Education, Health and Care Plans

Lord Sterling of Plaistow Excerpts

Thursday 14th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

The noble Lord is right that autism accounts for the highest proportion of all claims at about 43% of appeals. We are very much focusing on this as an area of concern. In December last year we announced a number of measures to help deal with this, including joining up the healthcare and education services to address autistic children’s needs holistically, developing diagnostics services to diagnose autism earlier, improving the transition between children and adult services so that no young people miss out, and improving the understanding of autism and all its profiles, including recently identified forms such as pathological demand avoidance.

[Lord Sterling of Plaistow (Con)]

My Lords, I declare a personal interest as I have a grandson who is on the spectrum; also, a lot of people who have mental disabilities are joining the Motability scheme through PIP. I completely support the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington: according to the Ministry of Justice, the figure is 89% and the cost was £34 million last year. We are fortunate to have a Minister who is hugely interested in trying to enhance the position of such people, but the real point I want to make is that this goes beyond money. The anguish of the parents and the upset is the key factor. Are there ways to expedite all the measures that we would like to see taken?