New Autism Strategy (Autism Act 2009 Committee Report)

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 10th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is one of those debates where I am not sure whether I can add anything, but I can certainly join in by saying that I agree with what has been said in front of me.

The noble Baroness, Lady Rock, led the committee, which I served on, and I have nothing to disagree with in her summing up of what the committee did. I should let the House know that I got the best-timed rap on the knuckles from her: I said autism was primarily a communication difficulty, and then, with a look that cut to the core of my being, she said, “It’s more than that”, and I went, “Yup, you’re right”.

Autism is a neurodiverse condition that probably has the greatest reach and the greatest divergence—though all of them diverge, as they are all spectrums. We heard the noble Lord, Lord Elliott, say that he got through; he is either lucky or brilliant, and I suggest it is the second category, or at least good enough and bright enough to cash in on his luck. If people are “getting through” in that way, we have a fundamental problem. They are dependent on having a tiger-warrior parent—somebody shoving themselves forward to make sure they get through—or else they have to get lucky, with somebody saying that they think they might be in this category. That is why the strategy in front of us is a good idea.

It cuts across everything. We will never get everybody at school, even with the best training in the world, and we will see these traits later on—especially in those people who are struggling through and have done well but have certain behavioural tics, traits or unusual qualities. We must have a more wholly embracing system.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Browning—who we so often go to when we discuss autism—said: it is the law, so do it. Has anybody suggested that we roll back the law? We have the law, so do it. That means we have about two or three weeks before we can ask what the strategy will be and suggest that we get something going.

What is in it for the rest of the community? We might get a few more people employed and paying taxes—that is a good thing for a start, is it not? I declare an interest: I am chairman of Microlink, which provides support packages for people with disability who are in employment. From doing that, I know that such changes are sometimes small. If people had a little understanding—as was talked about here—along with those small changes, many of them could function perfectly well in many parts of the workplace. We should take that on board.

The whole of the Government have to do this—it is not just education but employment services. It is the fact that somebody will function slightly differently in the office and so there must be an understanding and a duty to say, “Yes, they will function and they can do it. They will not hold us back”.

When dealing with autism, the thing is the meltdown—rather badly named, I think, because it suggests that somebody is going to explode, not that they will have a small moment of crisis. I know from talking to one or two people that sometimes they need to go away and be quiet, but if somebody just puts a hand on their shoulder then they are fine. It is the child totally melting down in the classroom. What about the fact that girls do not do this, as was pointed out in this debate, and so do not get discovered? The more we know about this, and the more information we have, the easier a strategy will be to implement. People have to understand the condition a little more and not be quite so frightened of it.

We are informed that we will have a special educational needs Bill and a whole new strategy. I hope that identification and diagnosis—an easier way of making sure people know that someone has a particular set of problems—is something that can be carried through. Autism is definitely something for which that would really be helpful. I hope the Minister will be able to say that, if you are diagnosed in the education system, that will be carried through into the rest of your life. As was pointed out here, you are at school and then you are not, and everything changes. That is a disaster in the making for virtually anybody who has a disability—not just autism but all of them. It will be interesting to see what information can be carried forward—that could be in the strategy or somewhere else. To come back to the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, we have the strategy so why are we not using it? It is good practice: we are going through so we can carry on.

I have a couple of questions for the Minister. When we come to the criminal justice system, are we going to make sure that we have better in-house support for individuals who are caught up in the system? Will we make sure that they are given better protection within it? When you have been in the House for as long as I have, you will know that there are numerous occasions when the police do not understand who they are dealing with and make the situation worse. Will the Government say to the police that this is their job as well? Because people might not quite understand what they are doing, there can be conflict with neighbours, misunderstandings and being led, and conflict with the police. Where is the training? We have a group of people who are used to being trained and going on courses, so what are we doing there?

When it comes to health, any group that has problems with communication—here I risk the wrath of the noble Baroness, Lady Rock, again—will have poor health outcomes. It is not just autism; those who use sign language have similar problems. What are we going to do in the Department of Health to make sure that there is an understanding—this will be made much easier with some form of diagnosis—that there must be new processes to get the information out of the patient? Our health system is still based fundamentally on the doctor’s appointment and an exchange of information on what the person thinks is the matter with them and then an interaction. If we can get guidance about what we are going to do there, it would once again help us. If that is not in this strategy, where is it? Presumably, we do not want people being ill; that is the whole idea.

As we go through the process of looking at an Act that we have passed and that we all say we want, something we can refer back to is this: why is it not happening? If the Minister can tell us that it is going to happen, that would be great. If she is going to tell us that the Government are going to do something else, let us hear it. At the moment, we seem to be saying that, yes, it is an awfully good idea and we like it, but it is too difficult and it will inconvenience somebody. If that is the situation, the Government should say so and give us something else. At the moment, we have a nice idea that is not being implemented, and we are all waiting on it.