My working experience has been touched by autism. As a university lecturer, I was teaching a student who spent an entire class looking at a computer screen and not paying attention to me, and I remember getting annoyed by this. At the end of the session, before I could actually speak to the student, he came up to me and he said, ‘I really appreciate your teaching today, but I need you to know I have Asperger’s and the focus on my computer screen is how I focus and block out some of the noise that goes on in the rest of the class’. It really did move me and it made a significant impact on me as a university lecturer. Therefore, this debate today, I feel, is a hugely important one.

As a new Member, I’ve noticed that opposition day debates do tend to present motions in very simple terms—if we’re for or against something—and I feel that this motion doesn’t truly reflect the complex realities that are present in our constituencies, and certainly in some of the cases that I’ve experienced in my constituency. So, if the purpose of this motion is to create a broader, deeper and more thoughtful discussion in this Chamber, then I hope I can contribute to it. Whether specific legislation is needed, I’d like to consider that. I note that in the motion we’re being asked to consider and commit to specific legislation in the next five years, but I remain uncertain as to exactly what that legislation could contain. I listened very carefully to Mark Isherwood, who raised some very serious concerns. He mentioned the postcode lottery, invisible services and the consistency of support, and he argued that these things lead to a statutory duty for us to intervene. He did mention—[Interruption.] Yes, of course.