Oral Answers to Questions

Nigel Adams Excerpts

Wednesday 26th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his question. The Prime Minister is very welcome to Britain and also welcome to be watching our deliberations today. As the right hon. Gentleman says, whether she will go away feeling proud and excited by what the mother of Parliaments does on Wednesday at 12 o’clock is another question. She has already had a very good meeting with my right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister. Relations between Britain and Bangladesh are good, and we need to expand them still further.

[Nigel Adams (Selby and Ainsty) (Con)]

Q12. My constituents, Ben Oldroyd and Matthew Carr, are autistic and have Asperger’s syndrome. They have asked for my help because they want to visit schools in the Selby district to speak to pupils and staff and give them their experience of living with autism and the challenges that they face with that condition. They have already received praise from the head of Brayton high school. Does my right hon. Friend agree that such an initiative could be extremely good news for schools and the teaching profession?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question, which raises an important point. We made good steps during the last Parliament, with the Autism Bill promoted by the now Secretary of State for Wales, my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs Gillan), but there is a huge amount that can be done by people themselves to get a greater understanding of autism and Asperger’s, not least because there is such a huge spectrum and such a big difference between the children suffering from those conditions. I am sure the work to which my hon. Friend refers is extremely worth while.