Jack Abbott

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We also saw severe cuts to early intervention support during the pandemic in my home area of Ipswich and Suffolk. At the height of the pandemic, children’s centres were closed and the number of visits by health visitors was slashed. I absolutely echo his call for more funding, which is why I am really pleased that the Government provided £1 billion in extra funding for special educational needs and disability in comparison with the previous year. In Suffolk, £10 million of that will be spent on specialist places. I absolutely echo and support what the hon. Gentleman said. Data reporting on disabled people during the pandemic was also woefully inadequate. In October 2020, it was noted that data on disability across the Government was “fragmented” and did “not allow comparisons to be made across Departments.” The information mainly came from anecdotal reports or charity sector surveys. Departments were tasked with improving the collection of data on disabled people. Needless to say, however, nothing much improved and no preparations were made for communicating properly with disabled people in appropriate formats. For example, for a significant period, there was no British Sign Language interpreter on Government broadcasts. The list of clinically extremely vulnerable groups who received online deliveries in the early stages of the pandemic was entirely medicalised, based on an outdated medical model of disability. Thousands of disabled people with mental distress, mobility challenges, energy limitations, sensory impairments and learning disabilities were not placed on that list for online deliveries, even though many of them could not visit supermarkets or other important outlets in person. According to the chief executive of Disability UK, that was “one stark example of the abandonment of the Social Model of Disability.” That model, which was developed by disabled people, says that people are disabled by barriers in society, rather than by their impairment or condition. It is widely accepted and has been the recommended model for all Government Departments for several years. The failures that we have heard about in the first two inquiry reports are utterly shameful. Between June and July 2020, the National Autistic Society ran an online survey looking at autistic people’s experience of coronavirus and the lockdown. Autistic people were seven times more likely to be lonely and six times more likely to have low life satisfaction; nine in 10 autistic people worried about their mental health during lockdown; and one in five family members had to reduce work because of caring responsibilities. That is an appalling legacy. It cannot happen again, and our Government must ensure that it does not. I know that the Government are currently looking at the UK’s pandemic preparedness and recently concluded Exercise Pegasus, a pandemic simulation exercise assessing our ability to respond to another pandemic. One of the core objectives of the exercise was to explore the impact of inequalities and consideration of them during pandemic decision making. I look forward to seeing the results of that work. As the Government prepare the pandemic response plan, I am very glad that the impact on vulnerable people, including autistic people, and preventing such events from happening again are front and centre in that work; I look forward to the Minister outlining in more detail what steps the Government are taking to ensure that. What happened to Ivan is a tragedy and a gross injustice. He is still suffering today and might suffer for many years into the future. That cannot be undone, and the damage inflicted on him cannot be taken back—but, as we prepare for future pandemics, we must make sure we do better. I finish by thanking Ivan and his parents Jayne and Gary for their tireless work in raising awareness and campaigning so relentlessly and selflessly. Ivan’s resilience and commitment to fighting so that no one goes through the torment that he did and still suffers from is commendable. We should all be inspired by him. I will be frank, however: warm words of inspiration and thanks are simply not enough. We need to see lasting and permanent change, so that what Ivan went through can never happen again.