Autism Bill

My Lords, it is an honour and a pleasure to bring this Bill to your Lordships’ House, and I know that the 500,000 people with autism in the UK and their families are watching its progress with great interest. I thank colleagues around the House for their support and interest. Although the number of noble Lords who will speak today is small, it is extremely select, and I am particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, has chosen this Bill on which to make his maiden speech. I know that we all look forward to that very much. I have been encouraged, too, by the good wishes of many Members of this House who have an interest in this issue and would have been here had their diaries permitted. The noble Earl, Lord Howe, and noble Lord, Lord Astor, for example, have a strong personal interest in the topic. I also acknowledge the support of the National Autistic Society, which very much welcomes the Bill. This Bill is an excellent example of how relatively small changes in legislation can make huge changes in the lives of people with disabilities and their families—something that I have had the honour of doing before as a result of several Bills on carers. The Bill is also a marvellous example of cross-party working, and gives parliamentarians something to cheer about and be proud of: two things that may have been singularly lacking in our work in recent months. The Shadow Secretary of State for Wales, Cheryl Gillan MP, introduced the Autism Bill to the House of Commons in January this year. The original Bill required local authorities and their partners to take a strategic approach to meeting the current and future needs of children and adults with autism in their area. However, following strong commitments from Sarah McCarthy-Fry, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools and Learners, on data collection and provision for children with autism, the clauses on children have been removed, and the Government are committed to amending the children and young people’s plans—the so-called CYPPs: the key strategic planning tool for local authorities—through another Bill, the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill, to place a new legal duty on local authorities to ensure that local areas collate and share data on disabled children as part of the needs assessment and include children with autism in their plans for children’s services. The Minister also made a commitment that the statutory guidance that accompanies the regulations will state that autism must be specified as a specific category on these registers. The Bill is therefore a very good example not only of cross-party working but of cross-departmental working. Even the clauses relating to adults have gone through quite a metamorphosis since their original drafting. The new Bill puts a duty on the Secretary of State to introduce an adult autism strategy for improving outcomes for adults with autism, accompanied by statutory guidance for local authorities and NHS bodies. The statutory guidance covers all the crucial parts, including access to diagnosis, needs assessments, transition planning, the strategic planning of support services for adults with autism, and local partnership and co-operation. That strategy is currently being consulted on. Everyone who works with those with autism and their families knows that that range of guidance is necessary to help them. The Bill has six clauses. Clause 1 contains provisions on the duty to prepare and publish an autism strategy. Clause 2 covers the duty to issue guidance on implementing the strategy, while Clause 3 deals with the duty on local authorities and NHS bodies to act under the guidance. Clauses 4, 5 and 6 cover other aspects. The Bill, as amended in Committee in the other place, places a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and publish, not later than April 2010, a strategy for the improvement of health and social care services for adults in England with autistic spectrum conditions. The Secretary of State is required to keep the autism strategy under review. He or she will be able to revise it, and has a duty to consult when doing so. In addition, the Bill requires the Secretary of State to prepare and issue, not later than 31 December 2010, guidance to the NHS and local authorities on implementing the strategy, to keep the guidance under review, and to consult the NHS and local authorities in preparing it, particularly if he or she proposes to revise it substantially. The Bill also contains provisions that will create a requirement on NHS bodies and local authorities to act in accordance with the guidance issued by the Secretary of State The Government have made welcome public commitments to publishing an autism strategy by the end of 2009 and to issuing subsequent guidance with real power to local authorities and the NHS on how to implement that strategy. A full public consultation on the strategy was launched in April this year and is ongoing. Fundamentally, the Bill places the Government’s existing commitments on to a statutory footing so that the Government can be held to account. Although the Bill extends to England and Wales, it will apply only to England. I want to draw a few things to your Lordships’ attention. Clause 1 imposes a deadline for publishing the autism strategy of not later than 1 April 2010. Clause 2 imposes a deadline for issuing guidance on the implementation of the strategy of not later than 31 December 2010. It is quite unusual for deadlines as specific as these to be included in a Bill, but it responds to the need of Ms Gillan and the National Autistic Society to have concrete guarantees of action within a reasonable timescale. Commitments have been made to publish the strategy by the end of this year. I know that the intention is to stick to that timetable—I am sure that the Minister will confirm that—so the deadline in the Bill is a belt-and-braces one that gives additional leeway. On the timing of the consultation on and publication of the strategy, Clause 1 provides for consultation on the autism strategy before the Bill comes into force to fulfil the Secretary of State’s duty to consult on it. In the same vein, Clause 2 provides for consultation on the guidance on implementing the strategy before the Bill comes into force to fulfil the Secretary of State’s duty to consult on it and to deal with what might seem to be a mismatch in timing between the implementation of the Bill and the ongoing consultation to which I have already referred. The consultation began in April and is expected to run until mid-September but it is unlikely that this Bill will complete all its stages before then. It may be that the strategy is published before the Bill comes into effect. It was therefore important to ensure that all the work being undertaken would count for the purposes of the Bill. Hence, the inclusion of these provisions. I want now to draw your Lordships’ attention to the mechanism by which the Bill will impose a duty on local authorities and NHS bodies to act under the guidance of the implementation of the strategy. This is rather an innovative procedure, which may not have been done before. For local authorities, specifying that the guidance is to be treated as Section 7 guidance under the Local Authority Social Services Act 1970—some of us may be old enough to remember the so-called LASS Act; I certainly am—means that they would be required to exercise their social services function in accordance with the guidance. A local authority which did not would be acting unlawfully. But for NHS bodies, there is no existing provision equivalent to Section 7 of that Act. Of course, it is very important for those with autism and their families to have equal attention from local authorities and NHS services. Most people are involved with both, but they do not know the difference between them—indeed, why should they? The guidance will have the same force for NHS bodies as it will for local authorities. The Bill creates the same obligation on NHS bodies, which will be treated as local authorities, and their functions in relation to the relevant services will be under the provisions of the LASS Act. That was a key concern for the sponsors of the Bill and for the National Autistic Society. It of course breaks new ground and arguably creates a precedent for the NHS, of which the chief executive is aware, and may be important in future years for other people with disabilities. The autonomy of NHS foundation trusts has been preserved by not including them in the definition of "NHS body" in the Bill. They will not be under the same duty to act under the guidance of other NHS bodies, although their general duty to take into account any guidance issued by the Secretary of State will apply. Finally, Clause 4 lists those bodies and agencies to which the Bill applies and for whose staff suitable training on the Bill and guidance should be provided. However, we should remember that other staff, with whom those with autism and their families may be in contact, can also play a significant role in their lives. I am thinking, for example, around such things as employment, the staff at Jobcentre Plus, the DWP and those who may act as gatekeepers to other services. It will be important to ensure that their input and training is kept under review. In fact, it is a very welcome provision that the Bill states that the Secretary of State must keep the autism strategy under review and revise it as necessary. The effectiveness of the strategy and the statutory guidance will ultimately depend not on their content, which we are debating today, but on how well they are implemented. I am sure that with the support that the Bill has received from several government departments, with the commitment of Ministers, the vigilance of the National Autistic Society and all those who have been involved, we can ensure that implementation goes ahead satisfactorily. Like all Private Members’ Bills, this Bill is modest in its aspirations, but it will certainly not be modest in the effect it has on the lives of those with whom it is concerned. I commend it to the House and I beg to move.