Autism Bill

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The clauses of the Bill specifically address the unique nature of this disorder and the challenges faced by adults, children, parents and carers affected by autism, while providing constructive and tangible measures at least to ameliorate their position. I hope that they will lead, in the long term, to local authorities developing the abilities of every child in their area. The clauses relating to children seek to improve the data collected by local authorities on children with autism for strategic planning purposes. The Government have recognised that data collection on disabled children has significant gaps and, according to the "Aiming High for Disabled Children" report, the data on all disabled children across the board are poor. The policy commitments of "Aiming High for Disabled Children" and national indicator 54—NI54—to improve education for children with learning disabilities are welcome measures, but data collection seems to need legal force to make it happen universally. The Bill also seeks to ensure that local authorities have regard to the needs of children with autism in preparing their key strategic planning tool for children's services. Children with autism are a sizeable minority population, with chronic needs that are too often overlooked. In addition, the Bill aims to strengthen co-operation between child and adult autism services and ensure that data collected by children's services are used to inform the development of adult services. The clauses dealing with adults focus on the immediate and necessary support that adults with autism need. More than three quarters of primary care trusts do not keep a record of how many adults with autism are in their area, and 86 per cent. of local authorities say that having more information about the number of adults with autism would help long-term planning.