There’s no difference in terms of what the First Minister said and what I’m telling you today. The point is, and what I’m illustrating to you is, the legislative and policy levers that we’ve put in place must be given a chance to bed in before we can take a decision on whether or not legislation must be introduced to fill in any gaps that there are. So, today, we’re not being asked to vote on whether we have the needs of people with autism at heart, we’re not being asked to vote on what initiatives we want to bring forward to improve the lives of people with autism and their families; we’re being asked to tie our hands and commit to legislation within this Assembly, and we’re not at that point at the moment, because we don’t know yet what impact these initiatives that we’ve talked about will have.

The service that I’ve just described is backed by £6 million of Welsh Government investment over three years and this will be delivered through our regional partnership boards, which are formed under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014, to ensure collaborative and integrated working across health boards, local authorities and the third sector. The service will see new specialist teams in every region, providing adult diagnosis, support in the community and advice and information for adults with autism and for their parents and carers. This service will provide tailored training for professional groups. There’ll be preventative support for adults with autism to help them maintain independence and avoid the need for more intensive support.

This all-age service supports the improvements we’re delivering in children’s diagnosis, treatment and support services through the ‘Together for Children and Young People’ programme, which, again, is supported by £2 million of funding a year. The programme has a specific work stream devoted to improving neurodevelopmental conditions, with health boards working together to develop and agree a national high-level diagnostic pathway to ensure consistent provision for young people with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

To support our transformational approach in education and in response to feedback that we’ve had from parents, we’ve also developed new autism resources for schools. Earlier this year, we launched the Learning with Autism primary schools programme, a resource and toolkit for the whole school community, including teachers, support staff and children. This programme includes the autism superhero award for pupils, rewarding them for becoming autism aware. The Learning with Autism primary school programme is now being delivered across primary schools in Wales and, to build on its success, similar tailored early years and secondary school programmes are also in development. So, as you can see, at the beginning of this Assembly term, we are embarking on a new chapter in the development and delivery of support for people with autism and their families and carers.

Members will be aware that we have made a future commitment to consider the need for autism legislation if, in the years to come, there remains significant gaps in services and support that can only be addressed through new legislation alone.