Autism Bill

I agree with the hon. Lady. She seems to be assuming that I am opposed to the Bill going into Committee. I am saying that there is a circumstance in which I would not wish the Bill to go into Committee, and that is the situation in which the Minister gave us cast-iron guarantees today on all the points raised by the Bill. Assuming that he does not give us those cast-iron guarantees today, the Bill will need to go into Committee, and I am setting out the points that I want to hear that the Committee has addressed. I am explaining the key issues that I have in mind that will have to be addressed if the Bill is to come out of Committee in a form that we want to see progressed. Let me set out the absolute key issue that I want to have addressed; it will have to be the Minister who addresses it, because I do not think that Standing Orders will allow the Bill to do so. The hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) and I are advisers to the Learning Disability Coalition, which is a coalition of campaigners for and champions of people with learning disabilities of various needs, including those with complex learning disabilities. It is campaigning to make sure that the needs of people with learning disabilities are properly recognised by Government, councils and public authorities. Indeed, next week I am leading a delegation of people with learning disabilities from that coalition to see the Minister and put their case to him. One of the hot topics for those of us who campaign for people with learning disabilities is the fact that nobody knows how many people there are with learning disabilities. Nobody knows how many of those people have complex needs. Local authorities do no survey of people with learning disabilities, just as they do no survey of the number of people with autism in their area. It is not that one disability is in competition with another; we want everybody with a disability to get the support that they need from our public bodies. The Bill may make it councils' responsibility to make a proper assessment of how many people in their area have autism, but it will not do anything for those people with learning disabilities or, for that matter, physical or other disabilities. We need to end up with a statutory requirement on local authorities to carry out a comprehensive assessment of disabilities in their area—all disabilities, affecting people of all ages. That includes children, adults and young adults. Local authorities need to make such assessments for people from cradle to grave. They need to come up with a proper strategy to support people with all disabilities, based on that assessment. That assessment needs not just to include the services provided by a council, but to cross boundaries into the services provided by the health service, the courts and jobcentres. As it stands, the Bill will certainly improve circumstances for people with autism but, if we are to legislate, I would like us to legislate more comprehensively so that we can make sure that the assessment is carried out for all people with a disability.