Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, whether he plans to revise his Department’s autism strategy when the current one expires in July 2026, in the context of the provisions of section 1 of the Autism Act 2009.

On 23 January 2026, we published our response to the House of Lords Autism Act 2009 Inquiry Committee’s report Time to deliver: The Autism Act 2009 and the new autism strategy. We welcomed the committee’s report, and are carefully considering its recommendations, as well as our approach to developing a new national autism strategy, and we will set out a position, including our plans to engage with stakeholders, in due course.

We recognise that a large amount of evidence was gathered by the committee and we will consider this evidence, along with evidence from various other reviews, papers, and reports. We recognise that meaningful engagement will take time, so a balance will need to be struck as to what level of further engagement is required. The current strategy will remain in effect until a revised strategy is published.