Question

To ask the Minister for Women and Equalities, what steps she is taking to help ensure equality and freedom from discrimination for people with autism.

In July 2021, we published a new all-age autism strategy that set out our commitments to address the inequalities autistic people experience. These include poorer health outcomes and a 16 year life expectancy gap. As part of this, we have provided over £13 million to improve access to diagnosis, including through testing ways to reduce waiting times and expanding a pilot that is identifying autistic children and young people earlier on in life. To improve inclusion of autistic people, we have also provided £600,000 to train many more educational staff across England, and we will launch an autism public understanding initiative this year.