Autism

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and I will come on to diagnosis a bit later in my speech.

May I put it on record that while many people associate autism with mental health, it is in fact a developmental condition—a lifelong developmental condition—and not necessarily a mental health condition? Autistic people are as likely to suffer from a mental health problem as anybody else—any neurotypical person. I really want to make sure that nobody in this House ever confuses that, and I hope that that puts the record straight.

I wish to touch on the Autism Act 2009. Almost 10 years ago, I was very privileged to draw No. 1 in the ballot for private Members’ Bills and then to take through the Bill that became that Act. We are coming up to the 10th anniversary of the Act, which is really important. A key element of the Act was to mandate the Government to produce an adult autism strategy, and the 10-year anniversary will coincide with a year in which that strategy is up for review. The all-party group is working towards holding to account every Government Department involved, and making sure that their feet are held to the fire, because this affects almost every area of public life and public policy. Ahead of the review, I want all areas of our Government to consider how they can better support people with autism and people on the autism spectrum.

It is also important to look at the good that that Act has done. Almost 10 years on, the National Autistic Society had a look at this, and it is worth reflecting on the fact that autism really is on the agenda now for an awful lot of people, and locally as well. Almost everyone is aware of autism. NAS polling showed that 99.5% of people were aware of autism, and almost every council—93% of them—has an autism lead.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

The right hon. Lady does the House a great service by bringing forward this debate on autism. Can she tell me—perhaps she does not have the figures—about employers’ attitude to employing people with autism? Are there any statistics on that?

[Dame Cheryl Gillan]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates another bit of my speech. That is really important, because people with autism are disproportionately not being taken off the unemployment register. In fact only yesterday, with the all-party group for disability, I had a joint meeting with the Minister for Apprenticeships and Skills to look at the problems and consider how, working with employers’ organisations and the Government, we can try to improve the situation.

More councils now include autism in their joint strategic needs assessment, and almost every local area has a diagnostic pathway—those that do not will know who they are, but all but three are covered. That is really significant progress, but let us face it there is not a person in the House who does not know that we need to make more progress in this area, so I do not say that with any sense of complacency whatsoever.

I want to touch on a few areas, but I have only limited time. I have been very impressed by the number of Members on both sides of the House who have put in to speak, and it is really important that I hear from them.

I will start by talking briefly about education. My hon. Friends the Members for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) and for Lewes (Maria Caulfield) recently chaired an inquiry into autism and education under the umbrella of the APPG. They did some fantastic work, looking at how the education system in England currently works for children. The inquiry involved evidence sessions and surveys, and took additional evidence from more than 3,000 parents, professionals and people on the autism spectrum. It found that children are being held back from achieving their full potential because they are autistic. In our surveys, nearly 70% of parents told us that they had waited for more than six months for support at school, and 50% had waited for more than a year.