I'm pleased to be speaking in this very important debate, a debate that highlights just how far, I think, society still has to go to work for people who have brains that work differently. The petition highlights just one case in which the neglect, ignorance and lack of training for staff about learning disabilities have resulted in an avoidable death, but it's one case that's part of a wider pattern in which people with learning disabilities, autism or other neurological divergence can experience worse health outcomes, despite comprising a significant proportion of the population.

In many health settings, we know that conversations can be structured in a way that misses the diagnosis of conditions. Most neurotypical people will provide relevant information that goes beyond a direct answer to a question. For example, 'Have you vomited?' Answer: 'No, but I feel very, very sick,' whereas perhaps an autistic person may just provide a literal answer to the question, 'no,' which can lead to incomplete communication of symptoms and, as a result, missed or delayed diagnoses, and, for somebody who is non-verbal, that becomes even worse. Indeed, rates of almost every type of physical and mental health problem are significantly raised in groups of people with autism and/or learning disabilities. Evidence suggests that the way in which people are asked for their symptoms, asked to describe their symptoms, has a significant effect on diagnosis.

But rather than move to address this by increasing training, we've actually seen a reduction in many cases—for example, the reduction in the learning disability post provided in Bangor. The Nursing Times reports more widely that almost half of the universities with pre-registration learning disability nursing courses have discussed terminating their programmes next year due to student recruitment difficulties, which is frightening.

Of course, it's not just down to those students who are in the learning phase of their career. We need also to be ensuring better professional development for existing nurses, except, of course, that isn't happening. Our nurses are overworked, and we know that they lack protected training time. In Betsi Cadwaladr, of course, the proposal is that nurses will now lack protected lunch breaks as well—a scandalous lack of respect for the nursing profession that will be the topic of a Plaid Cymru debate later this afternoon.

But we have to ask ourselves why is it that we are continually seeing the role and training provided to nurses being less and less respected, despite the consequences that are highlighted here. It has to be said that this is another strong argument as to why we need neurodivergence to be a protected characteristic in equalities legislation, as, frankly, the situation currently is not good enough. I sincerely hope that the petition succeeds in making the Government take this issue far more seriously.