Thank you very much, Paul Davies, for raising these important issues around people on the autistic spectrum, which are complicated. However, I'm not convinced that a Bill is the right response. This is not a party political matter, and we're going to be given a free vote, so—. I don't think it should be under any circumstances a party political matter. For example, the example given by Caroline of the young lady who was denied access to the proms—that doesn't seem to me that we need an autism Act; we need a very rapid review of the well-being policies of that particular school. I'm not in denial at all that people on the autistic spectrum or their families face very challenging issues to get the services that they require, but I'm not sure that an autism Bill is the way forward.

I bear in mind that the 'A Healthier Wales' document, which is the Government's response to the parliamentary review of the NHS, has an emphasis on ensuring that we have the team around the patient, ensuring that we have responsive services, we have patient-centred care, but, in addition to that, we're in danger of medicalising something that I think ought to be much more of a social model in response to this. We need all our schools and all our businesses to be autism-friendly in the same way that we would like them to be dementia-friendly. So, I have some considerable concerns about pushing for a Bill for one condition, when it's in danger of compartmentalising conditions into silos, because people on the autistic spectrum may, on the one hand, be nuclear physicists; on the other hand, they may have other conditions that disable them and challenge them. And the autism may or may not be the dominant presenting issue that they need support with.    

I absolutely understand that there is considerable room for improvement in the way we meet the needs of children and adults who are on the autistic spectrum, but I don't feel that we've necessarily given the autistic spectrum disorder strategic action plan and the delivery plan, which was only launched in November 2016, enough time to really say whether this is the right road to go down. 

There's no clear treatment for this condition. Obviously, it depends very much on the specific issues; this is not about ensuring clinical guidelines are being adhered to. We need appropriate services to support the challenges faced by particular individuals. We clearly need to ensure that those who have most contact with individuals, particularly schools, are responding appropriately, but we need to ensure that there is zero tolerance of schools that push pupils off their rolls because they think they might impact on their exam performance. We need fully integrated, inclusive schools, and I would happily stand on the picket line to challenge anything like that that's going on. 

I'm still struggling with whether or not there's been a rise in autism, or whether there's been improved diagnosis. It's something I'd be interested to get Paul Davies's view on. Clearly, were there to be a pattern of cause and effect that we could detect by collecting information through the register that local authorities are obliged to have for children, and we could oblige them to have for adults too—if there was to be a pattern around the diagnosis of autism and were it to be linked to environmental issues, we'd clearly be obliged to act on that. So, I think information is extremely important, but I have concerns about putting this into the straitjacket of a Bill when we already have a lot of obligations around the ways in which both local authorities and health boards need to respond, and I feel we haven't given sufficient time to ensure that those are being appropriately delivered and rolled out.