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Mental Health Bill [HL]

The noble Baroness,in moving this amendment, has done so comprehensively, and has given the views of the Joint Committee. I would not resile from those views for one moment. I agree entirely with what she said, although I would put it in a slightly different way, to add something—I hope—to the way she expressed herself. The committee was of the view that this was, in many senses, an issue of discrimination. People suffering from autistic spectrum disorders carry out valuable roles in society. I suspect that there are not a few people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders not a million miles from where we sit now and the other place. If I may be anecdotal for moment, I recall that last year someone came to install some case analysis software on my laptop in my barristers’ chambers. He explained to me that in his business he employs four people who suffer from autistic spectrum disorders to prepare and analyse the vast quantities of case material—and we were talking about a huge fraud case—which were to be reduced into a particular CD-ROM format. To his great credit, he told me that not only are they among his most valued employees, but that everyone in his firm earns the same wage, so that they earn exactly as much as he does. He was amazed that more companies were not using people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders to deal with very complex issues of that kind, which maximise the particular abilities that some people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders, including Asperger’s syndrome, experience. To say that people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders are not ““normal members of society”” is, in my view, discriminatory and insulting to those people. Returning to where I started, I should say that it seemed to the committee that, although people with autistic spectrum disorders had a greater incidence of mental disorders in their lives, there was no evidence before us to support the view that one could assume that they suffered from mental disorder. The provisions as they stand imply that assumption. If the amendment is accepted by the Government there would be no deficit in the effectiveness of this legislation in relation to people suffering from autistic spectrum disorders.