Thank you, and I have to say that there are several elements of the statement that we've received from you today that are positive in themselves, but I think that what is important to remember is that they do, in many people’s view, including mine, fall short of what could be provided through specific legislation. You, through the way that you deal with this issue, talk about diagnosis and talk about specific support services as the important things, but there is much more than that to this, and that’s why I think we need legislation. We’re talking about the need to overcome barriers the prevent people with autism from playing their full part in society.

We need to provide greater safeguards for people with ASD against decisions that are made that don’t take into account neurodiversity. It’s to do with changing recruitment practices, for example. It means realising that decisions about all kinds of areas of public service can have a very deep impact on people with autism. For example, I heard about the effect that changes to or withdrawal of transport services to schools can have on children with ASD. Those changes can have a major effect on an autistic child. School transport isn’t a service for people with autism, but decisions about those things can have that effect.

Now, a couple of general questions. You state yourself that the code that you want to develop can have a 'significant influence' on where and how local authorities and health boards prioritise resources and how they provide services, but will you admit that having a significant influence does fall very much short of the guarantees that would be provided through legislation? And you, in rejecting, at present—we hope to change your mind—going along that path of having separate legislation, say that separate legislation would set too stringent requirements that would damage the improvement that we are seeing, in your opinion, at present. But will you not accept that it’s because people are failing to see that we are on a path of sufficient improvement that the vast majority of families of people with ASD and autism feel that we do need that specific legislation?