Autism Bill

If this Bill proceeds to Committee, I cannot say what effect that will have because we do not know what the outcome of the debate there will be, but what I can say is that all those measures that I have written to every Member about, and that I wish to repeat here at the Dispatch Box, are cross-Government policy—they are that which we wish to implement as a Government. I also have to say how inordinately proud I am to be the Minister of State for care services announcing these measures—building on the success of the past, which I wish to refer to later—and putting forward what I think will make 2009 a year of profound, massive and substantial advances in meeting, and developing services to meet, the needs of adults and children with autism, their families and their carers. As a starting point, I want to describe an experience that made a great impression on me, and I hope it will have a similar effect on other Members. Several Members have spoken very eloquently about why the matters under discussion are important. Earlier this week, I visited an arts exhibition that showcased the winners of the National Autistic Society "I Exist" creativity competition—various Members have referred to this excellent campaign. All the winners have work shown at the exhibition and they all deserve tremendous credit, but I was particularly struck by one image. It was a photograph by a gentleman called Danny, whom I was lucky enough to meet on the day. He is 48 and has Asperger's syndrome, and he is clearly a hugely talented photographer. His winning picture is truly exceptional. In the foreground, there are four children, all silhouetted, and partially shrouded by a thick mist so that it is not quite clear what is going on in the picture: are these children sheltering from something, or queuing, or playing? If we look closely, however, we can just make out other people in the background—a group of adults, some of them so faint they look like ghosts in the swirls of the mist. The impression of this photograph is enigmatic, haunting, exotic and thoroughly mesmerising—it is a brilliant piece of photography, and a deserving winner. However, what really hit home—what knocked me for six, in fact—was Danny's reply when I asked him what inspired him to take that shot. He said that the image summed up his life with autism. The photograph, by the way, is called "Children in the mist", and that, for me, sums up why we need more action on autism. That is the human cry that I believe we must answer. We must bring people like Danny out of the mist. We must provide new clarity, confidence and certainty to their lives. We must help them to escape the feelings of isolation and fear and the dislocation that that picture embodies. I am sure that no one in this House would disagree with that aim. It is what the hon. Lady's Bill seeks to achieve and that is entirely commendable, but the question is, what is the right way forward? I want to describe a fuller picture of what we are doing, but today's debate has focused on the measures we have recently announced—we have just been having an exchange about those—to drive forward our plans for improving the lives of children and adults with autism and their families. The hon. Lady said that she was delighted and thrilled by those measures, and I am glad that she said that. I will go into them in more detail later, but let me give a summary of the measures as they stand. First, as I have said, new statutory guidance is promised for children and young people's plans that will specifically refer to children on the autistic spectrum, and which will flow from the enactment of the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill. We want to create robust systems to ensure that data collected on children with autism are then shared with adult social services to bridge that transition gap. There will be extra resources—an issue on which the hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) pressed me. There will be £200,000 to research the challenges faced by young people with autism in their transition to adulthood, and yes, we will of course make sure that those resources are spent on that task.