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Autism Bill

It is not the last word, and I hope that my hon. Friend is not speaking for the last time on autism in this House. At a time when we are talking about billions of pounds going into banks for bail-outs, does she agree it is important for people outside this House to understand the financial and economic scale of this problem? In November 2007, the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities produced a report estimating that the aggregate cost of supporting people with autistic spectrum disorder was already at that time £27.5 billion per year in the UK. That is the scale and the order of the issue that we are discussing.