People with Learning Difficulties and Autism: Detention in Secure Settings

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those occasions when I almost feel like saying, “You’ve heard the noble Baroness, and that’s about it”, but I will indulge myself by following on from much of what she said, particularly about training and staff.

Looking around this room, I see many people who have done more on autism than I have, but anybody who has realises how difficult it is for somebody with autism, especially at the lower-functioning end, to interact with the outside world. Some can get through it and make you understand what they are doing, if you give them the time and if you have some training. I have less experience of learning disabilities but, if we stick with autism as a factor, these are people who have communication and perceptual difficulties, meaning that they cannot interact well with you. If they have got themselves in a position where people cannot cope, often because they are becoming adults and their demands on society and their expectations are realistically higher, you must have people who are properly trained to interact with them.

If you do not have those people and everything gets terribly difficult and occasionally frightening, pushing them away into a darkened corner is a perfectly understandable response. I can see why people do it. It is wrong, damaging and expensive, but people do it. However, once you are shoved away into a corner—and the point that the noble Baroness made about opening up everything is probably one of the keys here—if you do not know what is going on, how can you possibly intervene to change it? The idea that you should open up is key.

The Government have accepted that the situation that we had a few years ago at Winterbourne View is unacceptable, and they have made some progress, so congratulations for that. Whenever congratulations come, as the Minister has been here long enough to know, then comes the criticism behind it. It is not there yet, and it is about getting people not only outside but sustained outside.

So how are we doing with training? Has it become the norm that a person in a controlled unit is trained in how to de-escalate a situation without reverting to a chemical cosh or physical restraint? What is the relationship in the numbers between those people? I recently had a conversation with a young man of about 23 who went to a unit training in how to deal with this type of person, and he said that they spent most of their time in arm locks, and he was one of the oldest people working in that environment. This cannot be right. Do we have a situation where people are trained to do the communication, de-escalate and ensure that you can have a civilised conversation? Are they there on all occasions? If they are not, you are just playing Russian roulette and something will escalate and go wrong. That is almost a guarantee. Once something goes wrong and you have the problems that I have inarticulately described, somebody will be even more frightened than you or I would if we were being contained. Trauma and its effect on mental health are almost guaranteed; it is just a matter of how bad it will be in individual cases.

We have a situation where we all accept that something should happen. We are even reasonably agreed on what should happen, which is getting a person out to live as independently as they can with enough support to do it. What action are the Government taking to make sure this happens and that, when something goes wrong when they are living independently, we can intervene and correct it without getting into more conflict, fear and trauma? That is what is required. It is the fact that you can communicate with that person.

Across the disabilities sector, this is a very common structure. If you have somebody who does not quite fit into the bracket you are talking about, and you try to make them fit, putting square pegs in round holes—we can throw our own clichés at it—we will always get this trauma, lack of communication and outcome. This leads to things such as legal costs, lack of things and other greater costs. Will the Government please give us an idea of what they are doing to make sure that staff are trained to intervene and guide people towards correct—or perhaps I should say better—solutions?

People have a right to live independently and securely. With a little help, most of this group can do it, at least for long periods of time. If the Government are not making that intervention, they are probably wasting money, first and foremost. Can the Government give us an assurance that they are taking steps to make sure that this waste of money, which leads to a lack of human dignity and human rights, is being corrected? Without it, they are offending everybody at every level.