Services for People with Autism — House of Commons, 2019-03-21
Topic: Health
David Melvyn Linden (Scottish National Party, Centre-left): Like other right hon. and hon. Members, I place on the record my sincere thanks to the right hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Dame Cheryl Gillan) and pay tribute to her work. We, like others, are thinking of her at this time. The hon. Member for Bexhill and Battle (Huw Merriman) did an excellent job of putting that on the record and should be very proud It is a pleasure to sum up the debate on behalf of the Scottish National party. It has been an excellent debate, despite the time pressure. It is incredibly annoying to sit through debates knowing that people are having to pack so much in, so I hope that we can have more of these debates. We have heard excellent contributions from the hon. Members for Bexhill and Battle, for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire), for North Cornwall (Scott Mann), for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), for Dudley South (Mike Wood), for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), for Henley (John Howell), for Strangford (Jim Shannon), for Copeland (Trudy Harrison) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). All made very powerful speeches, either about their constituency casework or their experience with family members. I was particularly moved by the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed, who spoke about her 20-year-old son and how he is thriving. We all wish him well On a personal level, I want to thank a constituent of mine, Aileen Orr, who lobbied me to attend this important debate. She was right to say that, as has been backed up today, there is still not enough knowledge about autism and many people can still be quite ignorant about it, which is a point on which we must all reflect. World Autism Awareness Week is a good opportunity to give this issue the focus it deserves. Particularly in a Parliament so dominated by Brexit, such debates remind us that there are other issues that people want us to focus on, and there is a lot of unity in here today As Members would expect, I want to focus on the situation in Scotland. We have made good progress, but there is still a lot more work to do, as I will come on to. Last year, the Scottish Government refreshed their strategy for autism, which runs from 2018 to 2021. The review was a good opportunity to listen to people and to look at where we could improve, and I am grateful to our Mental Health Minister, Clare Haughey, who just two days ago announced a complete review of mental health legislation and autism legislation—the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed made a point about the two things being treated separately. It is good to see that recognised Among the themes arising from the review were the need for professionals across various areas to get more training in autism—that point has been made today—and issues of work and employment. The 16% figure that the hon. Member for Bristol West mentioned makes it clear that a lot more work needs toIt was not lined up for this debate, but on Monday I had the pleasure of visiting Aultmore Park Primary School, in my constituency, which is celebrating its 10th birthday this week. There is a language and communication resource on the school complex that works very closely with the school to make sure that the children attend from primary 1 to primary 7 and access the excellent opportunities. There was a lovely and exciting atmosphere in that school on Monday. It is such a pleasure to have it in my constituency On education, I know from my constituency caseload that we still have a lot more to do to support families. Like many other Members, I remain incredibly frustrated about the waiting times—in Scotland, they are often between one and two years, which is far too long—and in that regard I pay tribute to East End Carers, based in Shettleston, and the Happy Club, based in Provanhall. So often it is these voluntary charities that provide emotional and practical support for families, particularly in the period immediately after a diagnosis Part of the reason for the long diagnosis process is a lack of educational psychologists, which is a major issue in Scotland. There is only one university—Dundee, I think—where people can train to be educational psychologists. I encourage our Ministers north of the border to look at that.