers, so that we could look at all those issues in combination, rather than dealing with them separately.

I want to raise a matter that has not yet been mentioned—namely, the difficulties that those with autism and their carers have when navigating their way through the social security system, particularly the personal independence payment application process. I have a constituent, Mrs Geraldine Lynch, who attended a PIP assessment with her son Jordan, who has autism. Mrs Lynch has said that the descriptions of her son in the reports that came back from the assessment process and the mandatory reconsideration process were unrecognisable. Perhaps they were the wrong files, describing the wrong individual, or perhaps my constituent was misdiagnosed and not given a proper PIP assessment.

My real fear about the PIP process is that far too often there is a lack of specialism among the assessors and a lack of understanding of specific conditions. My experience of my constituency workload tells me that that also affects those who suffer from autism. I encourage the Government to look specifically at ensuring that assessors of PIP, employment and support allowance and other benefits include a specialist on autism and related conditions. That is very important if we are to help those people.

There have been some positive developments in my constituency. One of them relates to my constituents Debbie Elliott and Claire Ellis, who have launched a support group called the Triple A Parents and Carers Support Group in Govan, and I would like to thank the Govan Housing Association for providing free space in its hub to allow the group to organise. It runs a drop-in every Friday. The purpose of the group is to allow parents and carers facing the same issues to share their experiences and to give each other advice, information and support. It is important that carers of those with autism and other related conditions have that kind of support, and the number of support groups is growing in my constituency and elsewhere. They allow support and the sharing of information and experiences, which helps other individuals. Added to that, on the Pollok side of my constituency, Differabled Scotland is organising a parent-to-parent peer support group for parents and carers of children, young people and adults.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned Differabled Scotland. Some of the people who run that organisation are constituents of mine, and I had a powerful meeting with them during the general election campaign last year. It is clear that the amount of support needed for people with autism is growing, and the work of Differabled Scotland is particularly valuable because it provides a peer support network of parents and carers of children of all ages. It does very valuable work.

[Chris Stephens]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. I, too, met organisers from Differabled Scotland a couple of weeks ago, and it was an excellent meeting. It is quite inspiring that there is peer-to-peer support and that people are sharing their experiences. Both the organisations that have been launched in my constituency are important.

It is also important for people to have access to welfare rights officers, and those officers are in attendance when these groups meet to help people to navigate their way through the various issues that I have mentioned, particularly those relating to social security support. Those groups that are now getting up and running also need funding, and I would like to ask the Minister what kind of funding the Government are planning to put in place to help those peer support groups to grow. What kind of finance will be available to them? I pledge to help them to get the necessary finances, so that they can continue to support carers and parents and help their organisations to grow.